'Nemo' May Hook Public on Plight of Marine Life
In "Finding Nemo," a tropical fish named Gil, grizzled and scarred from his many attempts to escape an aquarium in the lobby of a dentist's office, tells a newcomer to the tank: "Fish aren't meant to be in a box, kid. It does things to ya."
The line drew laughs from the audience at an advance screening of the latest computer-animated offering from Walt Disney Co. and Pixar Inc., which opens Friday. But it's eliciting grimaces from people in the international trade of live ocean fish, coral and other marine life, a $200-million industry.
Pet fish importers -- whose international hub is in Southern California -- worry that the story of the plucky orange-and-white-striped clownfish, kidnapped from his home in the Great Barrier Reef, will create a backlash against an industry already laboring under the perception that it damages fish habitats, particularly coral reefs.
"There is a political message," said Burton Patrick, chief operating officer of six Pet Supplies Plus stores in the Pittsburgh area and a former operations manager for the Detroit Zoo. Disney "wants kids to feel sorry for something that might or might not have a concept of mortality."
Eric Cohen, co-owner of Sea Dwelling Creatures Inc., a Los Angeles distributor of wild-caught marine fish and coral, wonders whether moviegoers will "walk out and say that fish should not be separated from their friends in the ocean."
There's no doubt that the creators of "Finding Nemo" want children to become emotionally attached to the quirky fish characters, said Andrew Stanton, a Pixar veteran who wrote and directed the film. That's what moviemaking is about.
And Stanton doesn't mind if viewers leave theaters thinking about the environment as well.
"The random hobbyist doesn't think that taking one fish out of the ocean will matter," said Stanton, who got the idea for the story from the "funky fish tank in my dentist's office when I was a kid."
"I always assumed these animals were caged and wanted to go home," he said.
The perceived mental state of aquarium-bound fish aside, Adam Summers, a UC Irvine marine biologist and a consultant on "Finding Nemo," said catching sea life "for the pet trade really does have an effect on tropical fish stocks.
"There have been terrible problems in the Philippines and other places where there are pretty-colored fish people want for their aquariums," he said.
