This is my opinion on the events, and nothing else should be read in to it.
I'd like to see this settled myself, but unless this goes to court, I doubt we'll actually ever know for sure.
For Eric Borneman's sake, I hope this all turns out to be a big misunderstanding, but things sure don't look good.
I get the impression, but am only guessing that there was some sort of business arrangement between Eric and Reef Savers that somehow fell through, and Eric got "locked out" and had no access to the corals. Remember this is only my guess.
Is this the travesty it really seems?
In my opinion no. The area the corals were collected from was going to have some construction done on it anyway. I suspect a lot of nearby corals would have suffered some damage, far more than what was collected.
Also, the government did get the collected corals back, although the condition they were in was questionable.
If you look at the inventory of what was collected, it lists 357 frags (under 8 cm). That sounds like a lot, but you'll see more frags if you visit a some of the larger LFSs. The larger corals numbered 142, again, sounds like a lot, but you can find that many at some of the larger LFSs.
I would consider the loss of all the corals tragic, but long term it's not going to affect the reef much. It will regrow, one way or another. If necessary, new frags could be removed from other locations and transplanted there, at Eric's expense, if he's guilty.
No matter what happens, this will be a problem for Eric. Even if he's completely innocent, he will never overcome the stigma of these events.
I do have some mixed feelings about all this. I would like to see aquacultured Florida corals available to us reef keepers, on the other had I want it all done legally.
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