Fans Petition Disney To Run Ad Before Finding Dory To Help Protect Blue Tang Fish

Finding Nemo was enormously successful for Disney, but it did have one unforeseen side effect.

Nemo is a Clownfish, and after the original film’s release, demand for that breed was immense, resulting in a 40% rise in Clownfish sales. The good news is that for Clownfish, they can be bred in captivity, which helped mitigate the strain in demand.

Dory, however, is a Blue Tang fish, and unfortunately, researchers have not been successful with breeding them in captivity. Disney is just about to release Finding Dory upon the world in less than a month, and researchers are predicting as strong (if not stronger) demand for Dory-like fish after the film debuts. If that happens, it could be catastrophic to the species, and a new petition is asking Disney to take steps to ensure that doesn’t happen.

Kelsey Bourgeois initiated the “Disney: tell fans to find Dory, not buy her” campaign, which currently has 84,149 signatures of its 85,000 goal. The petition just requests that Disney put a simple PSA at the beginning of the film, asking viewers not to adopt Blue Tang fish like Dory.

The petition points out that Clownfish and Blue Tang fish don’t make the transitions from ocean to captivity all that well, especially Blue Tang fish. In a lot of instances, if they are taken from the ocean and put into a private dwelling, the fish don’t’ survive. If the same adoption rate occurs for the Blue Tang as it did with the Clownfish, Bourgeois says that: “the Blue Tang population will become extremely threatened. Even worse, res researchers would have no way to repair the loss with captive breeding.”

If you believe in the cause, you can add your name to the list here.