Why We Need to Stop Eating Parrot Fish? (Part 2) Photo by Samson Bush We recently released an article about the important role that parrot fish play here in Hawaii, and why it is important that they not be overfished. A lot of people responded to the article, some adding more information about the parrotfish (uhu) and others asking further questions so that they could better understand the issue. We were really stoked to see how interested everyone was in this topic and decided to do a bit more research based on some of the questions that we received. One person noted that since the parrotfish eat algae and other microorganisms from the coral and then poop it out as sand, then they must be the source of all the white sand over on the Kailua side. This is actually true, to an extent. Parrotfish are one of many creatures that engage in something called bioerosion, or the breaking down of the reef into sand. Other creatures that produce bioerosion include other fish, bivalves, urchins, boring sponges, and boring worms. Parrotfish are one of the largest of these creatures, so they are the most noticeable producers of sand, but the others all...