Re: wild-caught fish

[Randy or Deb Carey <carey@spacestar.net>]

IVIassacre@aol.com wrote:

> Just curious.....is there any real purpose to keeping wild specimens?  I can
> see if keeping a wild specimen would in some way improve our knowledge of the
> fish, but is this the case?  What kind of effect(if any) do aquarists have on
> the wild populations of aquarium fish?  IMO, if the fish is readily available
> in captive bred form then there should be no reason to subject wild ones to
> the stress of being moved hundreds of miles away and possibly leading to the
> depletion of that species in the wild.  Is the captive bred gene pool for
> certain fish really that small?

I pretty much agree with the responses I've read so far.  Collecting fishes for
our hobby has not proven detrimental.  But I have heard one good illustration
that I don't think has been mentioned.  I heard it from David Schlesser of
Margarita Tours, a company that takes on aquarists for collecting expeditions.
This is basically how he tells it:

He shows a small pond.  This is the beginning of the dry season.  The pond you
see was part of the river in the rainy season, but now its issolated from the
river.  It contains thousands if not tens of thousands of fish.  In a month this
pond will be all dried up and all of the fish will be dead.  Any fish we collect
from this pond will have a chance to live longer than those we don't collect.

Every year, millions and millions of fish are issolated from the river by nature
and die like this.  This is nature.  The species have survived this phenomenon
for millions of years.  The amount of fish that are harvested for aquarium use
doesn't compare.

Furthermore, the natives who collect these fish and sell them to exporters [1]
have an income they wouldn't normally have, [2] now have an interest in keeping
the habitats in tact so that there will be fish to harvest and sell.

Furthermore, because we keep aquarium fish, we are having these discussions and
we are learning about  and developing concerns over their habitats.

- --Randy