Re: Fwd: Re: wild-caught fish -Reply

["Darren J. Hanson" <djhanson@calweb.com>]

>Steve wrote:

<snip>

>>Species conservation for at
>>least the hobby sake is a worthwhile goal, is there any organization
>>willing to take the lead in supporting such effort?

And Ed Pon replied:
> Steve--What organizations come to mind?  The first one that comes to
> my mind is the Apistogramma Study Group, yet they are poorly
> represented on  this list.  The communication medium necessary to
> keep track of who wants to raise what species and who has what
> species is reduced to snailmail (U.S. Postal).  Meetings once a year
> won't make this happen either if hobbyist participation is required.

Your points are potentially well taken, so I tried to think of other groups
that might make this work. ACA? Apparently not. Not all members are
on-line, only one face-to-face meeting per year, and the rest of the
communication is handled by US Mail. ACN, TFeX, NANFA, AKA? Some
of these aren't on-line at all, their primary communication is by mail, and
they have, at most, 1 business meeting per year to the best of my
knowledge. But way, some of those groups ARE doing captive
maintenance of endangered species. Hmm..... Maybe they aren't
insurmountable odds if the membership believes in captive maintenance.

And if you believe that on-line communication is vital to a successful
effort (current programs providing evidence to the contrary), there is no
reason that THIS group could not take the lead and allow other groups
(such as the ASG) to support your efforts here.

I went to a local aquarium society meeting last night (MARS for those of
you in Northern CA) where the speaker was from the CA Dept of Fish
and Game and spoke about how California's Endangered Species Act
interacts with the Federal Endangered Species Act and how both
interact with CITES. He also spoke in general terms about what would be
necessary to set up a captive maintenance program and one of the keys
would be a partnership with an accredited university program (such as
might be provided through the UC and/or Cal State systems) for proper
scientific study and oversight. Without that kind of participation, the US
Wildlife Dept won't issue the import permits necessary to access
Appendix I species (those most critically endangered) and access to
Appendix II and III species (roughly analogous to "endangered" and
"threatened" respectively) could be quite difficult.

For what it's worth, I couldn't find ANY dwarf cichlids on the listing of
Appendix I and Appendix II species I found on-line this morning. So as far
as "endangered Apistogramma species" goes, it doesn't look like there
are any currently recognized as being seriously threatened.

- -- dj