Species Conservation- Back to Business

[IDMiamiBob@aol.com]

Boy- what a can of worms I opened!!
Someone, I can't even remember who, was ranting about "someone should do
something....."
Well, here it is.  Do we want to do something or not?  I'm willing to get the
ball rolling, but some of you need to give it a shove to keep it moving.

Doug, you don't need to participate- just sit back and watch the world turn to
#@&*$%.  Others can do this without your help.  Anyone out there want to pick
some fish, and decide this is what we should be doing?  We can take this off
list, if someone wants.  I can build a mailing list here on AOL, and forward
everything out to the list if that works better.  It's not as easy as these
automated mailing lists, but I could do it anyway.

To quote Mr Perot,  "I'm here to do what YOU want me to."

Let me give an Apisto example of why I'm interested in doing this.  Anyone
ever see A agassizii "purple tail"?  Fifteen or twenty years ago they were as
common as any Apisto in the hobby.  Yet, in the last year, with all my
searching the web-site sellers, and watching discussions on this list, the
message boards, and The Apisto-Gram, I have yet to see mention of them.  The
tail on these babies, alone, by itself, makes them worth having, in my mind,
but where are they?  I don't know.  Maybe Marco or one of the other South
American list members can tell me where they come from, but I can't find even
a mention of them in the literature, or on the web.  If I could get some, I
would get rid of my dresser and set up a couple tanks in its place.

If we had this program up and running twenty years ago, today I could simply
contact the general coordinator, who could give me the means to contact the
Apistogramma species coordinator, who could then tell me who to call to get
some of these babies shipped to me.  Good for me, good for the guy or gal
keeping the "purple-tails', good for the particular population of aggies in
question, and good for the hobby.  A genuine win/win situation.

All I am asking is, "Do we want to do this or not?"  All it takes is some
communication, some record-keeping, and some fish-breeding.  We are already
doing the first thing.  Most of us are doing or wanting to do the lalst thing,
and many of us are doing the thing in the middle.  Let's do it together.

But if you aren't interested, just say so.  I'm more than happy to go back to
the status quo.

Bob Dixon