RE: Importing Fish to Aus

[Matthew Bourne <matthewb@hothouse.com.au>]

Hey Jeff,

>I brought these up because I thought the import restrictions might have been
>in response to these, and other, ecological disasters brought about by the
>introduction of foreign species. I can certainly understand the prohibition
>of
>the introduction of certain species, as well as the quarantine of species
>capable of carrying the diseases you mentioned (rabies, anthrax, hoof and
>mouth, etc.)

I would think that the main reason in reference to fish would possibly
be like the Carp problem in a lot of our freshwater rivers... but again
they were introduced by/or allowed by the Government at the time....
This wasn't so much a disease issue, but more one of taking over the eco
system.

There is a list of illegal species, as well as the list of legal
species, however there is also a very large proportion of the aquarium
fish that don't appear on either list.  This is where Environment
Australia come in, they set the lists of allowed and disallowed species.
 However I've found Quarantine try to tell me that Environment Australia
regulate these lists under the CITES treaty... although CITES would only
govern the trade of restricted/endangered/etc species not commonly
available hobby species...

>Still, there is an expression,"you don't want to throw the baby out with the
>bath water", and it does seem to me that demanding the quarantine of species
>that do not carry diseases threatening to agricultural products/species or
>threaten native ecosystems is rather much of an overkill.  Who or what is
>benefiting by these restrictions?  No one, it seems to me.  I am certainly
>not
>one of those people that want to completely do away with government
>regulation, as, sadly, someone needs to protect us from ourselves (see
>reference to rabbits and cane toads, above).  However, it is when regulations
>have little or no benefit, and impose unnecessary restrictions on people,
>that
>people start talking about doing away with ALL government regulations (see
>reference to baby/bathwater, above).

Personally I just think its the governments way of keeping tabs on whats
coming into the country.  As all environmental disasters in this country
have been pretty much due to the government (which ever it was at the
time) stuffing up... the Rabbits, cane toads, carp, etc... 

Although now the Government releases the Rabbit Calicivirus to cull the
outbreak of feral european rabbits, although they also provide a vaccine
for domestic strains, which means we end up with a population with an
immunity to calicivirus.  ie. We will eventually get back to where we
started, but this time with one less weapon.

Basically the government is trying to control something which it is
incapable of controlling here in Australia, as any benefits derived from
restricting imports in such a manner is wasted because the government
knowingly releases animals for a specific purpose (cane toads, carp,
rabbits, even guppies in the National Parks to control mosquitos) and
stuff up themselves... they essentially are going against their own
restrictions...

Just my opinion anyway.
Cheers
Matt


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