Conscientious Aquarists: should fish come from farms or the wild?

[Coryadaurus Rex]

I was wondering where conscientious aquarists think tropical fish should
ideally come from. From the wild or from farms?

Personally, I don't like the idea of taking fish from the wild to fill up
my aquarium. I think fish farming is more environmentally-friendly and
sustainable.

On the other hand, I've heard some argue that taking fish from the wild is
potentially saving animals that might become extinct due to habitat
destruction.

What do other conscientious aquarists think about this question?

[Toni]

"Coryadaurus Rex" > wrote in message
. 4.21...
> I was wondering where conscientious aquarists think tropical fish should
> ideally come from. From the wild or from farms?
>


I vote farms.

It's a very rare set up that would provide wild caught fishes with something
better than they had before IMO.
Habitat destruction is a very real problem, but the % of fish that survive
capture and transport to actually see a LFS is pretty slim.

--
Toni
http://www.cearbhaill.com/aquarium.htm

[Eduardo Alvarez]

In article >,
Coryadaurus Rex wrote:
> I was wondering where conscientious aquarists think tropical fish should
> ideally come from. From the wild or from farms?
>
> Personally, I don't like the idea of taking fish from the wild to fill up
> my aquarium. I think fish farming is more environmentally-friendly and
> sustainable.
>
> On the other hand, I've heard some argue that taking fish from the wild is
> potentially saving animals that might become extinct due to habitat
> destruction.
>
> What do other conscientious aquarists think about this question?

Well, I don't think that removing fish from the wild is bad, as long as
it's kept at reasonable ammounts. I don't know if there's an
overharvest on all species, however, if I recall correctly, neon tetras
are overharvested, which of course is not a good thing. Specially when
you get to see them in their natural habitat. It's a beautiful sight.

I know that the efforts of to breed some of said species in captivity
have not been succesful. I guess that's another important point. After
all, if the only source is the wild, well, the only source is the wild.
However, that in itself is a problem, as overharvesting occurs. I
suppose it is up to hobbyists to control their urges, since really, it's
our demand that regulates the degree of harvesting.

--
Eduardo Alvarez http://www.great-atuin.net/~punga
(offline, at the moment)
"Stercus, stercus stercus, moriturus sum"
-- Rincewind the Wizzard, "Interesting Times"

[Jeff Pratt]

Coryadaurus Rex wrote:

> I was wondering where conscientious aquarists think tropical fish should
> ideally come from. From the wild or from farms?
>
> Personally, I don't like the idea of taking fish from the wild to fill up
> my aquarium. I think fish farming is more environmentally-friendly and
> sustainable.
>
> On the other hand, I've heard some argue that taking fish from the wild is
> potentially saving animals that might become extinct due to habitat
> destruction.
>
> What do other conscientious aquarists think about this question?

This argument's always been somewhat of a draw for me.

On the one hand, farmed fish are low natural impact, which is good.

On the other hand, I do keep some fish whose breeding habits and triggers
are not well known, and as such, their breeding in tanks is rare, and just
does not happen in farms.

On the third hand, the North American Native Fishes Association (NANFA,
www.nanfa.org ) is doing some very good conservacy works, and getting the
word out about the role that smaller fishes play in the ecosystem, and
they're all about wild-caught fish.

So! where the fish is farmable, or better yet locally tank raised, I
choose to go with the low natural impact option. I do have some fish that
are wild caught, but I do not purchase fish that come from ecologically
threatened areas.


On a separate but related note, I've been thinking for a while that if we
could get groups of aquariasts in the various areas of the world where our
finny friends come from to log: weather, water conditions, any observed
spawning behaviour, etc. we could soon be at a point where exceedingly few
fish need to be wild caught (which would conceivably change the economics
of the situation to make wild catching unprofitable (which is the only
thing that will ensure that wild catching dies off as a business)).

Jeff

(who me? overparenthesize my conversations? Never!)

[yelohk]

Jeff Pratt wrote:
> Coryadaurus Rex wrote:
>
>
>>I was wondering where conscientious aquarists think tropical fish should
>>ideally come from. From the wild or from farms?
>>
>>Personally, I don't like the idea of taking fish from the wild to fill up
>>my aquarium. I think fish farming is more environmentally-friendly and
>>sustainable.
>>
>>On the other hand, I've heard some argue that taking fish from the wild is
>>potentially saving animals that might become extinct due to habitat
>>destruction.
>>
>>What do other conscientious aquarists think about this question?
>
>
> This argument's always been somewhat of a draw for me.
>
> On the one hand, farmed fish are low natural impact, which is good.
>
> On the other hand, I do keep some fish whose breeding habits and triggers
> are not well known, and as such, their breeding in tanks is rare, and just
> does not happen in farms.
>
> On the third hand, the North American Native Fishes Association (NANFA,
> www.nanfa.org ) is doing some very good conservacy works, and getting the
> word out about the role that smaller fishes play in the ecosystem, and
> they're all about wild-caught fish.
>
> So! where the fish is farmable, or better yet locally tank raised, I
> choose to go with the low natural impact option. I do have some fish that
> are wild caught, but I do not purchase fish that come from ecologically
> threatened areas.
>
>
> On a separate but related note, I've been thinking for a while that if we
> could get groups of aquariasts in the various areas of the world where our
> finny friends come from to log: weather, water conditions, any observed
> spawning behaviour, etc. we could soon be at a point where exceedingly few
> fish need to be wild caught (which would conceivably change the economics
> of the situation to make wild catching unprofitable (which is the only
> thing that will ensure that wild catching dies off as a business)).
>
> Jeff
>
> (who me? overparenthesize my conversations? Never!)

There's also the arguement that some fish could escape the farm
(accidentally or on purpose) and thus upset local ecological balances by
displacing or competing with local wild species. So it might not be as
low impact as you would think.


--

direct replies: yelohk AT yahoo

[Jeff Pratt]

yelohk wrote:

> Jeff Pratt wrote:
>> Coryadaurus Rex wrote:
>>
>>
>>>I was wondering where conscientious aquarists think tropical fish should
>>>ideally come from. From the wild or from farms?
>>>
>>>Personally, I don't like the idea of taking fish from the wild to fill up
>>>my aquarium. I think fish farming is more environmentally-friendly and
>>>sustainable.
>>>
>>>On the other hand, I've heard some argue that taking fish from the wild
>>>is potentially saving animals that might become extinct due to habitat
>>>destruction.
>>>
>>>What do other conscientious aquarists think about this question?
>>
>>
>> This argument's always been somewhat of a draw for me.
>>
>> On the one hand, farmed fish are low natural impact, which is good.
>>
>> On the other hand, I do keep some fish whose breeding habits and triggers
>> are not well known, and as such, their breeding in tanks is rare, and
>> just does not happen in farms.
>>
>> On the third hand, the North American Native Fishes Association (NANFA,
>> www.nanfa.org ) is doing some very good conservacy works, and getting the
>> word out about the role that smaller fishes play in the ecosystem, and
>> they're all about wild-caught fish.
>>
>> So! where the fish is farmable, or better yet locally tank raised, I
>> choose to go with the low natural impact option. I do have some fish
>> that are wild caught, but I do not purchase fish that come from
>> ecologically threatened areas.
>>
>>
>> On a separate but related note, I've been thinking for a while that if we
>> could get groups of aquariasts in the various areas of the world where
>> our finny friends come from to log: weather, water conditions, any
>> observed spawning behaviour, etc. we could soon be at a point where
>> exceedingly few fish need to be wild caught (which would conceivably
>> change the economics of the situation to make wild catching unprofitable
>> (which is the only thing that will ensure that wild catching dies off as
>> a business)).
>>
>> Jeff
>>
>> (who me? overparenthesize my conversations? Never!)
>
> There's also the arguement that some fish could escape the farm
> (accidentally or on purpose) and thus upset local ecological balances by
> displacing or competing with local wild species. So it might not be as
> low impact as you would think.
>
>

True enough. That risk can be mitigated with requirements for
escape-proofing of breeding areas (which may already be a part of some
region's liscencing programs (I'm not sure how many regions where fish
farms are located have any sort of (or how tough of) a
liscencing/regulatory regime)). This is yet another argument for
tank-raised fish, since they would be the least likely to gain introduction
into surrounding habitats.

Jeff

[Mean_Chlorine]

"Toni" > wrote in message . net>...

> I vote farms.

It's not an easy question, and it has no blanket answer.

On one hand, it's a one-way street for wildcaught fish - they're never
going back, and the vast majority of them are probably dead within a
year. On the other hand, even today there are numerous species of fish
which have gone extinct in nature but are kept alive in aquaria - e.g.
the bicolor (redtail) shark.

On one hand, capture of rare wild fish, such as the Banggai cardinal,
does put strain on already weak populations.
On the other hand, sales of wild-caught fish puts a price-tag on fish
which would otherwise have been considered completely worthless. As an
example, were it not for aquaristics, Nile Perch would have been
introduced also into Malawi. As long as wild-caught malawi cichlids
are sold, and as long as the cichlid export generates more money than
nile-perch fillet export would, then Lake Malawi remains reasonably
safe.

In the end, all things considered, I'm becoming increasingly positive
to responsible wild capture. Because I think few 'worthless' animals
are going to survive the next 100 years or so, and the aquaristic
price-tag is the best hope many species have for survival.

[Coryadaurus Rex]

Thanks for the great replies!

Based on some of the posts and on some reading I've done elsewhere, it does
seem that it's not a simple one-or-the-other answer. Fish farms and wild-
caught both have their advantages and disadvantages ecologically-speaking.

While recognizing the subtleties of the situation, how does one find out
which fish are probably being preserved by wild-catching (e.g., the Malawi
Chichlids mentioned by Mean_Chlorine) and which ones are probably being
threatened by over-fishing (e.g., some tetras I've heard about)? Are there
any goods sites or resources that explain where fish come from and what
their status is in the wild?

[Flash Wilson]

>> I was wondering where conscientious aquarists think tropical fish should
>> ideally come from. From the wild or from farms?

I find this one hard too. For example I'm a veggie and people often
say "if we didn't breed cows for food they'd be extinct" and I reply
that I would rather they didn't exist than they existed for a short
and unnatural life.

Yet what am I doing in my fishtank?

I would say it is better to have locally bred fish than wild fish
- taking the example of cardinals, it seems to be expected that
a few will die either in quarantine in the shop, or in your tank.
The local bred cardies are apparently excellent with a death being
very rare. They wouldn't exist if people hadn't bred them in a
tank in an "artificial" environment. But if I also want to keep
a tank, I'd rather have fish which are used to one.

When we go to see an aquarium (as in London Aquarium rather than
a mate's tank) we get to see fish we'd never see otherwise. And
sometimes they are being conserved where they are rare in the wild.

I don't know what impact hobbyists have on fish reserves in the
wild, or whether practises of catching fish for our hobby has any
other ill effects on the natural environment. I would guess that
some of the more serious hobbyists are breeding fish and learning
stuff that furthers our knowledge, though.

Does anyone have any stats on this? It's an emotive topic and I'm
always interested in hard facts to persuade me - although of course
you can lie with statistics :-)

I don't even know which of my fish are wild caught and which are
captive bred. I believe it's wrong to catch fish for our supper,
so I'm not sure where I stand on catching fish for our hobbies.
The killing and cruelty comes into it a lot and I try to ensure
my fish are well cared for, but I have made some stupid purchases
as a newbie in the past.

It's a tough one!
--
Flash Wilson Webmaster & UNIX SysAdmin
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Solaris / FreeBSD / Linux
Apache/Bind/Exim/Sendmail
http://www.gorge.org Perl / Shell / SQL / HTML

[Mean_Chlorine]

(Flash Wilson) wrote in message >...
> >> I was wondering where conscientious aquarists think tropical fish should
> >> ideally come from. From the wild or from farms?
>
> I find this one hard too. For example I'm a veggie and people often
> say "if we didn't breed cows for food they'd be extinct" and I reply
> that I would rather they didn't exist than they existed for a short
> and unnatural life.

What's unnatural about it?

Lions shape the evolution of zebras - would you consider zebras to
spend short and unnatural lives?

One might as well see it as the cows, cats, goldfish etc taking
advantage of the huge success humans have, by cooperating with us. All
species which cooperate with humans (and quite a few which parasitize
us) have greatly increased in numbers and distribution. The
morphological changes we're seeing in cows, cats, goldfish etc etc are
really those species attempts to further increase their success by
adapting to the selective pressures of this cooperation.

The only difference is that there is premeditation in what humans do.
(As a rule, anyway, not always; e.g. in Scandinavia hunters have
selected for small moose with tiny horns by consistently preferring to
shoot large moose and moose which had big horns. That was of course
not intentional, but proved extremely effective anyway.)

Hence I don't like these moral arguments against captive animals. From
an evolutionary point of view they're using us every bit as much as
we're using them.

[Jim Seidman]

(Flash Wilson) wrote in message >...
> I find this one hard too. For example I'm a veggie and people often
> say "if we didn't breed cows for food they'd be extinct" and I reply
> that I would rather they didn't exist than they existed for a short
> and unnatural life.
>
> Yet what am I doing in my fishtank?

I don't know what you're doing in your tank, but I'm trying to provide
my fish with as long and natural a life-span as possible. Sure,
newbies can kill fish off pretty quickly, but I don't feel too bad
about the life my fish lead.

I recently lost a dwarf gourami after having him for seven years.
Would he really have lived any longer in the wild? I keep my tank
heavily planted because it's a more natural environment. I prefer
larger tanks so that fish can have plenty of room to move around.

So, for me, the cow analogy doesn't work too well. A closer analogy
would be a domestic pet. Do I feel bad about keeping two dogs in a
climate-controlled house and feeding them premium dog food? No, nor do
I feel bad about keeping my fish in a pollution-free tank eating a
perfect diet.

- Jim