live caught or not?

[andruboz]

is there a list of what fishes are commercially raised and which are live caught? just in case one was to think about it from a personal ethics point of view. i dont care where other people get there fish but maybe i'd feel better knowing I didnt yank some little fella out of a perfectly good stream or lake 5000 miles away.

 

[Toooloud]

There is no list, That would be somthing that you would have to find out from your LFS,

Or if you can find local Breeders locally to you , Depending one what you are looking for you can talk to your LFS and ask them if they buy from breeders, and if so witch ones.

 

[Roland]

A good indication of whether a fish is wild caught or tank bred is its breeding process.

Fish that are relatively easy to breed - i.e. Guppies and other common livebearers, Kribs, Angel fish and Whiteclouds (to name but a few) - are likely to appear in your LFS as tank bred fish (whether commercially or locally). This is because economically it makes more sense for your LPS to buy tank bred and in bulk, rather than paying extra for the wild caught version.

On the other hand, fish that are not known to, or are difficult to breed in artificial conditions, are likely to be wild caught for obvious reasons.

Just always ask before buying.

 

[Faramir]

The ethics of this are not clear cut.

On the one hand, over-collection could certainly be a problem. On the other, there are certainly some fish who can bear a certain amount of collection, and it is another small-scale industry that benefits people in parts of the world where it's sorely needed - I'd rather see cichlid and tetra collection in say Columbia than cocaine production.

Managed, wild collection is not inherently a bad thing.

There is also, of course, the ethical question about the poor condition of many mass-farmed fish - you know, the guppies that die as soon as you look at them, the neons who can't survive outside of an antibiotic soup.

 

[fishypoo2]

Project Piaba
Buy a Fish, Save a Tree
A sustainable ornamental fishery can preserve rainforest and alleviate poverty in the Amazon.
The middle Rio Negro basin is a major source for wild caught aquarium fishes; over 20 million live fishes are exported annually, generating 60% of local income and $3 million of export revenue. A single species, the Cardinal tetra (Paracheirodon axelrodi), constitutes over 80% of total catch. Fluctuations in fish abundance and supplies are often caused by irregular climatic events, variable mortality rates along the chain of traders, and unpredictable market demands. Many ornamental fishes have a short life span (1-2 years) and live in vast areas of pristine floodplains; their populations are very resilient to the natural selection and fishing pressure. A viable ornamental fishery has already provided subsistence to local fishers since the 1950s. Fishers are quite conscious that the well being of the forest streams is the key to a bumper harvest. The fishery may have inadvertently discouraged the non-sustainable economical ventures in the region, such as logging and gold mining. A prosperous ornamental fish industry and fair trade practice will not only alleviate poverty of the riverine communities, but also preserve the large pristine rainforest and streams in the region.

Www.angelfire.com/pq/piaba

 

[lesley]

I just did a term paper on this very subject last semester. The main thing that I got out of it was that there are so many pros and cons for each side and every case is different. There are some species that are so depleted that any wild collection may be harmful to the population, and I think that these may be found on the IUCN red list.

I think I might have my paper if you want to plod through all of that. The references cited list isn't very extensive, but there were a couple of good scientific articles that I read.