Wild Cardinal tetra?
- Thread starter batski
- Start date
Most are still wild caught, but they are making strides in captive breeding. The Lfs I worked for was able to get some that were tank bred and raised for a while, during the off season. So hopfully soon there won't be many caught out of the wild.
The exportation of wild-caught cardinal tetras from the Rio Negro (Brazil), is actually helping the local ecosystems and people. Instead of cutting down trees, mining, and ranching, locals harvest these fishes. Cardinals (in the wild) are annuals, meaning that the adults die off every year, that and their extreme numbers make the current ornamental fishery sustainable. The fishing season correlates with their life cycle, (after they breed), so it surprisingly dosen't affect the ecosystem much. Plus, the flooded forest where the cardinal lives is too shallow for anything but canoes and people with hand nets, which prevents mass collecting. This is the work of Project Piaba (slogan: "Buy a Fish, Save a Tree"), a conservation group in Brazil (www.angelfire.com/pq/piaba), I am going to the Amazon with them in January.
To boycott these fishes would be to persuade the Brazilians to find more lucrative means of income (timer harvest, strip mining, cattle ranching, slash and burn farming, illegal wildlife trade, etc.).
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I agree strongly with fishypoo2's comments. Project Piaba is one of the more valuable and proven sustained-harvest efforts in effect to preserve and protect rainforest. Declining to buy wild-caught Neons and Cardinals is highly counter-productive for their survival and the wild - along with that of the rest of their ecosystem.
Don't a lot of fish die in the process of being caught and during transportation? And doesn't the whole wild-catching thing represent suffering for the fish? Cardinal tetras are very easilly stressed.
I understand that there are advantages too. But don't the fish pay a high price?
I understand that there are advantages too. But don't the fish pay a high price?
This kinda answers your question.
Quote from fishypoo2 in this same thread.
"Cardinals (in the wild) are annuals, meaning that the adults die off every year"
Quote from fishypoo2 in this same thread.
"Cardinals (in the wild) are annuals, meaning that the adults die off every year"
A lesser of two evils- extinction from deforestation vs. risk of illness during expatriation...
I'd much rather support a community of human beings who live symbiotically with the rainforest as opposed to those who are parasites. Fish will die any way you look at it. Preserving the species is far more important.
I'd much rather support a community of human beings who live symbiotically with the rainforest as opposed to those who are parasites. Fish will die any way you look at it. Preserving the species is far more important.
agreed with fishypoo2. there are many aquarium species that fit this catagory. you can look at it as cruel but they can live 8 yrs in aquarium. i would rather see sustainable harvest than them turning to clear cutting.