Wild caught vs captive bred?

A lot of hype going on here with tempers flaring. i have been trolling this thread and the other one you started @TrevorR about deep water fish. i fully understand what you feel like regarding these matters and I thought that I should add my 2c worth here.

Wild caught fish: The biggest thread to these fish is not the actual catching, for the hobby, but the destruction of their natural habitat. These fish are caught and sold all over the world, even if they are on the red list of endangered species, because there is a demand for them. Yes thousands die during the process from catching to their final destination. Money is an extremely important commodity which 99% of the worlds population craves. Even more the hungry ones. That is also the reason why people get involved in cash in transit robberies, drug dealing, home invasions etc. Hungry mouths have to be fed and most of these problems start in 3rd world countries where employment is at a low. I'm not justifying what is done here, simply explaining the situation. In most of these cases education of the unemployed will not sort the problem out as it will only leave educated work-less people.

On the other side of the coin you have farm raised fish. At some point these fish had to be sourced somewhere, and it wasn't an aquarium. These guys are in it for the money and will use whatever means they can to turn a profit on their investment. Fish are raised on antibiotics to grow them faster. Arowana gets tanned to make them redder. Tanks/ponds are filled to the brim cause expanding will cost more money that needs to be replaced. That is why you see sickly fish in your tank in the end. Everything is about money, screw education. Now which one of these scenarios is the more humane form of sourcing your next fish from? For them to be placed into a confined space, compared to their natural habitat, and stared at the whole day? if you look at it in that perspective all forms of keeping animals is wrong.

Deep water fish: If you only look at the depth a fish lives at there are very few that we can actually house in a home aquarium, or even for that matter a zoo. You will be stuck with Bettas and surface swimming fish. i have rainbow fish and their natural environment is anything from 0.5m to 3m water, ph of 5 to 8. Some of them actually thrive in brackish water, info you will not find at your lfs. So under what conditions should I keep them: their natural parameters or that at which they have been bred at?

Fish have evolved over millions of years and have adapted to their environment. Same as dinosaurs, the least adaptable will die off first until the last one is dead. Fish will and can adapt to their enclosed world. in nature they do it on a daily basis. Temperature fluctuations from night to day and back again. Rain falling causes changes in temperature, ph and tds, all in one sitting, and they survive. Getting them into their perfect environment, with all natural fluctuations, is impossible to achieve.

Hope that explaining helps a bit. Changing the world starts by changing what you can in your direct environment. Educate the pet shop owners perspective regarding his income generator and the circle will widen.

 

All that I've been trying to explain, we as aquarists need to be aware of these unpleasant aspects of our hobby! I'm not sure why certain people object to my research findings!

 

Your research findings? I don't see much research here apart from what @SalmonAfrica posted

 

Consider our objections as part of your 'research'



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@Hendre yes it gives me insight as to what makes people tick!

Charles Darwin was also considered to be an idiot, so no problem!

 

@Hendre This is all research which I have done over a few years now and I did not save all the links etc. that you're talking about. In future I'll rather just keep my crazy views to myself instead, you're right and I'm wrong; no problem!

 

Darwin was rejected by the church because it went against their views and was a rather new field of work.

I have no qualms about wild caught fish, provided that it's from a healthy and sustainable population.

 

I am also guilty, most of my L200 s were wild caught, however there is much malpractice in this area of our hobby as generally only a small portion of these wild caught specimens end up at the LFS.

Btw Tesla, Einstein, van Goch, etc. etc. were also deemed to be idiots and it had nothing to do with religion. The fact of the matter is that people are opinionated and set in their ways and generally are not open to any new ideas which may disturb the way they see the world.

 

The longer we keep aminals (and plants) the better we understand what they require to survive and to thrive. Go back and look how animals were originally kept in zoos and how the are being kept today. Its the same with marine animals/fish. Not too long ago people didnt know how to keep them, yet today they can be kept successfully. Breeding? More and more marine fish are being bred and raised in captivity. Its out of reach probably for most individuals due to what is required to raise the plancton larvae of marine fish but it can be done. But commercial marine breeding facilities are releasing more and more captive bred species. Just look at all the designer clown fish available (ok not in SA but overseas). Only refering to fish here as corals can be fragged...

The ephasis should be placed on the illegal vs legal collection of aquarium fish and not captive vs farmed. Legal collection of aquarium fish will, or rather, is suppose to be done sustainably but thats another debate on its own

Secondly, as has been said before, our population size is the problem.

I am for keeping wild caught, however, anything learned by keeping them should be shared so that we can build from other people’s experience. But its getting more difficult to get decent info with all the fake news and BS on the web. Sorry for the rant.

Ps. Marine fish are actually prolific breeders, its just difficult to raise their larval offspring....

 

There have been quite a few breakthroughs in spawning fish and successfully raising fry. To name one on the marine side, you have the yellow tang which were successfully bred in captivity a couple years back. On the freshwater side, we have the clown loach which is now being artificially induced to spawn. (Old news)

Countries and breeders ARE making an effort to find alternatives to wild caught. Aquaculture of hobby species is far more profitable than catching them wild. Farms are also able to produce way more than a safe harvest of a wild population. It's all about the volume and how much they can sell.

There are quite a number of species that were once wild caught and now widely farm bred because they are THAT prolific. Some Corydoras, Certain Rainbowfish, most African cichlids, most livebearers etc.

I may not be as knowledgeable about the hobby as some of you but, wild fish has a certain appeal to me. It's the similar appeal that "German Bred" has to the Discus guys. Not sure if you know what I mean. Maybe it's a newbie thing?

The up sides of wild fish are clean bloodlines, low level inbreeding (if any), genetically stronger (in most cases). Sure, there may be a parasite issue, but that's easily fixed.

My personal dream is to get some wild Apistogramma and those are really all I could ever ask for. Once I get those, I can die a happy fish keeper.

My point is, we may not share the same views about most things but, I understand you're passionate about this topic. I just don't see how you can keep wild fish, and in the same breath, tell us why not to keep them or tell us how bad the idea is.

Why did you choose to get wild Demasoni over local hobby-bred or aquaculture fish? Did you consider that they may have been poached?

Also, your L200's that you claim are wild caught. What about those? Don't you feel guilty for having them? Are you getting them shipped back to Venezuela to be released so they can return to their L200 friends?

OR are you going to breed the suckers and limit the need for wild L200 imports?

For as long as we do nothing, there will always be a need for wild fish, whether you like it or not. Telling us how you feel doesn't make circumstances better and doesn't decrease the demand for wild fish.

Imagine if someone never took the time to figure out how Neon Tetras bred. We'd rely totally on wild populations which would NEVER keep up with the demand.

I think some smart person mentioned *habitat loss* and I feel that some wild fish would be better off in certain tanks so we can preserve species.

I think that's exactly what they're doing with white sturgeon at the moment. They've actually set up hatcheries to supplement wild populations. For as long as those wild fish are caught for the purpose of breeding, that species will survive. The up side is that breeder fish are released back into the wild. I don't know the full story but, there's information online that can help you with your research. That's more of a conservation effort but, a good example of what could be done.

I've personally learnt from these discussions and my view about keeping wild fish hasn't changed and may never change. We will continually disagree with each other and our opinions will contrast greatly, so there's no point in moving further from my side.

I think this topic went from wild-caught to wild-caught-BUT-threatened to , endangered species...and back again. Not sure if you tailored your argument or if you genuinely wanted to include threatened and endangered species. If that was the case, the first responses from the smart people here would have been more than adequate to educate everyone.

To Summarize our feelings.

We ALL disagree with the collection of wild *THREATENED* and *ENDANGERED* species for the aquarium trade.

We agree that aquaculture/farmed/bred threatened species are okay, provided that it is CITES regulated.

I think if it was up to You, wild-caught for aquarium trade would be banned. Then I'd give certain bred-for-hobby fish about 20 years or sooner before we would need to resort to hybridization to create new fish. We are already seeing bad quality neon tetras, imagine if that's all that was left to breed with to continue the species in the hobby? We'd have sick, weak fish that nobody would want to keep and eventually there would only be hybrids (usually infertile, depends) to keep. Can you Imagine, flowerhorns in every tank around the world?... they're awesome fish But, my over-exaggerated point is that we NEED wild fish to ensure this hobby survives.

We're not about changing minds, we're about changing perspectives.



















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Terraforming. We are pretty good at that already. All we need is greenhouse gas and lots of water, so all we need to do is open a brewery up there.

 

Yeah but I'm pretty much hoping everyone Leaves for mars so I can have earth to myself. Hahahahahaha

 

My Demasonis were captive bred in Israel. I only happened by chance to get them from a dealer who had over ordered and who offered them to me at less than cost. I have consequently fallen in love with the species and yes i also then subsequently discovered that they are threatened in the wild.

Yes my L200 were wild caught, I am also guilty!

The main reason for brooching this subject was to increase the awareness of what's going on out there and by the mere number of passionate responses to this thread proves the importance of it. I agree that we need fresh blood to keep our fishes true to their species, but maybe we should leave that to the scientists and environmentalists who have the proper resources to do it the way it is supposed to be done. My biggest concern is this; only a very small number of these wild caught specimens, legal or poached, ever reach the market place! Also not to mention the larger species, which are totally unsuitable for home aquaria!

Thank you to all of you who responded for your invaluable input to a subject very close to my heart!

 

Funnily enough... Many of the tankbuster species are tank bred. Especially for food in some areas (ID catfish, RTC, Tiger shovelnose, TSNxRTC and all that) and aquariums are an easy alternative.

 

each to his own but read this about wild caught fish on National Geo