NANFA-- Captive breeding
Moontanman_at_aol.com
Thu, 24 Feb 2000 15:58:06 EST
I would like to put in my two cents worth about captive breed fish not being
suitable to release into the wild. I have put a little thought into the
matter and I realized that the differences between captive and wild fish
might not because of changed or lost genetic materials but because of
environmentally suppressed genes. My main example is the lowly gold fish. you
can allow gold fish of the most gnarly warty headed inbreed variety you can
get to breed freely in a pond and in a few years all you end up with is the
wild type gold fish. could this be because the genes for the wild type fish
were not bred out but just suppressed? these fish have been bred in captivity
for thousands maybe millions of generations but it doesn't take long for the
goldfishes old genes to take effect. Fish that we breed in captivity for just
a few dozens of generation should revert back to wild type rather easily.
maybe someone should try the experiment of stocking a small pond with several
species of captive breed fish and see if they revert back to the wild type in
a few generations? I think this might be a worthy experiment.
Moon
/-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
/"Unless stated otherwise, comments made on this list do not necessarily
/ reflect the beliefs or goals of the North American Native Fishes
/ Association"
/ This is the discussion list of the North American Native Fishes Association
/ nanfa_at_aquaria.net. To subscribe, unsubscribe, or get help, send the word
/ subscribe, unsubscribe, or help in the body (not subject) of an email to
/ nanfa-request_at_aquaria.net. For a digest version, send the command to
/ nanfa-digest-request_at_aquaria.net instead.
/ For more information about NANFA, visit our web page, http://www.nanfa.org