Re: NANFA-- Captive breeding

Ty_Hall_at_eFunds.Com
Thu, 24 Feb 2000 15:26:58 -0600

I think it's more that the breeding that takes place, for goldfish and like
species, in captivity is focusing on and rewarding passive (recessive)
genes and not dominate ones. In the wild a brightly colored fish is more
likely to be eaten then a brown one. Especially in the environments that
the goldfish is native to. If you've ever gone Bass fishing with goldfish
as bait you'll see what I mean. When this was legal, goldfish were one of
the best baits you could use. They where what the Bass wanted, baby Carp,
and they were brightly colored, making easier to see them. By allowing the
fish to breed naturally, the dominate gene is once again able to reassert
itself. As the fish continue to spawn they are naturally attracted to a
mate that displays markings or colors that will better assist in the
continuation of the species. In captive breeding they can only mate with
the partenr that has been made available to them.

Ty

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

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