Re: NANFA--Minnow Trap Advice

Doug Dame (dameda_at_shands.ufl.edu)
Fri, 26 Jan 2001 15:53:41 -0500

Ty "Philosopher on Two Wheels" Hall wrote:

>> This kind of picks at a question I have had. I have
>> seen several letters that imply (or outright state) that
>> people are catching wild native fish for the sole
>> purpose of feeding them to their captive fish. I don't
>> know that I like this idea. There are plenty of places
>> to buy feeder fish that are inexpensive and you can
>> even grow your own. How do the rest of you feel
>> about this practice? I mean on one hand we are
>> working to restore fishes and on the other we have
>> people taking them out for feeders. Seems
>> contradictory to me.

Up to now, I've finessed the issue by never having (yet) kept any fish that had a primary diet of other fish.

I'm ambivalent on the issue.

On the one hand, in a sustaining stable population, on average over an entire lifetime each adult spawns just one offspring that in turn grows up and successfully passes on genes to the subsequent generation. Thus, the "career highlight and epitaph" for pretty much every wild individual of every species on earth is "contributed to the food chain, especially right at the end."

So in that sense, whether that happens in the wild or in a fish tank doesn't matter a lot from a Darwinian point of view, does it?

OTOH, anybody had any good passenger pigeon pie lately?

Doug Dame
Interlachen FL

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