Re: NANFA-- Collecting ethics

coelacanth_at_btinternet.com
Tue, 13 Jan 2004 15:02:33 +0000 (GMT)

>In every profession there are better ones and co-runners. That
> to me is the point. Those unpassioned co-runners don't like >ambitioned amateurs.

It's not the 'amateur' they don't like, it's the passion they don't understand.
I don't recognize any 'amateur v professional' conflict (I prefer the term 'private aquarist', as many of my friends are anything but amateur in their approach to their fishkeeping at home).
In an ideal world we are all just aquarists seeking to share knowledge, just some of us are fortunate enough to get paid for what we do, but it only takes one act of ignorance, arrogance or stupidity from one individual on either side to cause a rift that is very difficult for others to heal.
This could be quite easily a 'professional' who disregards the information they are being freely given by people who have developed effective husbandry methods for any given species through experience and hard work, and it could just as easily be the 'amateur' who collects from a threatened population because they have decided for themselves that they know better than people who have carried out controlled research.
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