Despite difficulties at least in NANFA quite a few people [I bet more
than 5] are able to spawn many minnows and darters, and they have to
start keeping them first before gaing enough experience to be able to
breed them. Don't get me wrong: I think conserving the whole
habitat/ecosystem is good, but many times [especially in 3rd world]
"money" comes first and conservation oftens has to yield to "economy",
"business" and "development"... like drilling Alaska. In such case
having breeding program is not such a bad idea.
Tony
Christopher Scharpf wrote:
>
> > How many people on this list are good at keeping Pink Muckets, Rough Pigtoes,
> > Cumberland Monkeyfaces or any of the other endangered Unionid mussels?
>
> For that matter, how many people on this list -- how many people in NANFA --
> are are able to breed the fish they keep and profess to love? Easy-to-breed
> species like Heterandria and Cyprinodon aside, I can count on one hand the
> amateur hobbyists in this country who can regularly and systematically breed
> minnows and darters, hatch the eggs, and raise the fry to adulthood.
> Breeding temperate stream fishes in aquaria isn't easy. Hobbyists talk up a
> storm about "saving" species, but very few are able or willing to do the
> work. I'm not knocking the recreational keeping of native fish because
> they're pretty, or fun, or interesting. I'm just saying that catching a fish
> from the wild and keeping it in a fish tank until it dies is a long way from
> so-called "conservation collecting."
>
> If one were to round up every last specimen of P. welaka from the wild and
> distribute them to hobbyists for "safekeeping," the species would be
> functionally extinct in about 2 years.
>
> Chris Scharpf
> Baltimore
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