Wild Caught species VS store bought

But to some purists.  You worry about some species becoming extinct but how about NOT BUY wild caught specimens.  So they wont be extinct in the wild. My 2 cents.

SiRWesDragon wrote:But to some purists.  You worry about some species becoming extinct but how about NOT BUY wild caught specimens.  So they wont be extinct in the wild. My 2 cents.

It's usually habitat destruction or pollution that places cichlids in danger, not over collecting.

The habitat destruction and pollution cause by humans trying to catch them? Just pulling your chain.

Heh. I actually prefer F1 or F2 usually, unless it's a species where there is a high chance of being a hybrid. For instance, I wouldn't buy a midas, red devil, convict, or trimac unless it was wild caught. That way I wouldn't have to worry.

dwarfpike wrote:Heh. I actually prefer F1 or F2 usually, unless it's a species where there is a high chance of being a hybrid. For instance, I wouldn't buy a midas, red devil, convict, or trimac unless it was wild caught. That way I wouldn't have to worry.

agreed! the fish listed above are hybridized more commonly than they are bred true... unless you get your F1 from madness! his strains are pure......

 

Many places become resorts and the animals that lived in those bays are rapidly exterminated by the detritus of humans and merely the outright disregard for life many people have. Overfishing is a problem in food fish that has driven them to extinction. It is rare but has happened, in the hobby trade. However, maintaining pure lines of fish, unless they are so commonly bred to be laughable (convicts), is really important.

I'd argue it's really important with convicts. It's darn rare to find pure ones.

Dwarf, I'll accept that. I guess they look very different than the wild ones.

SiRWesDragon wrote:But to some purists.  You worry about some species becoming extinct but how about NOT BUY wild caught specimens.  So they wont be extinct in the wild. My 2 cents.

If you spend time researching at risk fish and read the IUCN site it lists the reasons for their determination of finding a species to be "at risk" and can be found under threats.  Overcollection of a species can be a reason. If a fish has been overcollected purchasing wild caught specimans would not be right.   Another area where overcollection of wildcaught species can become a problem is when the demand for the species outweighs the availability of the species in the wild.  CPD's and zebra plecos are fish that come to mind in this regard although CPD's have now been found to have reestablished themselves in the wild and to not be at risk from overcollection as demand has decreased.

But, on the flip side of that, purchasing species of wild caught fish (that are not endangered or threatened and whose populations are not struggling) gives you the best genetics in regard to your fish species.  To some countries, collecting wild caught fish provides an income to the people as they are hired to do these collections.  Working to collect fish is a better job than say working in a mine and ecologically it will can help to preserve the environment as people that are working and collecting the wild caught fish have a vested interest in maintaining the habitat that they collect the fish from.  Many countries are creating "sustainable" fish collecting projects that benefit both the people, the habitats, and the fish.

From some of my bookmarked info one article sites "Project Piaba".  It says "Project Piaba in Brazil is another project working with local people and other stakeholders to produce sustainable wild caught fish.  The sales of fish benefit the locals and the project does a lot of work in education and raising awareness of the issues involved.  It works on conservation and habitat as well as improving understanding of the socio-economics involved."

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I have two wild caught species in my tanks, neither of which are high demand fish nor threatened by overcollection.  I enjoy these groups and have successfully spawned one of them.  Being able to share F1 fry within the hobby rejuvenates the species by refreshing the gene pool.  My other wild caught group has not spawned for me although I still have hopes that some day I might see some fry from them.  In the end I don't think that that you have to have a blanket policy of never owning or buying wild caught fish if you can be responsible in your choices.

Maybe in brazil but what about the rest of the world. Do you think some people in other countries care to preserve species.  Look at the black rhinos extinct the locals dont care. The mighty dollar, peso, yen, whatever currency is only on their minds, not the animals extinction. Maybe 1 country is doing the right thing in your mind its ok but what about the rest? Think about it. 
And I never thought about WC fish and I just find ppl who has bred good looking fishes. Have a good day.

SiRWesDragon wrote:Maybe in brazil but what the rest of the world. Do you think some people in other countries care to preserve species.  Look at the black rhinos extinct the locals dont care. Maybe 1 country is doing the right thing in your mind its ok but what about the rest? Think about it. 
And I never thought about WC fish and I just find ppl who has bred good looking fishes. Have a good day.

Wes...nothing personal here and it is a personal choice. You opened the door for discussion so I was simply discussing things. It's always hard to have "open" discussions about things that we take to heart. I am glad that you have a heart and care about things. I do too so no hard feelings.

No hard feelings here. I added some stuff from my last post.
My people (filipinos and americans) are doing it too for the mighty dollar and peso to support themselves. Its everywhere. Just saying we boycott wild caught specimens. We would help prevent some percent.
If you worried about gene pool of the fish being restricted to usa bloodlines. Well Europe is more advance in this hobby than we are. They have their bloodlines. Just have to trust them on pure bloodline of the fish. Just as you would for a LFS or fish distributer would say "WC"

Very interesting read!

PETA says "Please don't support the tropical fish trade by purchasing fish".  Extreme?  I don't know...if you take the argument that we should boycott purchasing or owning wild fish then no...this is not extreme.  ALL fish come from WILD FISH.  Ultimately there were WILD FISH in the beginning. You could not have your F1, F2, F3 and so on fish if there were not WILD FISH. So whats a person to do?

As I said, being responsible means being educated.  Read, evaluate, hope that in the future we take heed of our mistakes and learn that enjoying a hobby doesn't mean we have to give it up..only that we have to be responsible in our choices in regard to it.  Education and awareness are key to helping the environment and our hobby as the two things really go hand in hand.

Sustainable programs as well as creating protected areas are making way for the future success and longevity of many species and habitats.  The world is learning.  We can too. Creating hybrids is not the solution. Learning how to responsibly care for what we have is.

You're comparing apples to oranges here the topic started out as a hybridizing topic, now you're saying don't catch wild fish to preserve them. My comment to that is if people were more responsible about their fish and would not deliberately hybridized them then we wouldn't have to worry about ordering wild caught fish to get something pure because all the fish would be pure. No ifs ands or buts about it.

I have a funny quip about PETA, but I don't want to bring religion into this.

Madness wrote:You're comparing apples to oranges here the topic started out as a hybridizing topic, now you're saying don't catch wild fish to preserve them. My comment to that is if people were more responsible about their fish and would not deliberately hybridized them then we wouldn't have to worry about ordering wild caught fish to get something pure because all the fish would be pure. No ifs ands or buts about it.

Good point.

Madness wrote:You're comparing apples to oranges here the topic started out as a hybridizing topic, now you're saying don't catch wild fish to preserve them. My comment to that is if people were more responsible about their fish and would not deliberately hybridized them then we wouldn't have to worry about ordering wild caught fish to get something pure because all the fish would be pure. No ifs ands or buts about it.

Just to point out. I have never hybridize any of my africans.  My ob peacocks got them from other people and lfs. Obs are now in lfs. Only ob I have is ob fuelleborni.

I don't see how there is a real difference between "line breeding" and "hybridization." We are playing god in both cases.

And also, please don't try to claim that you're practicing "conservation" by not hybridizing. If you were really that concerned about conservation, you would be out working to save the natural habitats of these fish so that they can continue to survive in the wild. Continuously line breeding and back-breeding just a (relative to nature) few specimens from a single collection point is most certainly not conservation. You might be able to claim it's preservation in a certain sense, but even that is a stretch.

What you're doing is animal husbandry. You are breeding and selecting for traits that you think are "natural," and then discarding those which don't make the grade. Compared to your average home aquarium setting, there may be (and most likely is) a completely different set of pressures on a species in the wild, and breeding them without these pressures is probably progressively making the species weaker, if anything. You cannot call this conservation.

I am in a very rant-y mood today

Madness wrote:You're comparing apples to oranges here the topic started out as a hybridizing topic, now you're saying don't catch wild fish to preserve them. My comment to that is if people were more responsible about their fish and would not deliberately hybridized them then we wouldn't have to worry about ordering wild caught fish to get something pure because all the fish would be pure. No ifs ands or buts about it.

I do have a couple if's, and's or but's about this, actually.

If we only got "pure" specimens from home-bred fishes, the genetic pool would quickly dwindle, and there would most likely be many more severely inbred and deformed fish than there already are. See the goldfish.

And, the fish might be "pure," but they wouldn't be the same as what you find in the wild. See my previous post, the part about animal husbandry and environmental pressures on a species.

But, of course, we could solve all these issues if we could be bothered to care more about saving the actual environment these fish come from, but that is too hard. It's easier to just keep them in your house and think to yourself, "I am really helping to conserve these fish!!"

But then you're only fooling yourself.

One more: and, if we could be bothered to save the natural environments of these fish, catching wild specimens wouldn't be a problem because they would be thriving in larger numbers.

LuminousAphid wrote:I don't see how there is a real difference between "line breeding" and "hybridization." We are playing god in both cases.

And also, please don't try to claim that you're practicing "conservation" by not hybridizing. If you were really that concerned about conservation, you would be out working to save the natural habitats of these fish so that they can continue to survive in the wild. Continuously line breeding and back-breeding just a (relative to nature) few specimens from a single collection point is most certainly not conservation. You might be able to claim it's preservation in a certain sense, but even that is a stretch.

What you're doing is animal husbandry. You are breeding and selecting for traits that you think are "natural," and then discarding those which don't make the grade. Compared to your average home aquarium setting, there may be (and most likely is) a completely different set of pressures on a species in the wild, and breeding them without these pressures is probably progressively making the species weaker, if anything. You cannot call this conservation.

I am in a very rant-y mood today

Yes you are. LOL

LuminousAphid wrote:

Madness wrote:You're comparing apples to oranges here the topic started out as a hybridizing topic, now you're saying don't catch wild fish to preserve them. My comment to that is if people were more responsible about their fish and would not deliberately hybridized them then we wouldn't have to worry about ordering wild caught fish to get something pure because all the fish would be pure. No ifs ands or buts about it.

I do have a couple if's, and's or but's about this, actually.

If we only got "pure" specimens from home-bred fishes, the genetic pool would quickly dwindle, and there would most likely be many more severely inbred and deformed fish than there already are. See the goldfish.

And, the fish might be "pure," but they wouldn't be the same as what you find in the wild. See my previous post, the part about animal husbandry and environmental pressures on a species.

But, of course, we could solve all these issues if we could be bothered to care more about saving the actual environment these fish come from, but that is too hard. It's easier to just keep them in your house and think to yourself, "I am really helping to conserve these fish!!"

But then you're only fooling yourself.

One more: and, if we could be bothered to save the natural environments of these fish, catching wild specimens wouldn't be a problem because they would be thriving in larger numbers.

I agree with you, on most parts.  Unfortunately for us to have any affect on saving their natural environment would be a miracle.  The La Cieba Freedies can not be found anymore because they built, (I believe) a hotel or resort right where the lake was.  We can only do what we can, and to say a fish isnt line breeding in the wild is unknown.  

The original topic, hybridizing, in my opinion causes more issues than it is worth.  Before you know it our fish will have to come with papers proving its purity.  

Hybridizing or pure is a completely separate topic from conservation and protecting our species.

Hey Wes, if this is such a concern start another thread regarding that subject, and I will move a lot of this talk regarding it, over to the new thread.  Its not that I dont want to talk about it, but both of these topics are great topics to discuss and if we keep them together one or the other may get lost.  

I sort of agree with the conservation part of your posts LA ... while I still think the CARES program is very laudable, it is not 'true' conservation. It is more for our hobby than anything, to make sure those endangered fish will still be available for the next generation of aquarist. I doubt scientists will use our CARES species to ever repopulate anything.

Keep in mind inbreeding is not as bad in less complex organisms than it is in higher ones. Studies have been shown in fish that it can be several dozen generations on inbreeding before problems occur, while in humans it's usually as soon as the second or third before issues arise. Inbreeding is an issue in our hobby, I just don't believe it's as big of an issue as people assume.

Though I agree line breeding and hybrids are both 'playing your deity of choice', there to me is a huge difference between the two. Line breeding is generally (though not always) done within the same species, trying to bring out the traits you want using inbreeding most of the time. It doesn't always involve crossing species. I am not fond of most line bred strains, as I prefer pattern over color so I find wild discus and angels far better looking than their solid colored line bred strains. Same with electric blue rams and electric blue acaras. But to me they aren't as bad as hybrids.

I look at the difference like this ... if I want a child with blue eyes, I would need to marry a woman with blue eyes to have a chance of this because of the recessive nature of them (and the odds wouldn't be good even then). That would be a form of line breeding. If I were to have a baby with a chimp, that would be a hybrid. DON'T SLEEP WITH THE MONKEYS!!!!

I do agree we as a hobby need to help those very very few organizations that are trying to conserve the natural habitats for the fish we love. The problem comes down to money. Firstly, while some people are more than willing to spend obscene amounts of money on the hobby, they for some reason seem unwilling to donate even a fraction of that to help keep those places the fish come from intact. Second, in a lot of the counties, let's face it ... the people are far more concerned about making the money to feed their families than they are about what the crazy americans, japanese, and germans think about a tiny fish in a stream by their village. And honestly I can't blame them for that. Until that changes though, our hobby is doomed. Not in our generation or our children's ... but soonish.

I can see a time, when there is more funding for Scientific projects, that Scientist ask hobbyist to raise certain stocks with the intent of reintroducing them, or buying the stocks from us so they can. Breeding stocks and reintroducing to the wild worked for some salmon (although they had a larger gene pool to work from). I wonder why the white cloud is extinct in the wild.

dwarfpike wrote:
I do agree we as a hobby need to help those very very few organizations that are trying to conserve the natural habitats for the fish we love. The problem comes down to money. Firstly, while some people are more than willing to spend obscene amounts of money on the hobby, they for some reason seem unwilling to donate even a fraction of that to help keep those places the fish come from intact. Second, in a lot of the counties, let's face it ... the people are far more concerned about making the money to feed their families than they are about what the crazy americans, japanese, and germans think about a tiny fish in a stream by their village. And honestly I can't blame them for that. Until that changes though, our hobby is doomed. Not in our generation or our children's ... but soonish.

Yeah, I would like to say that if I had the money I would send some of it to help save the habitats of wild fish, but honestly I probably wouldn't. I'm not trying to say that everyone should do this either; just pointing out that if hobbyists were really concerned about conservation purely for the sake of conservation, their money and time would be better spent in some way to preserve/restore the fish's natural environment rather than breeding them in your home. What we are concerned with is creating nice looking fish, not conserving the species as it would be in nature.

Here is a good example of an actual conservation effort for a wild specimen, right here in the U.S.: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], though it doesn't seem to be [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Anyway, to get back on topic.... I don't really see any moral downsides to hybridizing, as long as the fish can live a normal-ish life (no crazy deformities that keep it from getting enough food, etc.) Sure, you could say crossing a convict with a jack dempsey is like crossing a human with an ape- but it's not, really, in my mind. The fish and its tankmates don't have to struggle with social issues like human-hybrid rights, how to (or not to) fit into society, things like that. They are just fish, they don't care.

I think it simply comes down to personal preference. If you feel better about keeping a pure strain, then do it. If you want some cool hybrids and don't have moral qualms about it, then do it.

I do think it is an important point to be responsible about distributing them, though. At the least breeders should inform the recipient that the fish are hybrids, and ideally should be able to describe their genetics so that there aren't unintentional or unknown crosses being created.

edit: didn't see that the two topics had been separated, my bad!

hyp3rcrav3 wrote:I can see a time, when there is more funding for Scientific projects, that Scientist ask hobbyist to raise certain stocks with the intent of reintroducing them, or buying the stocks from us so they can. Breeding stocks and reintroducing to the wild worked for some salmon (although they had a larger gene pool to work from). I wonder why the white cloud is extinct in the wild.

From the reading I have found the White Cloud Minnow is no longer believed to be extinct in the wild.  Here's an excerpt from one article

In 1980 the White Cloud Mountain Minnow went unrecorded in nature, leading everyone to believe it had completely gone extinct in the wild. In 2001, they were rediscovered by a native population in the province of Guangdong. In 2007, a small group was found on Hainan Island. Since then, efforts have been made to reintroduce captive-bred White Cloud Mountain Minnows to areas they previously inhabited. They are still registered as endangered in Chinese government agencies and are in the China Red Data Book of Endangered Animals, listed as second-class state protected.

However, these fish are unlikely to face extinction again, as their numbers are thriving in North America from people releasing them into the wild. This is not particularly a good thing, as introducing a species to an area it is not native to can create environmental issues. Thankfully, due to their peaceful nature, they have not created many problems.

LuminousAphid wrote:I don't see how there is a real difference between "line breeding" and "hybridization." We are playing god in both cases.

And also, please don't try to claim that you're practicing "conservation" by not hybridizing. If you were really that concerned about conservation, you would be out working to save the natural habitats of these fish so that they can continue to survive in the wild. Continuously line breeding and back-breeding just a (relative to nature) few specimens from a single collection point is most certainly not conservation. You might be able to claim it's preservation in a certain sense, but even that is a stretch.

What you're doing is animal husbandry. You are breeding and selecting for traits that you think are "natural," and then discarding those which don't make the grade. Compared to your average home aquarium setting, there may be (and most likely is) a completely different set of pressures on a species in the wild, and breeding them without these pressures is probably progressively making the species weaker, if anything. You cannot call this conservation.

I am in a very rant-y mood today

Just to clarify...the wild caught group of Metriaclima sp. "zebra gold" that I have has 9 fish in it currently.  Of those 1 male and 3 females came to me in one shipment (from one collection) and another 2 males and 5 females came to me from a later collection.  It is extremely and highly probable that my fish are not related genetically (I think that would make sense although I am not a geneticist).  I do not keep my F1 fry to breed back to my wild population although I have been told by some very well known breeders that that is actually OK to do that.

I would agree that conservation and hybridization can be two seperate subjects but that doesn't mean they can't go hand in hand.  

Conservation is defined as
The protection, preservation, management, or restoration of wildlife and of natural resources such as forests, soil, and water.

I see protection and preservation coming into play in regards to hybridization of a species if it is being done purposefully.  I.E.  If you are purposefully hybridizing a species that needs protection and preservation you are not "conserving" that species.

OK, I separated the Hybrid discussion from the wild caught species discussion. I know that you made a connection between the 2 of them, but from here out lets keep the hybrid talk on the other thread and the other discussion on this thread.

Thanks for your help on this. It allows for 2 great discussions instead of 1 bouncing back and forth.

Thank you

Sorry Madness...as you left Luminous statement about conservation and hybridization in this thread that is where I replied.  

And again to clarify...my zebra golds are not an at risk species but they are a WILD collected group

My comment on conservation/hybridization went more towards speaking of CARES fish or IUCN red list fish.

So many good points of view. Here are my thoughts. Everyone wanting WILD isnt a good thing. Look at coral mining in the early 90's it almost completely decimated many island reef systems. On the other side of the coin getting fish that are so line-bred/inter-bred that they dont really resemble the original species(guppies, todays canines, ect) makes me sad. Most of the hybrid fish around today are because someone thought the natural fish patterns/colors were amazing. as far as PETA goes.... thats a terrible company to support or quote. They have yet to save 1 animal and kill thousands every year. You can look up PETA+FDA and see the reports. I think its a tough sell either way you feel about it. I think we just have to follow our instincts on what we feel is the right thing to do.

 

I am not a supporter of PETA ... LOL ... I was trying to show how extreme things can get in some cases.