The ethical question

Should we as aquarists buy wild caught fishes or stick to only one's that can be captive bred?
This is prodominantly a marine issue as the majority of fish can't be captive bred for what ever reason but are we just leading these fish down the way of seahorse's which at least can be captive bred.

I'm sure there are some freshwater fish in the same category but they tend to be more easily bred in captivity.

I have a yellow tang and prior to getting him i didn't know it would be of the wild caught variety i don't know whether they are going endangered or what fish we are but with the amount fish keepers throughout the world its only a matter of time.

www.bestfish.com/tips/101598.html

www.aquariumpros.com/articles/badfishlist.shtml

ethical questions have no place in fish keeping

dar wrote:

ethical questions have no place in fish keeping

That kind of thinking puts multiple species of creatures on the extinction list.
Ethical questions should be the first before you keep any animal in captivity whether its a fish in a tank or an aligator.

All the generations before us thought things where in endless supply and look at where that got us they like the kid in the candy store didn't care of knock on effects.

I take it dar you didn't sign the form to save the amazon then because whats the point?

dar wrote:

ethical questions have no place in fish keeping

you stirring again Dar

as for the question poised, well i myself will always lokk for wilds or as close to wilds as i can get, the challenge is breeding them and providing stronger fish for the hobby, by crossing wilds of a species with domesticated fish of the same species you put better genes back in the proverbial pool thus stopping some of the weakness's inherent with line breeding, you just have to look at the guppy or molly which were a much stronger fish when i first got into fishkeeping 30 yrs ago now personally i wouldnt touch them as they seem to have weakened considerably since then.. so ethically imo for the benefit of the species a few wilds need to be caught to cross with domestically bred fish to strengthen the strain.

no no (sorry it came across as rude) i think it is a very good question

Dar remember the whole read before we post i always have to do it(no harm no foul)

Shea i see what your getting at and thats fine with species that can be captive bred but if we use fish that we can't captive breed and take them from the wilds then surely where going to look one day and go oops.

Of course then whatever ones are left in captivity are going to try and be bred with little or no success and one more species in the toilet (

did i break any rules? just because i stated "sorry it came across as rude" doesn't mean it was rude.

was my answer not acceptable? i believe it was a valid response

dar wrote:

did i break any rules? just because i stated "sorry if it came across as rude" doesn't mean it was rude.

was my answer not acceptable? i believe it was a valid response

I and nobody else stated you broke the rules,nobody said your points weren't valid.
The reason why i said read what you write as you stated it came across rude your words not mine.

This has now become farcical?

I genuinely believe it boils down to conscience rather than ethics, conscience eminates from within while ethics are as result of group concensus, man made and ambiguous in nature, go with your Gut, if it bothers you the tiniest Iota then refuse to buy it or keep it.

Kev.

oooohh!!! can opened! worms everywhere!!!!

i never stated it was rude, i stated sorry it came across as rude.

no need to go on the defensive, it was not an attack

would you rather i solely believed in your beliefs? i got the feeling you wanted peoples opinions on wat is morally right, and you just dont agree with mine, does that make you correct?

i prefer to keep some wilds if i can also because as said above it introduces a fresh and healthy bloodline.
if you can't get them to breed so what, to try is not to waste but to waste is to have never tried in the 1st place icf ye catch my drift

i get ye dar... and agree with ye

dyco619 wrote:

oooohh!!! can opened! worms everywhere!!!!

Actually that is quite good.

The other can of worms is what is 'ethical' (and what does it mean?) and what is not?

Conservation should be a concerted planned effort to sustain populations of species........but that does not necessarily having a blanket ban on capture or wild species; neither does it mean that it should be a free-for-all catch whatever you can.

There are many species highly vulnerable to extinction in wilds but for reasons that capture for the pet-trade has a small impact.

Stupidity in so called ethical considerations on ill-planned conservation projects are themselves likely to lead to an increased risk of extinction if those 'ethical considerations' only focus upon singularities such as wild-collections.
It is too complex for dogmatisms.

There are wider ethical questions than just the collection of the individual specimens:
the impact on other species not collected;
the ethical question of whether the West (and I mean that as the fish-keeping countries likened to the western super-powers) should remove a potential income for countries and peoples were the 'West' has done a great job in the past of removing the way of living by exploiting those peoples for growing crap cash-crops and copper-mining etc needs to be considered with ethics.

I have sat on ethics committees and those wider questions are totally valid points that should be brought to the table.

ian

Yeah of course i wanted you to just agree with me dar i'm always didn't you know that (only joking just incase misunderstood).

I give up, take what you want when you want.

Technically and in preparation of a Creatonisht backlash, aren't we just a part of evolution? Doesn't our existence testify to our success as hunter gatherers? Wild Animals don't care how many prey are available for consumption, if they consume everything, they will cease to exist and another Organism will just step in to fill the niche?

This is just me playing Devil's advocate and I support most efforts of conservation and worry regularly about how things are regressing.

Kev.

When it comes to marine; Jambo you might be distraught to learn that most species are wild caught and the way some of them are caught is really terrible. plus a large majority never makes it to their final destination; mostly perish upon arrival or some dont survive the quarantine.

Makes you almost want to give up keeping saltwater fishes especially; i will try to get some links on this; but it really looks awful. Im sure some applies to freshwater as well.

If it was down to issues of 'ethics' maybe many would not venture near fishkeeping. I think Dar kinda stated this fact albeit in his own gung ho manner of course

Interesting question and one that can be a very good topic if people dont turn it into a farce of whats the rules etc.
I think it boils down to peoples own opinions. The Marine species are somewhat different in terms of numbers caught in the wild, however if you look at the common neon or cardinal, the majority of them are wildcaught also.
Interestingly, the common fish you eat on your plate which has been pulled from the sea, the amount of bycatch that is thrown overboard each year is hugely damaging, and that i would suggest will hamper the species survival far more than the tropical fish keeper within us. Thats not to dilute the argument, its just putting into context.
Gavin

I had a quick browse of the articles in the links on the original posting.

One thing that for a very odd reason that did not jump out at me was the lack of reference to potential damage to environment during the catching of wild fish; and it did not address once the potential threat to native habitat where the captive fish will be caught.

In my mind, even if we say there is little risk, not asking those questions or presenting, as underlined, those points in the articles gives very little credibility to the article in talks on ethics.
Any risk assessment should look further than the nose.

ian

Fishowner wrote:

Interesting question and one that can be a very good topic if people dont turn it into a farce of whats the rules etc.
I think it boils down to peoples own opinions. The Marine species are somewhat different in terms of numbers caught in the wild, however if you look at the common neon or cardinal, the majority of them are wildcaught also.
Interestingly, the common fish you eat on your plate which has been pulled from the sea, the amount of bycatch that is thrown overboard each year is hugely damaging, and that i would suggest will hamper the species survival far more than the tropical fish keeper within us. Thats not to dilute the argument, its just putting into context.
Gavin

True fishowner catching of fish and the whole trowing back of things not in the quota are a major problem but something that is supposedly being addressed by the eu.(I don't eat fish but thats just me).

Ian ethics can be spun so many ways to infinitely prove one right and others wrong.Are vegeterians ethical to not eat meat as if we all gave up cow's don't have natural predator and would eat themselves to extinction.
As for the links possibly not the best as of evidence to support my case as only looked up last minute but i wonder how many actually read either before posting i think we can all guess what the likes cyanide doe's to species that aren't even being caught .

Anyway no right or wrong answers here just peoples opinions

I think that you make a good point but i also think that when fish are in the wild they breed more and therefore when we take them for a hobby in small numbers as long as the mark is not over stepped i see no harm in it.
Cichlids in africa for instance breed in huge numbers and are generally easier to find.
I do agree that salt water fish could somewht be in danger to some degree but if ya added up all the tanks in the world it aint close to the size of all the oceans.
Most salt water fish in norway are wild caught very rare to find captive breed.
As for fresh water wild fish are a must for me i want quaility fish that look like they should in colour ect.

There's a good few aspects of the ethics,many different examples for different species and collection areas around the World.
Take,for example,altum angelfish. I recall reading somewhere that only something like 1 out of every 9 caught(or could be 9%,can't remember),actually make it to a tank. Now,is keeping altums ethical? Given those sort of stats(as I say,I can't recall the exact ones),how could anybody say it is?
I dived on Mabul in the Celebes Sea,natives lived on this tiny island and fish it,mainly for their consumption,but also for the aquatics trade. It was like a moonscape,with a few fish here and there. A few miles away we went down on a similar island,Sipidan,which is a reserve. It is absolutley amazing,the amount of life is out of this World,I had a camera down there,and just didn't know where to point it. And I have heard marine keepers saying they don't like people saying it's un-ethical to keep wild caught marines,well they obviously havn't seen what I've seen.
Just two smallish examples.

I will often be found saying that it is difficult to beat a wild-caught fish (in many species); I will go back down memory lane of nearly every single one of my Tanganyikan and Malawi cichlids were wild caught (and that runs in several hundred species I've kept); and a large number of my present fish are wild-caught specimens.

I also often encourage breeding of quality captive bred fish (and poison dart frogs) partly to support the 'hobby' but also help us gain an insight into the biology of certain species.

My concern for our native habitat (in ireland) take priority over the pros- and cons- of bringing any no-native species into this country.
Wild-caught specimens do potentially add to that concern. One particular concern I have is the introduction of chytrid fungus affecting our native amphibians.

However, I do ask myself questions on having wild-caught specimens. Ethics is not always right or wrong; it is a judgement call based upon having presented and pondered the questions of necessity for a particular goal.

If, in science, we wanted to graft a rats tail to a rabbits nose to see if it could be done would probably get a thumbs down on ethics; but if it could be argued that the results could give an insight into improved medical or veterinary care (etc) that could not be obtained by other means then it could possibly get a thumbs-up in front of an ethics committee.

This is always a good topic for discussion as values have a more than fleeting input into questions of ethics.

ian

Here's something worth a read for any marine keepers:
en.microcosmaquariumexplorer.com/wiki/Bo...Banggai_Cardinalfish

I have 2 tank bred and hope they will pair off not sure whether female and male but crossing fingers.
I challenge any marine keeper to try and successfully breed these as this is one of the species that is aquarist fault lets hope it doesn't go the way of the red tailed shark

igmillichip wrote:

I had a quick browse of the articles in the links on the original posting.

One thing that for a very odd reason that did not jump out at me was the lack of reference to potential damage to environment during the catching of wild fish; and it did not address once the potential threat to native habitat where the captive fish will be caught.
ian

One matter that strikes me is that often the environment these fish are coming from is under threat from many other things other than capture for the pet trade. We've all heard of the Xingu river dams and the mass extinctions expected from that. The Red Tailed Black Shark is extinct in the wild because of hydro schemes, many species of Victorian cichlids are gone because of pollution and introductions of exotic species - the various hydro schemes in China have caused river extinctions and also affected terrestrial species, not least millions of human beings.

(Even as a committed envirnomentalist (whatever that is) I sometimes question whether nuclear isn't a better option than hydro after all . . )

It is difficult to know exactly where your wild stock has come from and where and how it was caught. Ideally, the value of a fish caught for the pet trade must be more valuable to the locals than it is as food or fertiliser and that value must outweigh some of the damaging things that could be done to that environment. Therefore, using sustainably caught wild stock is good for everyone. Maybe its time for a standard, like FCS or MCS, for sustainable wild fish.

Another matter might be who keeps what fish. This link
www.haplochromis.org/minifiches2/Categories_EN.html
has an interesting way of categorising stock - with the rarest and most threatened species restricted to professional conservation programmes and the most common ones being freely available.

OK red tail shark didn't mean necessarily down too pet trade but don't think the dams are 100% the problem as we don't tend to notice till things are gone and there is no evidence either way.

Yeah the rating system would be definitely a good one maybe to do with fishkeeping societies you need to pass whatever test and licence x to have endangered fish y so that things can be preserved as best we can.

As certain species have to be controlled or in a short time they might only exist in aquariums and then how do you get wild stock to freshen up the blood line