Subject: Re: NANFA-L-- Fw: NAS Species Alert - Piaractus brachypomus
From: Peter Unmack (peter.lists-in-)
Date: Wed Nov 03 2004 - 23:22:08 CST
On Wed, 3 Nov 2004 Moontanman-in-aol.com wrote:
> I know this group is opposed to exotic release and rightfully so but to
> some extent I think we over state the problem. I have looked for a long
> time but I can find no case of an exotic non North American tropical
> fish that has established it's self any where but a few small areas that
> have warm weather year round.
I generally agree to some extent to most of what you said. However "one
of those few small areas" happens to be one of the areas that I hang out
in a lot of the time. Warm springs in the southwest are extremely tiny
habitats, but exotic tropical fishes do very well in them, usually to the
detriment of natives that usually occur alone or with-in-best one or two
other native species (and usually often fairly segregated by habitat too).
Despite the fact that few people live in these areas, quite a number of
springs have exotic aquarium fishes. It might only be a few small areas,
but fishes that occur in those spots have extremely limited ranges.
> I think that introduced disease is far more dangerous and should be the
> major reason given when we try to persuade people not to release their
> aquarium fish.
If that is the case then (and I agree), then how can we be scaremongering
people unnecessarily or overstating the case by telling them not to
release fish? I think a lot of this problem is the media reporting.
They tend to over simplify things and often get important details (to us
anyway) a little bit messed up.
Cheers
Peter Unmack
Canadian River, Oklahoma
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: Fri Dec 31 2004 - 12:42:45 CST