Re: NANFA-- Re: ATTN: NEW ENGLAND MEMBERS!

D. Martin Moore (archimed_at_netdoor.com)
Fri, 1 Jun 2001 10:32:53 -0500

On 1 Jun 2001, at 8:45, EELReprah_at_aol.com wrote:

Granted.

>
> Even though collecting may be "legal" because of compliance with all
> known regulations it is still taking something from the natural balance. It
> is in that context that I used the term poaching.

My friends, what exactly do we mean by natural balance? If I take
a dozen minnows with a net, that's "poaching", but if a DNR-
stocked largemouth bass eats them, then it's "nature". If I fill in a
swamp for a condo development then I am a bad guy, but if a
tornado sucks all the fish up then it's OK, that's just Mother Nature.

I was doing a mental excercise one day. Tyring to explain to a
layman why, say, the devil's hole pupfish is important when they
will surely be dead in a million years, along with most everything
else we recognize today. I was forced to conclude that it is
important only to a very few people. If many of our beloved fishes
go extinct then it won't have a significant impact on the local or
global ecology (and if it did, a new system would emerge) and
nobody would miss what they never knew was there anyway.

Actually there are other
> meanings of the word poaching besides the illegal collecting

I was assuming you were talking about the practice of cooking fish
over boiling water :-)

Prost,

Martin
Jackson, MS
-----------
One thing kids like is to be tricked. For instance, I was
going to take my little nephew to Disneyland, but instead
I drove him to an old burned-out warehouse. "Oh, no," I said.
"Disneyland burned down." He cried and cried, but I think
that deep down, he thought it was a pretty good joke. I
started to drive over to the real Disneyland, but it was
getting pretty late.

/-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
/"Unless stated otherwise, comments made on this list do not necessarily
/ reflect the beliefs or goals of the North American Native Fishes
/ Association"
/ This is the discussion list of the North American Native Fishes Association
/ nanfa_at_aquaria.net. To subscribe, unsubscribe, or get help, send the word
/ subscribe, unsubscribe, or help in the body (not subject) of an email to
/ nanfa-request_at_aquaria.net. For a digest version, send the command to
/ nanfa-digest-request_at_aquaria.net instead.
/ For more information about NANFA, visit our web page, http://www.nanfa.org