Re: NANFA-- Bluenose shiner news

Jay DeLong (thirdwind_at_att.net)
Sun, 21 Sep 2003 12:14:15 -0700

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At 08:31 PM 9/21/2003 +0200, you wrote:
>I see one mayor difference to what I mean in your example of the salmons.
>Re-introducing a species to its former range or habitat is a lot different
>from trying to introduce a species into the range of another one which is
>its sibbling ecologically. This is comparing apples and cherries.

I agree. But you started it :-) I was going off your citing introduced
exotics as some evidence of something inherent in all fish.

>Genetics is a great field. But the genes are only the playground and toys
>for nature. The game however makes it! ;-)

What genetics offers is the only objective way to understand such a
topic. It's the evidence and the data and the language.

>If the "rare" genes were that important for nature,
>they wouldn4t be that rare and we would only have a handfull of species
>compared to the diversity we really find.

Animals aren't like Fords off the assembly line. It's the rare unexpressed
genes that hold the keys to survival in response to environmental changes,
and it's the total amount of genetic information contained within the
population-- not an individual-- that defines a species. The Aquatic
Conservation Network (when still around) had guidelines/protocols for
maintaining genetic diversity in a captive rearing program. Any such
program would have to start with that. But no program is a remotely close
substitute for conserving the species in the wild in its natural
habitat. The health of a species is a reflection on the health of its
ecosystem. Ecosystem health and species diversity, not how many
individuals of one single species are there, are what were left us by
Nature and previous human caretakers (good or bad), and what become our own
legacy.

--
Jay DeLong
Olympia, WA
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