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Hey guys.

I know I haven’t been on here in a long time but ive been busy. Since then, I’ve gone to college. I am now in my final year of studying animal care management and for my investigative project, I am researching into whether wild caught or captive bred fish is best. I’ve done some initial research and gotten some data but I need to get more information but from the public. I thought it’d be a good idea to get on here and ask you guys what you thought.


1. In your personal opinion, should we continue to import wild caught fish direct from the wild?

Yes

No


And why?

2. Should we try and get more fish species breeding in captivity so we can rely on captive bred fish?

Yes

No

3. Is it important that we try and do that?

Yes No

4. aking into account what wild caught fish have to go through compared to captive bred ones, what is your personal opinion on the topic?





Thanks for reading this, and if you could complete the questionnaire and answer the questions and if you have any relevant information that you could tell me, that would be great.

Thanks again

I'd appreciate it if a fair few of you took the time to do this. I'm leaving this until monday/tuesday and then I'll add up the results and use whatever relevant information you give and hand in my assignment on thursday.

so for now, if you have any spare time or are interested about this subject, PLEASE visit this topic again and contribute in any way you can.

A fair number of the fish seen for sale today in your lfs, are captive bred, Its always better to buy captive raised than to deplete the native stock, as there are a large number of casualties, when fish are taken from the wild and shipped.
I know that this is the main and sometimes only source of income for some folks, but at some point, if only wild fish are being taken, the source will deplete its self.

1. Yes, but it depends on the species. When a species is in very high demand (eg. galaxy "rasbora", or reproduces slowly enough that it will be threatened by harvesting for the aquarium hobby, we should avoid importing those species from the wild.

2 and 3. Yes/Yes, It is important to breed species in captivity especially in situations where the species is in high demand or when it doesn't replace itself in the wild. Also, captive-bred specimens of some species are MUCH hardier than their wild-caught predecessors, and while an advanced aquarist will have no difficulty maintaining the wild-caught animal, less advanced hobbyists will have more success with its captive-bred counterpart.

4. Living in California, I am not convinced that a wild-caught tropical fish goes through much more stress than a fish raised on a fish farm in Malaysia. The captive-raised individual will go through a comparable amount of shipping, sitting in wholesalers' tanks, etc, before making it to our LFS (or CPS). Fish raise in the US, whether on a fish farm or in hobbyists' tanks will be less stressed, and are a good choice, but also impact the amount of money you are giving to the impoverished countries your fish tend to come from in impoverished tropical countries. Money which would go to hard-working individuals for providing something to you, not just a hand-out.

Something that would be really cool would be finding a way for hobbyists who breed fish for sale to the LFS, who provide us with hardy, healthy, high-quality fish, to give back to the people in Southeast Asia, South America, and Africa. So far there are a rare few who actually travel to various countries for collecting trips or just plain ecotourism, but for many of us that is not an option.

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