Aquarium freshwater fish sourced from wild?

[Malarky]

This piece today in The Conversation on fish keeping and the aquarium trade caught my eye today, it mentions the issues associated with the (mainly marine) trade in wild caught fish destined for the hobby.

I'm keen to only acquire freshwater fish bred in captivity for my tanks. Does anybody here who perhaps is familiar with the aquarium trade know which species are reliably bred in captivity and which are more likely to have been sourced from the wild?

 

[Guest]

Pretty much all the usual industry standards are bred in captivity these days. It might be better to ask which species aren't. Or to be more specific about what exactly it is you're after and then go with some sort of consensus of opinion or available source of known domestic or sustainable origin.

 

[John q]

I'd guess about 90% of freshwater aquarium fish that are sold in shops are farm bred these days, this might protect the wild populations of said fish but doesn't guarantee they haven't suffered on route to our tanks.

I suppose if you really wanted to be ethical you'd try and source fish that have been uk captive bred.

Most reputable shops will actively declare if the fish are wild caught as these can be sold at a premium to collectors and breeders.

I think in general if you're after "common breeds" the chances are they will be captive bred, the exception here (off the top of my head) is otocinclus which still seem to be wild caught in large numbers rather than captive bred.
Corydoras and L number plecos are still actively caught in the wild, but again the shop will advertise this so they can charge a premium, they're also fairly easy to breed so most of the ones you come across will be captive bred.

As a rule I'd say if you're after odd ball, or rare fish then there's a chance they'll be wild, otherwise chances are they'll have been farmed.

 

[Conort2]

This piece today in The Conversation on fish keeping and the aquarium trade caught my eye today, it mentions the issues associated with the (mainly marine) trade in wild caught fish destined for the hobby.

I'm keen to only acquire freshwater fish bred in captivity for my tanks. Does anybody here who perhaps is familiar with the aquarium trade know which species are reliably bred in captivity and which are more likely to have been sourced from the wild?

I’d recommend looking at project piaba. The wild caught side of the trade in freshwater is quite different to the marine. Not to say there aren’t exceptions though! Project Piaba | Buy a Fish, Save a Tree!

It will also depend on what species of fish you’d like to keep. You won’t be getting wild caught species if you stick to most of the bread and butter species.

Cheers

 

[John q]

Not sure how far you want to go down the rabbit hole for information @Malarky

This is a paper based on a presentation in 2018 by Hans-Georg Evers for Fisheries Society of the British Isles. It might answer some of your questions.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jfb.13930

 

[PARAGUAY]

Of course there are serious issues and regrettably some dubious politicians are the biggest danger to anything but the above two posts prove by involving local people they have an income and become custodians of the habitat,

 

[Myrtle]

How do we, as the "end user", know which wild caught fish are ethical and which aren't? I'm not sure the seller would know either!

 

[ScareCrow]

The 'breeding' section in sources like seriously fish might give you an idea of whether they're wild caught or captive bred. Generally if they're easy to breed they'll be captive bred as it's more profitable than catching them in a remote location, transporting them to a holding facility and then on to an airport.

As others have said some fish will demand a higher price if wild caught and will be sold as such. Equally some fish that are normally wild caught but have been captive bred will also be advertised as such and demand a higher price e.g the marine Mandarin 'Synchiropus splendidus'.

Personally I'm a bit sceptical on how environmentally friendly some of the things highlighted in some of the documentaries that were shared in another thread on here are. I can't find the thread but this is the first part of the documentary. The documentaries are a bit biased towards the aquarium trade. They say that it prevents logging but also say that the areas wouldn't be logged because they are more difficult to access/have seasonal/environmental hazards. They also say that there are lots of unstudied species that could be exported. If they're unstudied how can they say that it's sustainable to catch them?

I'm an environmental scientist by training, which I was probably influenced towards by keeping fish at an early age. I've also worked in the fishkeeping industry and know that it's not great for the environment. So I'm often in a moral/ethical quandary and have spent hours deliberating over
keeping xyz species because I know its source and impacts. Where I can I've tried to source fish, coral, shrimp etc from local breeders and hobbyists.
I'd also urge everyone to try and breed every species they keep, regardless of source. It's a fascinating aspect to keeping fish and I think you get a better understanding of their requirements. Plus you can give something back by bringing some fishy lives into this world that haven't been unsustainably/unethically sourced.

 

[Conort2]

I think with a lot of the South American species they’re caught in the dry season in drying pools where a lot of them would die anyway. Granted this won’t be the case for a lot of the l numbers in the trade but would be for stuff like cardinals, rummynose and corydoras which are found in small forest streams.

I’m not sure if there is a case of a species becoming endangered because of the aquarium trade? Although I could be wrong. The risk of habitat loss from deforestation and mining is a much greater issue. It definitely is a contentious subject and there are pros and cons to both sides.

 

[Conort2]

I'd also urge everyone to try and breed every species they keep, regardless of source. It's a fascinating aspect to keeping fish and I think you get a better understanding of their requirements. Plus you can give something back by bringing some fishy lives into this world that haven't been unsustainably/unethically sourced.

Definitely! More people should try do this. It’s very rewarding and is a lot more environmentally friendly than fish shipped half way across the world.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

I'd also urge everyone to try and breed every species they keep, regardless of source. It's a fascinating aspect to keeping fish and I think you get a better understanding of their requirements.

I'd agree, I'm trying <"not to keep any fish"> that won't successfully breed, with limited intervention, <"particularly wild caught ones">. I know it doesn't make any real difference, but it does make me feel a little bit better about the <"environmental footprint"> of my fish-keeping.

cheers Darrel

 

[Guest]

How do we, as the "end user", know which wild caught fish are ethical and which aren't? I'm not sure the seller would know either!

Good question. since wild caught doesn't necessarily have to mean unethical. But I guess the short answer is I don't think anyone can for sure guarantee that any trade in wild caught fish is totally ethical from source through to consumer. It appears to me to be an unregulated and tangled mess, so any consumer information relating to that will either be unavailable or dubious.

It is interesting to note that increasing concern over the ethics of the ornamental fish industry is perhaps linked to a growing body of research on fish sentience and for many it presents an increasing moral and ethical dilemma. But for others it won't, particularly if their livelihood depends on it.

So I share @ScareCrow 's scepticism regarding the environmental benefits of the wild caught ornamental fish industry. For any sustainable environmentally friendly project to stand any chance of working it needs to be a well organised bottom up cooperative that benefits local people directly. However, even then it's difficult to manage equitably since some community members are more equal than others. And also, like @PARAGUAY mentions above, these projects often fall prey to external vested interests and any benefit to local people and the environment is diluted or lost.

 

[mort]

Unfortunately I don't think being bred in captivity is always more ethical. The arogance of man has manipulated some species in very drastic and unhealthy ways. Fancy goldfish, shortened bodied fish like balloon mollies, dyed or tattooed fish (although less common here) and now genetically modified fish (not in the uk thankfully) and that's before mass inbreeding for certain traits like colour or finnage.
You'd think the social conscience would make some captive bred species more appealing and as I saw the mandarin mentioned above I just add my experience. When I was in the shop I bought the first 4 captive bred spotted mandarins available in the uk. They had been in commercial production in the US before but were stopped a few years earlier because they couldn't sell them for a profit. For those that don't know the mandarin dragonet is essentially a marine goby cross seahorse clad in joseph's technicolour dream coat. They aren't the simplest fish to keep but are in high demand because of the way they look. The advantage of captive bred fish is that they are acclimated to aquarium conditions and will eat non live foods, which is the downfall of wild caught specimens. Now to cut the story short, even though they weren't that much more expensive than wild ones, the second time round, no one was willing to pay the slight premium for what would be a much hardier specimen. In the end I kept one pair and gave the other pair to a friend who was attempting to breed them. The same tale can be told about many species both freshwater and marine.

I’m not sure if there is a case of a species becoming endangered because of the aquarium trade? Although I could be wrong. The risk of habitat loss from deforestation and mining is a much greater issue. It definitely is a contentious subject and there are pros and cons to both sides.

I think the problem is we live in times where no one will take blame and shifting the fault onto others is common. I've known about the red tailed black shark being extinct in the wild for as long as I can remember (it now might not be the case but their population is tiny) and it was long believed it was due to overfishing however habitat destruction and the building of a dam, may have played a massive part in its plight.
We do however live in times where newly introduced species to the hobby have suffered by the shear numbers of those collected and it's hard not to say the aquarium hobby hasn't seriously effected celestial pearl danio's, torpedo barbs or bangaii cardinals.

 

[Guest]

Unfortunately I don't think being bred in captivity is always more ethical. The arrogance of man has manipulated some species in very drastic and unhealthy ways. Fancy goldfish, shortened bodied fish like balloon mollies, dyed or tattooed fish (although less common here) and now genetically modified fish (not in the uk thankfully) and that's before mass inbreeding for certain traits like colour or finnage.

I hate to see this too, it actually turns my stomach. It is arrogance and lack of empathy and respect for living organisms. And I think it's a mindset that stems from an archaic understanding of our place in nature, in that we have dominion over all. It's a concept that appears to be heavily entrenched in western culture. Not least because it is/was an all pervasive doctrine of Christianity and the other Abrahamic religions.

In Christian etiology, for example, humans are placed below Angels but above animals, plants, and minerals. It's a hierarchy known as The Great Chain of Being, supposedly decreed by God, Genesis 1:26. We've discussed it before. And I guess it's an expedient philosophy that pretty much sums up our approach to the rest of the planet as well.

A Fish Shop Tale

Was visiting a FS the other day noticed a couple of tanks full of dyed fish. Legal to sell as long as they are imported which seems odd? I challenged in a nice way the staff why have them when are doomed to suffer health problems as PFK often reminds us and anyway we have plenty of lovely...

www.ukaps.org

Fish Depression Is Not a Joke

Fish Depression Is Not a Joke Something i already believe in for the biggest part of beeing active in this hobby, about 40 years.. Tho it never was and even today it still isn't realy open to any discussion for the majority of people. Always experienced lots of people reacting to it in a...

www.ukaps.org

 

[Myrtle]

Animal sentience in general is hard for many to accept, so fish even more so. Even the animal rights folk don't all truly accept how self aware many animals are. It's not that long ago that dogs were deemed incapable of feeling emotion and despite scientific evidence supporting what most dog owners know about their range of emotion, many still think they have the emotional range of a rock. For a fish, who inhabits a world very alien to our own and who we can only interact with through a glass wall, it'll be a lot longer until they're generally seen as anything more than a pretty object.

 

[AlStu]

I’m not sure if there is a case of a species becoming endangered because of the aquarium trade?

There definitely are, I’m pretty sure pea puffers are one, but a quick search on the IUCN Red List gives 770 freshwater fish species which are used as pets/display, threatened by collection, and have a declining or unknown population trend.



Of these, around half are (at least nearly) under threat of extinction



And they’re from all around the world



These data aren’t perfect, almost 300 of the profiles are listed as needing updating and I’ve done a whole masters on biases within the Red List, so I can tell you confidently that there are plenty of issues! This also doesn’t pull out whether collection was the main/only threat, although this would be easy enough to pull out from the data if I weren’t on my phone.

I am no way saying that fishkeeping is net harmful, I am also an environmental scientist and projects like project Piaba do seem to have merit - although the area is not suitable for commercial forestry, income from fish reduces the need for slash and burn agriculture and small-scale tree felling. I think that also the connection to nature we can encourage by looking into tanks is nothing to be sniffed at!

Sorry for the long post, just hit one of my areas off something nearing expertise!

Alice

 

[Conort2]

Sorry for the long post, just hit one of my areas off something nearing expertise!

Thank you, great post.