I think
@zozo is refering to this
video.
My problem with that documentary is that it's very fish collector/keeper biased.
Yes, I saw that video as well. I agree, very fish collector biased, as are other documentaries. I was referring to these videos-
WILD CAUGHT: AQUARIUM FISH TRADE OF THE AMAZON which I think gives a relatively balanced view.
In the video they say:
1. There are many undescribed species there that could be brought into the hobby and that it's sustainable to collect them. How do you know if they're undescribed.
Any species for export has to be on Brazil's list of accepted species for export, which are deemed "sustainable". Any new species proposed for the list has to go through a system of checks (so they say). Of course in the case of
Otocinclus we know that fish are sometimes labelled "
Otocinclus affinis" when in reality several different species are frequently found in shops (and usually none of them are actually
O. affinis). The intention is there to stop export of fish where this is unsustainable, it just needs more rigorous controls, but by and large we are not seeing a continuous stream of new species of fish appearing in shops; it tends to be the same candidates. By all accounts this is a small part of the actual number of species that could be exported.
Re the sustainability issue- from what I understand the Rio Negro populations are adapted to a boom and bust population cycle, in time with the regular (irregular?) flooding and drying. Each time the waters recede millions of fish die, in proportion of which the number of fish collected for the trade is insignificantly tiny. I don't know to what extent this has been exaggerated in the documentaries but I'm sure there are peer-reviewed papers on the subject. I'll see what I can find.
2. Logging cannot go ahead in the area because it is too wet/floods but they then say that fish collection provides an income that provides an alternative to logging, saving the forest.
I think these days that logging can go ahead anywhere, given enough financial incentive; there are harvesters on boats, and harvesters on floats, but there are easier and more lucrative areas to pillage first. The argument is that without the fish collecting income, the people would go and work for the loggers elsewhere in the forest, rather than the trees being logged in the fish collecting areas.
3. If wild caught fish are younger when caught but then held for 6 months (as one of the exporters say they do). The fish are older than captive bred fish. It's only a minor discrepancy but it erodes the sustainability benefits of collecting compared to farming.
I've not heard of any exporter holding fish for 6 months- this would be a massive outlay and they would surely lose some of their stock, not to mention the cost of feeding, medication, etc. Do you know which company this is? I'd have thought that most businesses would want to only keep the fish long enough to ensure they are paid for and going to last the journey for wherever they are going. Of course there are other impacts on sustainability of collecting and exporting, such as the environmental costs of transportation; but then many of the captive bred fish we see in shops have also travelled a very long way across the world. For fish which are bred more local to us in the UK, there are additional environmental costs of heating, lighting, feeding, getting conditions right for the adults, etc., and the timescales.
The ethics of the sustainability or otherwise of fish import and export and breeding is a subject for another thread though. Going back to my original subject, I'd like to see a mandatory month's (or longer?) quarantine for imported fish (at the LFS), which would avoid the amateur fishkeeper getting fish which are highly stressed, underfed, possibly ill and prone to dying within the first 2 days of putting in a tank. I think the current regulation is for a minimum of just 7 days at the point of import (please correct me if I'm wrong) and it must be tempting to sell on nice looking fish not long after they've come in, if someone is there to pay for them. Regulation effectively passes the problem from the fishkeeper to the LFS, and therefore brings it into the realms of finance. There would then hopefully be pressure put to bear on suppliers to improve the proportion of good, healthy stock which are going to survive a month. Naturally there are costs involved, and less fish would be sold to replace dead ones.
What it boils down to is the historical attitude that aquarium fish are disposable commodities. Ensuring that further up the supply chain they are treated in a similar way that larger animals are treated would probably help.
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