Actually, Rob Wager (whom the Aussies will know) had a good use for
desert gobies. He thought they made excellent anchovy substitutes on
pizzas. He bred hundreds of them but had difficulty getting rid of them
all.
> >I think the concern regarding people swapping fish within clubs may
> >be relatively minor given how small the percentage is of fishkeepers in
> >clubs vs those who are not. Secondly, the larger the number of species
> >that can be produced by the African natives the more stable their
> >sales/production may be too. Of course the other alternative that has
> >already been mentioned is selling only the one sex.
>
> There may be a small percentage of aquarists in clubs - but the aquarists
> that would appear to be under discussion here, the ones that work with
> endangered species - are IMHO generally speaking members of clubs so that
> they can access fish (and attend BBQs, of course!) that they otherwise
I agree that fishkeepers who are likely to be involved in conservation
efforts will be club members. However, we are not talking about
maintaining endangered species. We are talking about a commercially
available fish in the general aquarium trade. Many of the endangered
species that would be maintained by club members are not going to be very
commercial fish otherwise they would be bred commercially and they
would be more widely available. My case in point here is the rosy barb
(or is the cherry barb, I forget, it may even be another barb, someone
want to set me straight here?) Anyway, which ever barb it is, the fish
is extinct in the wild, yet remains quite abundant in the aquarium
trade. Does this mean that the fish should be maintained by club
fishkeepers because it is "endangered"? Of course we need to be diligent
with species that are maintained in this fashion, but again, if someone
else, or another group is "looking after" a species then I think
aquarists should concentrate on something else that isn't being "looked
after".
Toot
Peter