>Something came too my attention the other night and it has had me
>thinking ever since about attitudes and actions of people within our
>organisation (ANGFA for those in other countries). This is going to be a
>long post so feel free to skip this rather lengthy diatribe.
>
>At a recent non angfa fish meeting there was a bit of excitement over the
>rumour that a large number of rainbowfish, that had not previously
>been in the country, making it here. Initially my reaction was one of
>excitement as well because of the nature of many of the fish from PNG and
>Irian Jaya. However I have changed my mind about this and the following
>is my reasoning for that.
(snip)
Smuggling has been something that has played on my mind for a while too,
Peter - delegates to last year's ANGFA Conference in Canberra may remember a
little inclusion in their goody bags called "The Smuggler's Tail" by a chap
whose name translated meant "Nosey" - most people will have guessed that
this was my little way of trying to prompt a bit of discussion on this
subject.
It's a hard call to make - I know that I want several things that I may well
never legally own in this country (Iguanas, Boa constrictor imperator,
Poison Arrow Frogs, Pike Cichlids, the latest Killie species freshly brought
in from Africa, the usual day-dreams) that I have reconciled myself to
seeing only on my infrequent trips overseas... I can certainly understand
the motivation of those who act on the urge to pick up a few bits and pieces
overseas.
OTOH, Peter is right, there are significant risks associated with this sort
of thing. Not only to the fishes themselves (some Old World killi-keepers
in the USA have lost whole tankrooms to a pathogen they've nicknamed "Killie
Ebola") but to the keepers. What if Customs/Quarentine/Parks and Sparks
goes through Australian fishkeepers like a 'dose of the salts' and destroys
any fish that they cannot identify? I think that we'd all have a hard time
then!
I find it hard to condemn those who do smuggle fish in, but all the same it
is something that organisations need to think about, as well as their
individual members...
BTW - a short moderaptor point - could all replies to Peter's message delete
any text from his original posting not directly relevent to their reply,
while still retaining the original thread so as not to quote out of context?
I can see the replies and counter-replies getting quite long, and while this
is an important topic I would not wish to see individual messages themselves
get too long.
Regards, Andrew Boyd
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Andrew Boyd - andrew at pcug.org.au - http://www.pcug.org.au/~andrew
Rainbowfish Mailing List Archive: http://www.pcug.org.au/~andrew/rml.htm
"Evolution takes no prisoners..."
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