> I think the pertinent points as raised by Adrian and Bruce still
haven't been addressed to my satisfaction. All fish coming into this
country are potential time bombs, and many have the ability to do more
damage to the environment than rainbowfish. I can't see the government
(be it AQIS, Customs, whoever) stopping the importation of fish and if
they tried the fish would still come in (as we have seen). The thought
that these services would ever have the staff to go around to every
house in Australia to check fish is an absurdity. >
Two wrongs don't make a right.
A little game of devil's advocate.
If I worked for customs or politics the first thing I would do it redo
the list of fish that were in the country before the ban (which is a well
known list) and anything further to that I would slap a heavy fine on
anyone who has it in their possesion. It would not be hard to figure out
who the 10 most likely people are in ANGFA to have illegal fish. I would
hit those 10 houses and make examples out of them. One doesn't need to
hit every house.
> AT:Almost all New Guinea species were illegally imported into this Country?
>
> There is a school of thought that many of these fish came into the
country before the bans.
M. lacustris was the last fish to enter the country legally a very short
period before the ban came into being. What constitutes illegal before
the ban? I know they weren't smuggled past customs in Australia.
>I suggest to you that if they found a need to
ban them and had the resources at the time that these fish would have
been rounded up and destroyed. Be that as it may they are now banned
and as responsible aquarists are we supposed to do the right thing and
destroy the stocks we now have, after all they are capable of the same
damage that new wild stock would cause. Where do we stand morally. I
don't think many members would like this suggestion, I don't. >
There was a good reason why preexisting stocks of banned imports were not
made illegal to keep. One of which was no one had the resources to do
it. The other was that the door needed to be shut so that at least from
that day there is some control over what is coming into the country. I'm
sure that many species that were present in the country before the ban
are no longer present. Within rainbows we've lost several stocks of
particular fish as well as a species or three. I'm sure there are many
less killis and cichlids too. Time takes care of some things.
Also, the present stocks here don't have any nasty diseases, new material
from overseas potentially does thus fish already in Oz vs fish not here
are not equal in status.
> On this point it is worth remembering that a lot of these fish were
> lost in the Macedon fires of 84? but they made miraculous recoveries.
Before spreading rumours such as this would you like to provide some
evidence for it? Especially since you are 2000km away from Macedon and
most of what I have heard Qlders discuss about Victoria over the years is
BS. (nothing personal just that I'm tired of Qlders without facts and
I'm sure it works both ways a bit) There were two species lost in that
fire, Kiunga ballochi and some red and black goby. Crockford usually had
the sense to pass some of his stocks onto Armstrong and unfortunately
Kiunga was not one of them.
> If you think that no new blood has ever been bought into Australia then
> you would be living in a fantasy world (not your type of fantasy world
> Andrew B). >
That doesn't make anything right or justified.
> BH: The same problem applies to some pathogens that are already here
>
> As we translocate fishes from around Australia we introduce the
possibility of moving disease from one area to another. I can't see why
we should ban it internationally when we can't control it within our
boundaries.
Two more wrongs don't make a right. Also, again within Oz we don't have
the same diseases as overseas. They are not equal threats. True, we can
spread diseases already here around the country, but, there are far more
that we can bring into the country from overseas.
> PY: It also makes a joke of ANGFA's position as a national respectable
body when it is them that are doing the dirty work >
> A lot of "illegal" importation is done by individuals. How can anyone
say it is ANGFA doing it. ANGFA has some policies in this area and as a
group we have always encouraged members to uphold the law. What we do
as individuals is outside the control of the group. ANGFA should not be
seen as a "governing body" as far as I am concerned it should be
promoted as a mechanism for like minded people to share in the
companionship and support of fellow hobbyists. >
If it wants to maintain it's credible reputation maybe it should.
> The current National committee has recently had to consider the issue
that a member/members may be involved with the capture and selling of
lungfish. As a committee we agreed that given irrefutable proof of the
culprit and the crime that membership would be terminated. This
Because lungfish laws are stronger than illegally imported fish laws.
What ever happened to ethics? I can easily turn around and say that
lungfish are not incredibly rare, they can be bred in captivity thus why
can't I keep one? Everyone can find an excuse for why a law shouldn't
be, it just depends upon ones self interests and what's trendy at the time.
Peter Unmack