Illegeal fish--------
roy hunter (103707.2451 at compuserve.com)
11 Jul 96 23:42:05 EDT
Sitting here on the sidelines reading all of this is quite interesting. It
floors me to think that rainbowfish would be a problem in responsible hands. I
doubt seriously that any of you have dumped rainbowfish into a stream where they
are not native. I think selling them to a pet shop is playing with fire but on
the other hand what do you do about the butt head that hybridizes the fish and
then dumps them into the waterways.
a stream that once carrried a beautiful population of splendida now has this
crappy looking tri-spl cross that is able to grow faster than its splendida
counterpart thus wiping out the native. I dont see any difference between that
and having a NG species presant. So what do you do? I say just be responsible
fish keepers. Education is the best policy. Banning NG rainbows is a mere
scratch in the surface. Hybridization to me would be a far bigger problem or the
introduction of say the running creek tri into Delanies cr. would be second. The
only wayto cure any problem is to bann fish keeping in any capcity. Surely that
isnt what we all want.
As far as fish diseases there are other things besides fish that are carriers of
diseases and I would think insects are probably the greatest carriers. how many
American insects arrive via Quantas each day? How many Australian insects invade
California each day?
As far as the whirling disease I look at it as a God send for the simple reason
that it is specific to only rainbow trout. Its the best way to wipe out a non
native I know and thus making room for the native cut-throat trout of Colorado.
The onty problem is they are trying to hybridize trout that are resistant to the
disease when the cut-thoat is resistant to it in the first place. This makes no
sense to me but the biologists seem to think the know it all. I have seen more
problems created by the professionals in the fish world than the hobbiest. Take
that to the bank
Roy