> As far as I know there are no populations of Redfins Blue-eyes outside of
> Australia - all have now been lost. Within Australia there are I think only
> 2 captive populations left.
I know someone in South Australia who had them when I visited him in
August. He obtained them from another Crow Eater who obtained them from
someone in WA. I don't know what the status is of either population
right now.
> Its probably true to say that the Redfin Blue-eyes were destined for
> extinction anyway if we assume correctly that they are a remnant population
You can extent that arguement out to everything if you really want to.
Lungfish, Cooper Ck catfish, M. pygmaea, G. wanamensis, M. lacustris etc
etc. Where do you draw the line?
> of species that existed when conditions were more suitable to their
> survival.
Well, up until we introduced damnbusia they seemed to be surviving quite
nicely. What do you anticipate the cause of their demise to be? By your
assertion, if I were a blue eye living at Edgbaston I'd be pretty worried
until I realised I'd been living under similar conditions, including ones
worse climatically than today (except damnbusia) for probably the last
60,000 years or so. It ain't gunna matter how dry it gets out there as
the aquifer will keep going (assuming we don't pump it). Hell, the water
there now is probably 100,000 or more years old that comes out of the
ground. The aquifer is not that influenced by short term climate change.
Even if there was less rainfall, the recharge for the aquifer sits over an
area with one of the consistantly more regular rainfalls since it is a
mountain range. Now sure, spring discharge may vary, but there's always
water present.
> I think all of us would agreed that a semi-desert habitat is an
> unlikely habitat for a blue-eye.
Deserts around the world are unlikely places to find any life. Yet, where
ever you go, amazing things live there. I think we are just looking at
this with the wrong perspective. It's only unlikely because humans
percieve deserts to be places that lack water. Wake up folks, they don't
if your a little fish and all you need to live is a tiny spring-fed
puddle. In many deserts, springs are abundant and quite often full of
life that probalby aren't even aware they live in a desert.
> The population at Aramac are no doubt the
> last of the species and would or will eventually die out. So by the very
> nature of trying to preserve this species in the wild we may in fact be
> interfering with their natural selection and the balance of nature. The road
> to extinction is probably already genetically implanted in the species and
> that could explain why their maintenance in captivity has proven to be so
> difficult.
You have such a pessimistic long term outlook on life Adrain. The type of
events you describe above occur naturally over MILLIONS of years. I'd be
more worried about the next twenty or thirty. :-) Do we think that every
species with a limited range is just waiting to go extinct around the end
of the 20th century? Sure, with our help many may, but without us I doubt
too much would change.
Ultimately, everything we do is irrelevant when viewed from the
appropriate scale.
Tootles
Peter Unmack