Hey! 'Raptors, could a message be sent to new subscribers asking them to intro
themselves upon subscription? I think it's been a great success so far.
OK then. Let's get this over with before it becomes compulsory. For those who are interested:
I was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee in 1965. My folks are both Australian and I live in glorious Queensland, but at the time my Dad was working for the TVA.
I think I may have been destined to become involved with fish. Apparently my first "collecting trip" was at age six weeks, trout fishing with my folks in North America. I don't remember if we were successful.
My earliest memory of fish is watching my Dad fishing at Surfers Paradise on the Gold Coast (Australia). We sat on the beach with a gas lantern and a small fire and ate freshly cooked tailor. This was before the time of tourists and high-rise buildings. M
ost of my early fish experiences revolved around fishing, until one day an old steel framed glass aquarium with a slate bottom appeared at home. The aquarium was set up on a stand in the lounge. We purchased one male and two female sail-fin black mollies,
and some salt. (Mollies needed salt to make the water taste better??) The fish were very happy in their new home. They ate and reproduced until, sadly, their ideal existance ended in a bout of fly-spray induced torpor.
My first memories of native fishes are unclear. I remember my Mum calling some fish we caught in the local creek rasboras or scissor-tails. I think they may have been Australian smelt or fly-specked hardyheads. My Grandfather had a very large glass bowl f
illed with fish caught from a local creek. He called them "rainbows". At the time I thought this was his pet name for them because when the sun shone through the curved sides of the bowl it made rainbow patterns on the table cloth.
I remember fishing for purple spotted gudgeons (Mogurnda adspersa) with my brothers. A creek near our home had a deep hole with a rocky cliff on one bank. We lay on our stomachs at the top of the cliff and watched for hours as the gudgeons stalked around
the pool. We selected the largest ones and lowered very small hooks baited with earthworms in front of them. We collected eight or nine of them and peddled home with the fish in buckets balanced on the handle bars of our bikes. We put the gudgeons into Mu
ms new goldfish pond. The gudgeons grew very large and lived in the pond for about six years. The goldfish lasted about three weeks.
By the time I was in senior at high school, local varieties of native fish dominated my collection. I had bred rainbowfish, blue-eyes, hardyheads, perchlets and purple spotted gudgeons, all of which I had identified with Ernie Grants book "Guide to Fishes
". It was not difficult identifying freshwater fishes as there were not many in the book to choose from. The release of Merrick and Schmida's "Blue Book" in 1984 sealed my career. I never realised that there was such a variety of fishes in Australia. In
the same week I received a copy I changed my course from Applied Geology (with a guaranteed job and a Corvette Stingray by the time I was twenty-two) to Aquatic Biology (with dubious job prospects and a permanent girlfriend who said I must have somewhere
to park a car first).
About this time I was introduced to a group called ANGFA. I did not want anything to do with a group called the Australian National Gold Fish Association. I eventually joined ANGFA after attending a few meetings and have been a committee member on and off
. Wouldn't be without it now!
My carreer has definitely remained fishy. After a decade of working for universities and governments (always on fish and their habitats) I now run an Aquatic Environment Consulting Company that does everything from contract research, environmental impact
assessment and aquaculture. We also have a small fish farm near Brisbane. One of our projects involves artesian spring communities in central Australia; working with red-finned blue-eyes, two species of desert gobies and a new hardyhead. A career in fish
biology is mostly very satisfying, but I probably will never own that Corvette.
Cheers
Rob Wager
Freshwater Fish Biologist
Raintree Aquatics Pty Ltd
Aquatic Environment, Fish and Aquaculture Specialists
1002 Caboolture River Road, Rocksberg, Queensland, Australia, 4510.
Phone 07 5496 7939, Facsimile 07 5497 0022, International +61 7 5496 7939
Email raintree at closer.brisnet.org.au