Legalizing Asian Arowana Petition !!

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Ill give an example. say 4000 arowana are sold to america from licensed farms. the USWLS can put an extra fee on the price. there is taxes as well, which helps pay for their time.
just like taxes pay for various government spending.
now an arowana is going to be worth thousands of dollars.
so putting a 200 dollar fee on each fish to be sent to recovery programs is not too much to ask to buy one of these fish. overall it will not stop sales. but limit them a little.
already in the first year of sales, assuming this is the demand and this might be the cap placed on imports too, you have 800,000 dollars in an account, that money goes a huge distance in an undeveloped country. even if only 2000 a year are desired, its still a huge amount of money to pay for work in these areas at 400 k.
this would happen yearly until the demand slowed and prices leveled out.
lets say you put half into a fund that accumulates and you begin work with the other half of the money. within ten years you have a sizable amount of money, where interest is building and you have also spent a large amount on programs each year. within ten years, you actually have a very decent recovery program and you have used demand for the captive bred species to fund it.

is this worse than leaving things as they are???? where the US throws no effort toward a fish they ban..but banning in itself?
you focus efforts on areas that are not developed along the waters, and you do your best to try stop the poaching in these areas by offering locals incentives. if they get more money than their 12 dollars per fish then they would see it as a bonus. this has been shown to help and it gives jobs to the locals too.

the way attempted by FWS was to get farms to throw up captial so they would have a market in the future but the farmers did not agree so much, so this meant the vision that FWS saw on conservation effort was not done. if they can look at this in another way like above, a lot of people will be happy, and a lot of recovery work can be done and it pays for itself.

you want an endangered fish, you personally contribute to the wild fish. sounds like a green product to me.........
 
I think they r afraid that locals might go out in the wild & illegally fish them & sell them to farms.
 
this is why the cites farms that are licensed and registered have a strict process where the officials from the local authority go and witness the harvest of the fish out of the mouths of the fish and document which parents they came from and make sure the parent fish are legal first. then those fish are kept in incubators and grown on and then tagged. if that was the main concern all they have to do is make sure that the stock comes from those farms that are being monitored. this was a problem in the early days when some farms in indo were a front for wild harvested fish so they revoked the licenses and then made rules so it does not happen.
in malaysia right now they have an oversupply. if this is the main issue, then they just need to ensure it isnt going on. there are plenty of farms that are made to do it by the book. any that are not would not get to supply to the US market.
 
some of the farms even use genetic testing so that can also be done to make sure those tagged are
from certain farm parent fish. so this is a way that the fears can be completely removed.
 
This petition needs to explain that a conservation fee would be added to the cost of the permit and how that fits within the laws/requirements and covers the outcomes desired etc.or it becomes just another thing they can say no to.
 
This is a great effort, but until you show the US gov't the wild population is stable and above numbers that cause them to be listed as "endangered" - nothing else matters.
 
i disagree, this is not true at all.

it is only true in that it is one way to make them legal.

but it is not the only way and it is also just about impossible to make them legal that way because there are no real studies showing populations back in the day..

you can petition, but the petition currently uses the wrong wording and ideas.
or you can take the agency to court and ask a judge to look at the case that they have acted in a way which has not allowed the species to become better protected from extinction etc.. because they have been slow to act on their own recommendations from back in 2003.


these are the important things.

the ESA was supposed to be an interim act.

the permit system tells applicant to view cites resolution 5.1 which tells people that trade is allowed for pets and is not to be seen as commerical trade in this context of use. also, seeing as USA is signed to the convention of cites, then the resolution that urges countries to make them legal should be also followed up on.

so the agency should have changed their policy to suit cites recomendations as the ESA directs it to do so. and i think they are planning to change it, but are seeing what they can do.

the agency has consistantly claimed that they needed more to be done other than just using captive breeding supply to offset poaching.
and so the agency has pretended that captive bred supply is not enough on its own and they have failed to acknowledge that other good can come as a benefit arising from captive bred supply and legal trade.


i find this remarkably silly that they can overlook these other things and get away with it for so long.
it makes me wonder if they like going round busting people with illegal fish...because hey, they admit that while there is demand, there will be a supply. only thins way, it is all illegal.

but the agency has also admitted that it would be a significant step toward stemming poaching and illegal trade. so this is a good thing right.

it admitted that america is a big consumer, that if they made them legal, they could then have a good program and better educate people because people would be talking about how the captive bred program is a good thing.. and then FWS can also use purchasing fees to send to conservation.

in this, they can put in the permit fee requirment under the enhancement permit system.
this they can send to fund conservation of the species by making trade legal.

this is all possible under the current ESA and you will see it happen sooner than releasing the species from the appendices.

it must be remembered that it does not take an act of congress to force change the policy of the FWS.
that agency has the power to get smart and put in a nice fit program that sees great benefit to the species in the wild and great benefit to conservation in general.
once they do this for arowana, it allows them to free up other things that they deem ok and suitable too.
then, america can come on board and do what they are signed up to, and have an ESA (that was originally supposed to be designed to allow), be flexed, to allow conservation efforts to be more fruitful.


they just need to adapt their policy and admit that trade would be better for the species survival than no trade.
so next, they need to spend some time and work out what is good and what needs focus.

it is not the case that no one cares enough in congress, so why would they bother, this is an endangered species and it needs attention.
it might take some investigation to ensure that the rules they choose are good ones.
but basically, the groundwork is already done for them so they do not have to start from scratch.
they just take it on board and instead of focusing on smuggling, they grant permits for pets, check the taggs, take some money for the service and for conservation purposes and make some changes to their websites etc etc and.......... then they work with CITES toward what goals they want, and become smart on conservation rather than blockers of good programs.

the difference is that FWS would want some in situ conservation program, this allows them to still have stricter requirements than what CITES says is required. every one is happy!!
 
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