umm... don't know about SA but African cichlids traditionally would be netted en mass as small as 1/4 inch and exported. Yeah more sensitive fish typically would not be caught at this size and moved in such a fashion but mbuna and other smaller Africans would ship en mass as wild caught babies over a decade ago.
Sorry, but that's not at all how wild caught African cichlids are collected, and this is coming from some one who has a personal friend who worked for the late Stuart Grant on Lake Malawi. I've seen the photos, watched his power point presentation, and discussed all of this in great detail with him when he returned back to Canada. I also used to regularly converse with a collector/exporter on Lake Tanganyika, and he wasn't netting fry either, ever.
No commercial exporter is netting baby wild caught fish, period, as there is no demand for fry, and there is no money in it. Anyone that wants fry can breed their own damn fish. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to net an adult mbuna, let alone fry? Talk to someone who has actually been there, and actually collected wild fish, then come back & tell me how many fry are collected in the Rift Lakes for export. The largest fish always demand the largest amount of $$$, and in the case of Malawi those fish typically went to Europe or Japan, where they would pay premium $$$ for those fish, more than USA vendors would.
I have no idea where you would come up with the notion that fry are collected for export in the Rift Lakes? A hobbyist, collecting their own fish, and paying their own shipping back to wherever, sure, but not commercial exporters. As previously explained, exporters don't pay the shipping fees, importers do.
animal guy, feel free to believe what you want, no sweat off my back either way. You started this rant thread, I'm just adding to it from my life experiences.
Using your logic, it would have taken your "wild caught" festae fry several months to gain 1" in size. As previously stated, in the Rio Tumbes district the rainy season runs from Dec to March, into April in a worst case scenario, and the onset of the rainy season is when the majority of spawning activity takes place. So in a best case scenario, those festae fry would have been born as early as Dec, or in a worst case scenario possibly as late as April, ......... and it took them until the end of Sept to reach 1". Sure, okay.
And where are the rest of the wild caught Peruvian fish for sale from this vendor? Surely he didn't just bring in a single box of 1" festae fry on an order from Peru?
Honestly, some people sure are naive.
I think that I've said more than enough about this, best of luck with your new fish.
