Isn’t it funny, the single worst invasive species in the United States is the domestic cat and yet that is the one species that will of course get exempted from it. It reminds me of that bill they passed making it a federal crime to consume dog meat, so you can eat any other animal on the planet except dogs, i suppose to virtue signal to a portion of the electorate who get offended at the thought of someone eating a poor little doggy while they are stuffing their face with a veal burger.
Beyond that, can anyone point to a species of fish/invertebrate that was driven to extinction or near extinction due to the release of hobbyist aquarium species? I can’t think of any, but here are ones i can think of:
Alvord cutthroat trout, status: Extinct. Cause of extinction, government introducing invasive rainbow trout into the few creeks they lived in in the remote alvord basin.
Yellowfin cutthroat trout, status: Extinct. Cause of extinction, government introducing invasive rainbow trout into the twin lakes in colorado in which they lived.
Greenback cutthroat trout, status: Critically endangered. Cause of endangerment, government introducing invasive rainbow and brown trout into the mountain streams in which they lived.
Gila trout, status: Endangered. Cause of endangerment, government introducing invasive rainbow and brown trout into the mountain streams in which they lived.
Silver trout, status: Extinct. Cause of extinction, introduction of yellow perch by fishermen and rainbow and brown trout by government.
Longjaw Cisco, Deepwater Cisco, Blackfin Cisco, statuses: Extinct. Cause of extinction, the building of canals allowing the sea lamprey access to the great lakes.
I could go on, but as you can see there is clearly an invasive species problem, it just has little relation to the aquarium hobby or the pet trade and if you are going to target invasive species you should of course target the worst one of them all.
But we all know that will never happen. ?
