Are Silver Arowanas legal in Australia?

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greenterra;2287550; said:
First I want to say that Scleropages formosus was rejected for inclusion on the list of specimens suitable for import on the 26th of September 2007.I am unaware of any proposed amendments.
http://www.environment.gov.au/biodiversity/trade-use/lists/import/amend/unsuitable.html


In saying that.Lets look at a couple of things here.
It will be different in all states so I suggest you look at the lists for your relevant state.

Here in Queensland we have 2 list we go buy.

1st list is the Federal allowable live import list.....http://www.environment.gov.au/biodiversity/trade-use/lists/import/index.html
What is not on this list can not be imported into the country anymore.Note, this only means it can not be imported into the country.Any act doing so is illegal but it is not a law governing fish that were already here or bred here after. Many SA/CA cichlids are not allowed to be imported anymore but are fully legal to be traded or kept here as well since they were already here before the amendments. This applies to all fish not on the noxious species list at state level.

The noxious species list...This one is for my state, Queensland. I have been told they are in the process of making a federal list to apply to the country as a whole..
http://www2.dpi.qld.gov.au/fishweb/1347.html
Nothing on this list can be traded or kept.If caught while fishing it must be destroyed on the spot.

Here is the catch. Anything not on the noxious species list is in what is called a grey area..Meaning until it is placed on the noxious or invasive list, you can keep or trade them as long as they were already here before the amendment to the import list or bred from such stock afterwords. (Again, check your state list for what is noxious or invasive) :)

As for Silvers being legal. They can't be imported but again check your states noxious species list. Here in QLD, they are legal to own.:)
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petcity has one 795 right now unless its sold
 
cr8on;2288777; said:
He said they wouldn't survive a winter south of Queensland, i.e they would survive a winter in Queenslnd, which is where Jardinis naturally occur.
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they keep leis in the hinze dam which is the gold coast dont they?
 
syndicate;2292602; said:
they keep leis in the hinze dam which is the gold coast dont they?
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I woulden't trust a silver or asian outside in SEQ. , too bloody cold.

Leis are tough!
 
ok, ive read the latest posts here and ill try explain in one mail.. i know all this because it pays to keep up with the laws. i have read about everything i can find about them and what had happened in the past and what is happening now. i have spent about 4 straight weeks researching this fish four hours a night after work and hours upon hours compiling a submision to ask to have them allowed here. all because i was aware it was up for review and they asked for industry stakeholders to give thier input and they asked for species information to help with their assesments.

no, they are not allowed to take your arowana, unless they catch you importing it. which they could penailse you for but they arent about to raid your homes tommorow for posting here that you own an arowana.
if that law changes for the worse you will hear about it soon. at this time no one needs to duck for cover unless you are importing illegally.

yes they have told some live fish shops to remove thier fish from the premises and i belive they have penailised or atleast layed charges on some people importing these fish.

it is obvious to the inspectors if they find young fish they have either been imported or someone is breeding them locally from older stock. which i dont think anyone has in australia, only saratoga.

it may change for the worse but only if they find it to be very noxious and worthy of impounding. even then, they cant kill them becasue they are cites protected.. and where are they going to put them? if they go that way they have a hard task ahead of them.

is it really that dangerous that it warrants such spending of taxes when we could be covered by laws to protect the environment while still allowing us to keep them?

fair enough, some cites protected species can have a special consideration to allow in museums etc.. but this is a species that is bred for home aquarium display already.
it is just our law is outdated and they will proably play catch up soon.
i cant say when, i think they are sposed to have it done by the end of the year 2008 but its been a couple of years so far and may take a while yet but they are working on it all right now.

i am well aware that the species import request was rejected. this was due to a few groups opposing the 2006 request for inclusion on the import list. basically the invasive species council had a complaint that the application had said of the " possibility " that they could survive in QLD temps, or the NT or top of WA...

going by the fact that the application mentioned it may not do well in a community tank and so the ISC claimed that an arowana owner "may" wish to dispose of the fish in the waterways and keep the community fish alive.

they suggested that you guys can all look after saratoga and for them that seemed to be well enough but thats not how it is im afraid. it isnt that simple to say such things , they now have a real test to determine how noxious and risky a species is.

id heard even an aqis officer had said something to that effect.. that it wont be made legal because you have saratoga here.. but that will get looked at properly now, atleast hopefully they will look at it properly. it may be that they identify that the saratoga could come under threat.. but theres no saras down in this state swimming round in the creeks. to cold.

see that rejection thing was an older process whereby someone would make an application to the government to allow them to import a fish that was not yet on the allowable list.. it requires a large amount of paperwork to be submitted. some of you may have seen linda loos environmental risk assesment on arowana in AU.. i have copies of all this stuff but am not very well prepared to post them all right now.

anyways the ISC and maybe some other environmental groups argued that it possible that arows could surviev the temps and breed and that they would then compete with native species and eat native smaller species. this was a maybe, a possibility.
no thorough scientific research was entered into, just a weighing up task by the governement.
the objection was all possible and maybes..but back then possibility was enough to trigger rejection.

some may suggest it was just the gvernment reacting to lobby groups and the fear without looking right into it from a scientific objective.

that is over and our government is smarter now. we should be rather thankful for the people that have worked on the ornamental fish policy review. i think at the moment it is a really good thing and it is pretty comprehensive.
so NOW, they have a panel set up to look right into it, not just for arows by any means but many species and many many things relating to the aquarium trade.
they may spend a small amount of time on each species. and it depends on how many people make submisions too and how much info they have on hand.

on arowanas own merits it should become legal and allowable in the future in AUS> in some form. it may still made be noxious yes, so im not prepared in anyway to garuantee this.


i just know that it has a very good chance within the scope of what they will look at.

im not sure exactly that they will make federal noxious lists, being federal ONLY.
they will surely make federal noxious species lists yes, they do want those..to remove many discrepenices between states for example and make it easier to control.
but they might still have state ones too, for example say qld may say no we dont want arows allowable here but NSW may say its ok.
and they may have tilapia on the federal ones.
and that is the sort of thing i am hoping for.. for reason to be present.

but that is not realy clear at this stage from the papers i have seen.
it would seem the easier option to just have federal lists and no state ones and make policing borders or making spearate rules easy but it could also mean that a state cannot make money from species even if they pose very little risk in that specific state.
that could be the clincher for arow keepers but if its only QLD objecting then surely they should enforce that law on their state and not on others.
that is possible and within the scope of thier framework i believe. still i do think that in QLD they would also pose little risk even though they may survive the temps. it is not enough to say a fish will survive and is a big predator to make it a definate high risk noxious fish.
noxious fish should have other things about their biology and breeding behaviour and environemntal hardiness before they should call them so noxious and i can say for sure that the arowana has enough things there that would make it hard for it to establish a wild population and certainly they would not be a runaway species but they may still err on the side of caution on that.
really, if we did have them breed in QLD, people would trade in their fishing licenses and go and try catch them all.
for that to even happen, someone must release a pair in the same area. they dont migrate to other rivers seeking another released fish. so two released in a river is like 6 to 12 K worth and that may only mean a small locked population survives.
saraotga were released in other areas, so there was no big fear for that.

a single release event in QLD should not be considered that bad. you would need to have multiples. but like i say they have to look at many things and decide where it sits in the balance of goods and bads.

in other cooler climates. such as NSW i can say for definate and the fish biologists and scientists should also know that they would never survive a winter.
lethal temps exist here in the waterways in winter. if it hits less than 15 c they would surely perish. no sarotogas down this way hey guys living in outdoor ponds or tanks.. its common sense and thats leichardi lethal temps. i think your arows would die at temps a bit warmer.

BUT back to the story anyways.. so whats happeneing is that a few years back the governemnt set up a big review of the aquarium industry. among many many other things they looked at the noxious lists and the allowable lists.
they decided that they did not know much about the species and that they should research the species and make sure they sit where they should.
ie is it safe to have them allowable.
was a species position in regard to the lists well and truly justified or maybe had there been more scientific knowledge come to light since the last laws where made.

so they created exactly what you mention, a grey list.
the grey list were species that did not conform to near all the bad ticks that a noxious fish would trigger. it was to sit there until the review process is completed.

now you know how you say they want to make a national noxious list... well some people from QLD may have wanted arows on that, some from other states may not have cared.. so they simply looked at that stage (a coupla years back i think) wether the various species ticked all of the noxious boxes or not. for arowana they didnt. sure they were big, they ate things. but they had a low fecundity, takes years to breed them..they are threatened in their natural range etc. mainly fish that had ticked all the nasty noxious boxes were kept on the noxious list. definatley many made the grey that may be made noxius still but arows i believ will be an exemption.

so anyways it went to the grey list for further discusion and assessment that will or i should say is based on guidelines they have worked out to see just how risky a species is to the environment.
and believ me, it is a good way of determining if a species is a high or low risk to the environment.

they also should be looking at how much the fish is worth to industry, retail, import, aquaculture...for example.

and how many babies it produces.. does it breed easy.. if it is threatened easily.. if it has shown the ability to establish a population outside its natural range in the past.

now they have found a few individuals in the past in different areas.. for example christmas islands as pointed out by the ISC. and also in california for example. BUT they were single fish. so there is no proof or likley hood they will establish easily and be a big threat.
even with a release event does not mean it reproduces. they do not carry sperm. they need a mate to be there. as opposed to a platy for example that can be fertilised and released and quickly populate an area, which by the way are legal..
these arow fish must also have a male to look after the young.

even then after they asess the number of likley release events ( and whom here would release one of these expensive fish anyways? ) how likely is it to establish, they have info on that now. it is fairly unilkely unless it was done on purpose and that is not the sort of thing that should stop industry being able to make money from it. for example we can breed koi carp here, they have rules against letting them go.

then they can look at how hard would it be to clean up if they did establish, and how much would it cost compared to the money gained by making them legal for example. basically how risky is it if we did make them on the allowable list. i think you would agree it is not risky and also agree that it is potentially worth a lot to industry.


now belive this or not but the government wishes for industry to make money, as long as the risk is minimal to the environment. now the risk is allready very very low concerning allowing arowanas. people have had them here for years with no wild populations. will it be likley they do establish if we change the law?
with the correct regulations in place it would be lowered further, they have in front of them the framwork and rules etc to make this happen.
now the review process is under way.
if they decide they want to put the fish on the noxious fish and more so a national noxious fish list then they have not reviewed the fish properly and there is a way of making a legal challenge. not that i am entertaining that at this stage because i have faith that the process they have developed is really good and identifies the level of risk very well. and it may sit well with me if they justify a noxious ruling well.

one question that i do ponder is do they have enough scientific information. i have supplied a fair bit. but i wish i could have found more info on things like the fish they did find and more proof that they have not been able to breed outside their natural range excpet for singapore.. which is the same equatorial zone anyways.

you can imagine if your at a review panel meeting and someone brings up a negative point. if no body is there with the facts to counter that negative point then it could go either way.
 
ok and for you guys wondering about the lethal temps.. asian arows come from the equator. they would perish at temps around 18 , jardini at around 17 and leichardi at around 15. that is because they have only had to evolve to survive those temps experienced where they are found naturally. you can give or take a few degrees depending on health etc.

so all species would die in a winter if they were released south of qld. i would be surprised if an asian arowana would survive were the lichardi can as in the dam you mentioned that they have been stocked.
this does not neccesarily mean that if you lower your asian tank to 20 for a few hours it will die. but in the wild below 20c temps will remain for a fair while.

for example in nsw a tank outside will get real cold overnight especially. pretty much to air temps. the ocean will get as low as 14 or less. and creeks and rivers will get somewhere in between. say 8-12 degress.

ok, now ill go find some links for you guys to check up on whats going on these days with the laws.
 
the need for the new legislation.. note how they mention that they can educate about not releasing fish into streams. this is so we can still enjoy the fish in the aquarium with less risk to the environment.

http://www.daff.gov.au/brs/fisheries-marine/environment/ornamental

and here is the big read which you will find all the information regarding what they are doing now, it is worth looking at if you want to find out how they will be assesing the species. it is the most detailed paper i could find and so covers a lot, you will get an idea of what they could do in regards to the arowana.

http://www.affashop.gov.au/product.asp?prodid=13332

or you could go directly to it here. warning it is a sizeable download. the grey list is shown on page 33.

http://www.affashop.gov.au/PdfFiles/ornamental_fish_report.pdf
 
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