got this message in my pm from whoever the hell this guy is...

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As others have stated, it's much easier and believable to export small fish / fry.

I'm much more suspicious of vendors who claim to be exporting large quantities of adult fish from the wild. The logistics of it are just that much more complicated (and expensive), especially if the fish are (allegedly) being sourced from someplace (i.e. not Peru) where commercial tropical fish exporter aren't established.

It also makes sense to differentiate between hobbyist collecting trips and commercial operations.

Trips by hobbyists have introduced a few wild fish into the country (from places really off the beaten path)...some F1s (mostly sourced from the folks who actually collected them or someone else in the hobby)...and lots of F2+ offspring from those. It's great to have new fish in the hobby and it's really important to maintain "pure" lines (i.e. with provenance to the few wild fish collected at a particular locale by known people), whether F1 or F10.

I've yet to hear details around commercial-scale export operations of fish from anywhere in the New World other than Peru (are there others?). Huge numbers of fish from (or out of) Peru make sense (the topic of fish from Brazil being exported are Peru is another topic). Other places...not so much (without some sort of explanation or proof.)

Finally, as Mo said, there are a lot of people re-selling "wild" fish...and fewer actually collecting them. We can argue about the level of responsibility that folks have in re-selling fish that others have told them are "wild", but in the end it's caveat emptor (buyer beware).

Matt
 
As others have stated, it's much easier and believable to export small fish / fry.
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I would tend to agree, if we weren't discussing fish exported from Peru.

Let me preface the following by stating up front that I am in no way questioning the honesty or integrity of this vendor. He may well have purchased these fish as wild caught specimens, and while that may be possible, I think that's it's highly improbable.

In the Rio Tumbes district the rainy season runs from Dec to March/April, which is when the majority of spawning activity takes place. These festae weren't just juveniles, they were imported as 1" fry, and listed for sale at the end pf Sept. That can only mean that if they were spawned in the wild, they were born well into the dry season, and collected during this same period. Festae are reputed to be continuous spawners, so again, this may be possible. The Rio Tumbes is a large river system, so the most likely way 1" fry would be collected in mass numbers would be in a smaller branch off the main river, or in small pools that have been broken off from the river during the dry season. Again, possible, but highly unlikely, when the main breeding season takes place months earlier.
Had these been collected in pockets/pools that were drying up, the collectors would have removed everything, not just 1" fry.

Shipping is a non issue, exporters don't pay for shipping, importers do, and those costs are passed on to the end consumer. When Rapps was importing all of his citrinellus & labiatus a few years back, he wasn't importing 1" fry, he was importing adult fish as most hobbyists that are willing to pay for WC fish want sexed specimens for breeding. This holds true for most WC cichlids.

Ask yourself this - when was the last time that you saw 1" fry from any larger species of SA cichlids on an exporters list? Personally I never have.

I think that it's a bit naive to not think that fish never spawn in some of the exporters holding tanks, and are later sold as being WC specimens. Below is a link to just one collectors operation in Peru. http://fishliveperu.blogspot.com/

I'm guessing that those juvie aros with egg sacs weren't collected in the wild.

If Dan collected these festae fry himself then I guess that would clear that up, if not, then I guess that it becomes as Matt stated, a case of caveat emptor.
 
joe jaskot said:
Until wild fish come in with collection papers, the buyer is at the mercy of the seller. You have to know your buyer and trust that the fish he/she is selling as wild are actually wild caught. Lots of unscrupulous sellers will sell tank raised fish as wilds just to make an extra buck.
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I agree. There's not much else you can do, unless you go and catch the fish yourself.

That being said, in my opinion, most vendors will call ANY fish that comes from another country wild. Most of the time vendors are unaware, or just simply don't care how or where the fish were "collected". Who's to say that these exporters aren't breeding the fish in hatcheries, and then selling them to vendors as "wild"? I have to admit, an unlimited supply of fry all year long does seem funny, but who knows for sure?

At the end of the day, if a vendor I trust has a fish that I want, I'm going to buy it, and call it whatever the vendor has labeled it. Everything else is just speculation. The only solid thing I have is the vendors word...
 
There are conflicting forces at work here which imho put into question one's purpose in this hobby....
To those looking to preserve wild types,
why?
(Playing devil's advocate here, but) breeding within a tiny gene pool in the hopes of maintaining species whatever, from a river wherever, collected by whomever, whenever seems as unnatural as keeping them in a glass box on the other side of the planet.
:what: Huh?
Having access to wild fish from various source is a plus, but once those wild fish enter the hobby their destinies are up for grabs.
Domesticated, inbred, hybridized, contaminated and medicated is not natural and far from wild.
So where does that leave us in this conundrum?




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So where does that leave us in this conundrum?
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Someone I know & have no reason not to trust recently forwarded me a photo that they stated was sent to them by this vendor, of an adult WC pair of festae, that this vendor owns/owned, so I know where that leaves me.
 
A Look At Our Breeders

http://cichlidsoftheamericas.com/id6.html

Top right corner pic is what was sent to me, although not in a distorted manner as the one shown on the website.

BTW - the person who sent me that original image, also bought some of these WC 1" festae.
 
It is just my $.02 here but I would say this is kind of splitting hairs. To me it really doesn't matter too much if a fish is F0 or F1. You are not really going to see any differences in terms of genetics. The only effect that is going to be seen is when you continue to breed siblings of the same spawn for several generations.

And the truth is you really never know when you are buying a fish what it's true lineage is. Until there is some type of system like you see with different breeds of dogs and cats where you get an individual with papers from a reputable association. I have felt for a while that this would be very beneficial to the aquarium community but how and who would actually start one. I think a more likely step would be to have many of the reputable breeders create there own credentialing system but of course that would increase the cost of these species and only be as good as the word of the breeder in the first place (which seems to be what is starting this whole discussion in the first place).

I would say that because all we have is the breeders word that is really what we have to go off of. And as I am a fairly trusting person, that is enough for me. Plus there is the factor that most sellers are not doing the collecting in the first place so really they can only sell you what they believe they are being given in the first place. But as in all things, mistakes happen. Of course though these sellers are not going to have a business if they have a bad reputation, that is why I would tend to believe in what they are selling.

-Cage
 
I don't think that a vendor advertising & selling something that they know it most definitely is not, is splitting hairs. I also believe that everyone has more than just a vendors word to go off of, it's called common sense.

For those that want to believe that anyone is out collecting 3/4"-1" festae fry, in the Rio Tumbes River, in Sept, long after spawning season has ended, that's certainly your prerogative.
 
I agree - In many cases I'd much rather have F1 than truly wild fish. The market - for reasons valid and otherwise - places a premium on "wild" fish. So that's what's available, at least in name.

That said, isn't selling tank (or pond) raised fish as wild kind of like selling a 2010 car as a 2011 and rationalizing that it's OK by convincing yourself that they're basically the same model?

That it's simply not possible to know the origins of fish is often hogwash, especially from the original importer.

If the parents and the fish in question are truly from <wherever>, then there should be some kind of evidence that the fish came from that place: an invoice. Shipping documents. Or pictures of the collecting trip (and not from the '90s). Or pictures or documentation from the exporter in the host country. Or documentation needed to get through US customs.

Mistakes and mix-ups happen but this is a different issue.

Matt

cage623 said:
It is just my $.02 here but I would say this is kind of splitting hairs. To me it really doesn't matter too much if a fish is F0 or F1. You are not really going to see any differences in terms of genetics. The only effect that is going to be seen is when you continue to breed siblings of the same spawn for several generations.

And the truth is you really never know when you are buying a fish what it's true lineage is. Until there is some type of system like you see with different breeds of dogs and cats where you get an individual with papers from a reputable association. I have felt for a while that this would be very beneficial to the aquarium community but how and who would actually start one. I think a more likely step would be to have many of the reputable breeders create there own credentialing system but of course that would increase the cost of these species and only be as good as the word of the breeder in the first place (which seems to be what is starting this whole discussion in the first place).

I would say that because all we have is the breeders word that is really what we have to go off of. And as I am a fairly trusting person, that is enough for me. Plus there is the factor that most sellers are not doing the collecting in the first place so really they can only sell you what they believe they are being given in the first place. But as in all things, mistakes happen. Of course though these sellers are not going to have a business if they have a bad reputation, that is why I would tend to believe in what they are selling.

-Cage
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