Blue2Fyre;5045771; said:
Unfortunately, federal law supercedes state laws in these matters. Currently, bringing any live SH species, and/or their viable eggs, across state lines for any reason is a felony.
keeping illegal fish
- Thread starter nicholasdances
- Start date
Unfortunately, federal law supercedes state laws in these matters. Currently, bringing any live SH species, and/or their viable eggs, across state lines for any reason is a felony.
mrblah;5045805; said:
Actually, I haven't lived with my parents or been in highschool for over 35 years. And, whether or not your friends or neighbors are keeping illegal species does not detract from the fact that their doing so is criminal in nature since they're going against the law. And, I'm sure they really appreciate someone announcing their business in a public forum.
I love nature and I'll kill an invasive species on sight no problem but we have larger issues with bait minnows than with anything in the aquarium. My parents lake has introduced trout and introduced pike. We think they came from bait minnows that get dumped every day when fishermen retire. we also got those little gobie looking things and zebra muscles. We've pretty much lost the fresh water jellies(these algae eating green blobs the float around) that used to thrive perch are a rarity at this point when they used to be as common as blue gill. I'm just saying fishing is making invasive species a real problem. If you think carp and snake head are the poster children for invasive you forgot the fisherman.
Aquarium fish are probably the smallest group of introduced fish, you're right. Look at the lionfish infestation in the Caribbean, thanks to a single ship's ballast water.
At the end of the day doesn't all this legislation just feel superfluous just make kill on sight laws and no release laws for invasive animals and no catch limit and let the rest take care of itself. We fail epically at real conservation especially for aquatic environments. Nothing laws do now strikes at the source of the problems. Its band-aids on a broken leg that we can't really set without killing of people. I don't propose a explicit solution but I can say that laws as they exist do nothing meaningful. Banning carp now doesn't really fix the problem does it? Banning snake head now helps how? We aren't gonna have some amazing moment where we sit down and say hey our number one priority is conservation and invest meaningfully in wiping out carp and snake-head and dogs and cats. We'll chalk up all bear attacks and mountain lion attacks to the name of conservation. We aren't objective in this, we are part of the evolution of this planet all we can do is be sensitive to it and try to preserve where we can but really this legislation does nothing to really preserve anything meaningfully. They talk about how the carp eats up all the algae, well so do the zebra muscles and these little suckers that are invasive now too.
Its coming form all direction and its called change.
Its coming form all direction and its called change.
It's a rather sobering thought to realize that a single person could permanently alter the ecosystem and future evolution of an entire continent...imagine if someone released Wels catfish into the Great Lakes the same way they did in Spain? Or one guy dumping a dozen small Nile Perch in Lake Victoria?
I know but the aquarium hobby has less impact on the environment than fishing. I was watching deadliest catch last night and thinking, hey aren't we eating native species there? Aren't we being invasive. The thought that something other than us altering stuff seems so wrong but maybe its supposed to be that way. Its scary and makes you feel like you have no control. The nile perch is horrible but maybe now is the time to collect and breed and preserve the fish and not wait for nile perch to finish everything off. I don't know it all feels and sounds so overwhelming. I'm typing on a computer that has parts from asia that could have brought over insects during transit that could now be invasive ya know. The globalization of our economy also means the globalization of our wildlife in some respects. 
SimonL;5045884; said:
It is a terrifying idea. I'd hope that we'd throw that guy in jail for life. I don't think banning wels really does anything ya know.
The Nile Perch is actually the centerpiece of a multi-billion dollar fishing industry in Tanzania and the countries bordering Lake Vic. Thing is people would rather sacrifice all the native fish (mostly small cichlids) to get an economic boon. If you're interested, there's a fantastic but depressing documentary call Darwin's Nightmare dealing with it. Many of the species bred by Victorian cichlid keepers aren't even found in the wild anymore.
I think the Wels is the best fish to ban! It can undoubtedly survive, is incredibly fast growing and will eat everything with no natural predators. Not something we really want in our waters.
I think the Wels is the best fish to ban! It can undoubtedly survive, is incredibly fast growing and will eat everything with no natural predators. Not something we really want in our waters.
