Legal, illegal, bans, licences..help!

[TwoHedWlf]

I've always wondered what would happen if a guy got his hands on a couple pairs of banned fish that were only banned because they were endangered in the wild but then he found a way to breed them and started doing it on a large scale. Would he be a special circumstance thus be granted exemption from the law? Would the law be as cold as ever and seize his animals and have them destroyed?

Just because they're banned doesn't mean they're always destroyed. And there is a distinction between possession being banned due to being an invasive, or destructive unwanted organism and banned because they're endangered.

You're caught in illegal possession of a breeding population of dozens of koi? Yeah, they're banned for being destructive, they'll kill them all. You have an illegal breeding population of dozens of kakapo, you really think they'll kill them? No.

 

[Fat Homer]

According to the application form, if you drain your water directly into the sewage, that's acceptable. This actually works perfectly for me because I have a drain just a couple feet outside my house.

Closed-water system is defined as a closed system or systems that treat holding water and sediments sufficiently to ensure against the release of live organisms, including parasites, pathogens and viruses, into the waters of the state. For purposes of this section, municipal treated sewage systems are not considered waters of the state.

Given this, I think if I had a good filtration system, a large enough tank, and a water change system that ran the water through a uv and then into the sewer, I might meet the requirements for the permit and be able to keep rays in Georgia...

One thing I'm not completely clear on is whether they're referring to co-mingling of fish that can breed with the restricted fish, or simply co-mingling of the restricted fish with any other fish at all:

Co-mingling or hybridization of restricted and non-restricted species is prohibited unless authorized by the department. If restricted species are co-mingled or hybridized with non-restricted species, all such animals shall be considered restricted species for the purpose of these regulations. Such co-mingled restricted species that can be individually identified as non-restricted and that can be separated from the restricted species may be exempt from this provision with prior department approval.

From my understanding of reading your post, especially the highlighted part, it sounds like as long as the banned / restricted fish is being hybridized with a legal species, it will still automatically be put into the restricted species category or banned category as long as you dont have a license or permission from the correct state dept to breed / keep them...

Just because they're banned doesn't mean they're always destroyed. And there is a distinction between possession being banned due to being an invasive, or destructive unwanted organism and banned because they're endangered.

You're caught in illegal possession of a breeding population of dozens of koi? Yeah, they're banned for being destructive, they'll kill them all. You have an illegal breeding population of dozens of kakapo, you really think they'll kill them? No.

I’ve often wondered that too.

Do they always keep these fish alive just because they are endangered? Main reason because they would need a place to keep these fish until i guess they could goto a zoo or some other facility which is allowed to keep said fish, which cant be an easy task when there are so many obstacles one must pass in order to keep them legally...

 

[Ogertron3000]

Just because they're banned doesn't mean they're always destroyed. And there is a distinction between possession being banned due to being an invasive, or destructive unwanted organism and banned because they're endangered.

You're caught in illegal possession of a breeding population of dozens of koi? Yeah, they're banned for being destructive, they'll kill them all. You have an illegal breeding population of dozens of kakapo, you really think they'll kill them? No.

Here any banned fish that's been illegally imported is destroyed, doesn't matter what it is, the reason is not just the type of fish but possible pathogens/bacteria. Not sure if it's true but I've heard the fisheries guys will pour clove oil into your tank then once the fish are dead they pour in a heap of bleach to kill the microbes too.

It's weird I can buy a convict for $5 and no one cares but if I imported one I would be fined $50000. Its due to a ruling that if a banned fish is already here before The ban came into effect it can be bred and traded but you can't import the same species as it is now banned.

 

[Itsadeepbluesea]

I've always wondered what would happen if a guy got his hands on a couple pairs of banned fish that were only banned because they were endangered in the wild but then he found a way to breed them and started doing it on a large scale. Would he be a special circumstance thus be granted exemption from the law? Would the law be as cold as ever and seize his animals and have them destroyed?

If they were endangered I doubt they would destroy them. The would certainly confiscate them and the person who had the would be a loads of trouble.

 

[fishhead0103666]

Wouldn’t or shouldn’t the fact that they were breeding them negate that it was done illegally? In a world of fairness it should but the government is a cruel cold sob that does not care more often than it does.

 

[Fat Homer]

What Ogertron3000 said is something i keep forgetting about and that its not always so much about if the fish is endangered or not but more so about the possible pathogens / diseases that could be released into local waterways that could have serious impact on the eco system it enters... In which case even the most endangered species may not be safe...

Especially when you consider most people dont look at fish the same way as other species of endangered animals...

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

If a seized fish has value and the FWC has the means / convenience at hand, they may transfer the fish to a research institution or an educational one, given the said institution is a proven and trusted collaborator.

I don't think it happens often though.

In Florida, there is an FWC-run Pet Amnesty Program in place where people can surrender their illegal fish voluntarily at certain time and place and are not persecuted. Places like ours can apply to be a participant in that program and can rescue some of these fish if they have a license to keep them, or if a fish is not illegal but just overgrown, the means to keep them, like a 2' pacu or RTC. Otherwise, the fish is destroyed.

The cumulative tales of destroyed fish at the ports of entry over decades are hair raising to any fish keeper, like killing a shipment of hundreds of arapaima on any given day because the importer didn't have their paperwork right / no license. Talk to any FWC officer that works a point of entry into the country. They can't keep this seized fish, have no capability, no tanks, and no such procedures in their job descriptions. They may keep them in the shipping bags in which they were seized but that's not for long. So everything gets killed off, endangered, schmendagered, or not.

Foreign pathogens is one important factor besides posing a danger to ecosystems or humans or both but not the only, I was told. There are other considerations.

Hence, even if the seized fish are native to Florida, they are not released but destroyed... like a quarter million of alligator gar fry flown in from Texas into Florida for a guy without correct paperwork... or snapping turtles, you name it.

 

[TwoHedWlf]

Wouldn’t or shouldn’t the fact that they were breeding them negate that it was done illegally? In a world of fairness it should but the government is a cruel cold sob that does not care more often than it does.

Not necessarily. Part of the problem with hobbyists breeding endangered animals is they're usually of little value to conservation efforts afterwards. Official breeding programs go to a lot of effort to ensure that they don't interbreed subspecies, different regions, minimize inbreeding, etc. But hobbyists? "These two I got off ebay look like they're the same species according to Google and they're rare, Neat! I'll breed them!" This goes for everything, fish, birds, lizards even things like possums and goats.
(Yeah, I know there are some hobbyists that do care, but they're by far in the minority.)
A specific example of this if I can remember correctly from a presentation by someone Department of Conservation people was the orange fronted Kakariki. There are 200 or so in the wild. But there are thousands or tens of thousands of kakariki in the pet trade in NZ and overseas. Many sold as orange fronted, but are actually yellow crowned which is a different species, or they're interbred with other species.

But then, say you did get some kakariki that are probably mostly orange fronted, doesn't mean they're worthless. You can put them in zoos on display, still can have some value to conservation efforts even if not as breeding stock.