...I'll check the show out, but most of these are extremely skewed. Twisted & edited to fit the narrative.
Sad but so true. The vast majority of these shows have their own agenda and present the facts and quasi-facts in a light designed to elicit the response which they are seeking.
...I don't see how one can say cb is more ethical than wild caught. The freshwater cb industry is horrid with a flush & replace mentality. Most wild specimens are for us niche hobbyist & not in very high demand due to cost.
Every aspect of society is equally as "horrid with a flush & replace mentality".
A fish, reptile or any other animal taken from the wild for the pet trade might as well, from the perspective of conservation, simply be killed on the spot. It's been removed from the gene pool and will never contribute to the perpetuation of the species. The number of these animals that will be captive-bred and re-introduced to the wild is vanishingly small; others will be bred and sold further into the trade, but most will simply grow old and die...or more likely, just die. The chance they afford for people to come in contact with them and hopefully develop some concern for nature in general is about the only positive effect they have.
...It's funny I actually went wild caught & saltwater to weed out the riff raff in the hobby along with not giving my money to unethical businesses.
Admirable attitude (or rationalization...), but so rare as to be statistically meaningless.
...Decent space to live, good food, consistent environment & no predation...its not a bad life compared to trying to make it to adult good in the brutality of mother nature.
Read through a bunch of threads on this or other fish forums. Then tell me how many of those fish actually enjoy the benefits you list.
In nature, very few animals actually die of "old age"; predation picks most of them off long before they grow old or even mature. But I would bet that the percentage of aquarium-raised fish that die of old age is even smaller than that in nature. Predation may not be as big an issue, but generally poor husbandry conditions accounts for the vast majority of fish deaths in aquariums. An aquarist who ignores all advice, does no research, buys a bunch of fish and throws them into an uncycled tank is simply killing them. But a seasoned, experienced aquarist who keeps a fish for years, but then loses it to a failed heater, burst aquarium, chemical poison, deficient nutrition or other calamity...is still responsible for the death of that fish. Dead is dead; the "brutality of mother nature" is no more or less lethal than the indifference, ignorance, neglect or just plain bad luck of fishkeepers.
I've got a couple of WC fish which I will never breed, so I see the hypocrisy in my comment, but it isn't easy to go whole-hog on any issues like this. Want to lose weight? Eat less, exercise more; simple, right? Yes...but the best action from a global perspective would be to just stop eating and die. Most of us don't want to take it to that extreme. We will take steps in the direction which we believe is right, but we aren't looking to be martyrs...or heroes...
