why are VIP REDS illegal in U.S.?

[bangerang103]

title says it they are very pretty fish is it for release purposes? Could there be a reason do they get like gigantic?


just want to know, and if anyone in the us has one what is the fine or trouble..

 

[DiXoN]

they are illegal because they are on the endangered species list.
if you look through this arowana section you will find many threads about it.

 

[davo]

Because like many of the other pretty morphs... they are all asian arowana, and the US has laws making it illegal for you to keep them as they are a protected species.

 

[johnptc]

lacey act

 

[M|L]

not just VIP reds, but any variant of the species Scleropages formosus is illegal.

it is Appendix I under CITES, so the US places it under the endangered species list.

 

[killerlexus]

yet these fish are bred in farms by the hundreds.

 

[aropal]

yet these fish are bred in farms by the hundreds.

Well of course when the law was first considered there was not the micro chipped mass farming that we have now. Since that time however it has become increasingly clear just how much damage non native species can do to local ecosystems.

I’m sure you can imagine how many people in the warmer parts of the US would immediately start breeding programmes and the proportional damage unleashed when many of those fish, as would be inevitable, worked their way into the water system.

It would be ecological madness to allow Asian arowana into the warmer parts of the US even if they are very pretty fish.

 

[Zoodiver]

Mirco chipping, mass farms and the like have done nothing by way of removing them from 'endangered' status.

 

[T1KARMANN]

its so we can get something in the UK you cant get in the US

 

[aropal]

Mirco chipping, mass farms and the like have done nothing by way of removing them from 'endangered' status.

Buying micro chipped fish has no impact at all on a fishes endangered status, that's the point.