[Killietalk] Species maintenance?

["Ken Combs" <KCombs at mergerx_net>]

Apologies Doctor...
I did not check here: http://fins.actwin.com/killietalk/month.200505/
1st before posting this topic: 
Your post: 17:06:37 -0400
My post: 17:26:41 -0400

Perhaps what you said needed to be said, in any event, I promise you, my
2nd post was not in response to yours, it was a derivative of my own
train of thought. More importantly it was a concern. Before everyone
gets too steamed at me, a few thoughts are somewhat on point:

SJO "Loe" is out there "somewhere", but whoever has it ain't easy to
find. Dr. Ramsey has pointed out the hazards of exposing oneself as a
source of a high demand fish. That tells me the "demand" for the fish
isn't the problem...based on Dr.Ramseys testimony, it's the hobbyist
that are falling into a black hole and taking the fish with them...Hmmm,
interesting (that's a supportive "Hmmm", not a skeptical "hmmm")

The mention of "Newbies" to me implies there IS a correlation between
"retention", the number of species in the hobby, and the number of
species the hobby can bear. I follow the logic here; you would think SJO
"Loe" would be an ideal "seed" species for newbies (I can see the "draw"
as opposed to GAR "Akure")...

So if one were to argue about "priority of effort"; collecting vs.
recruitment/retention, then the data collection effort would then seem
pertinent (uh go back a few months to one of my longer rants, ya know,
when I really started twisting everyone off)... 

This whole matter is sorted; allow me to unwind it (as I see it)

A) being secretive about what you have has its hazards, but it's a catch
22. Basically it artificially affects the "supply end" and in turn
affects the demand...
B) Collecting fish is another catch 22. It keeps the hobby refreshed,
but w/o data to the contrary, "appears" to squeeze more species into a
fixed based of hobbyist. It would be very pertinent to know the rate of
organizational growth vs. general population growth. If the hobby's
slope is smaller, we need to get proactive...Obviously, we would also
need to know the ratio of species/hobbyist and the avg. species per
hobbyist...Frankly, one must weigh the effort of data collection against
ANY effort towards conservation programs in general. Otherwise how the
hell do we know if what we are doing is effective or worth it? 

Frankly, from where I sit, going out and "collecting hobbyist" is more
important than collecting "new & rare" species...Ya'll wonder why the
avg. age of the killie keeper keeps rising. It's simple: where have we
been directing our efforts? Should we concentrate on collecting,
breeding, distributing fish or breeding new hobbyist? Again I say; we
seem to be creating our own work...
The relevancy/tie-in here against the earlier convention & newbie
threads is glaringly obvious. Perhaps we may need to drift away from the
old way of thinking. True the AKA has been in business for 50yrs or
whatever, and true, the old farts landed here 1st. But how do we now the
current "life forms" have'nt modified the atmosphere to suit themselves?
Perhaps the new aliens can't breathe this air? 

Ken says a lot, again:




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