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Re: NFC: ERP IS BACK!!!
Luke (mcclurgl at washburn_edu) wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
...question: How do you "enforce" this restriction?
Ten generations down the line, who knows what fish
came from where and what grandpa promised to
whom? The idea shows thought, but I feel is totally
unworkable.
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Point well taken, this is not "enforceable" in any reasonably practical way, it's effectiveness would clearly depend on an honor system / moral commitment on the part of the recipients of ERT-provided exotics.
However, the current "re-distribution of fish rule" implies that we take care of this issue simply by shipping (southern) exotic fish north of the Mason Dixon line. Enforcement by presumed biology, I guess. That doesn't seem to offer a very good level of environmental protection in my admittedly amateur opinion. In many cases we seem to have these problems with nonindigenous species precisely because we didn't understand the bio-implications or adaptability of critters that were intentionally introduced with nominally good intentions. To paraphrase the chaos theory character from Jurassic Park, "Life will find a way."
A somewhat extremist view would be to decide that any and all nonindigeous critters collected by NFC recognized ERTs will be (humanely) killed, on-site or as soon as is reasonably possible. This would presumably cut down on the "feral recidivism" rate. This seems extreme to me, we could be killing ERT-caught U.S. specimens of some fish at the same time that LFS and consumer demand is causing the continued wild-capture of the same species in the Amazon or elsewhere.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Ten generations down the line, who knows
what fish came from where and what grandpa
promised to whom?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Well, my answer to that is that ten generations down the line, I desperately hope that we are not tracking "this fish came from a restricted use parentage, but these two over here didn't." I hope by then we'll have elevated the general level of public awareness on the issue, through use of our unenforceable "no re-release" policy etc., to the point that EVERYONE will accept, as an article of unquestionable faith, that WE NEVER RELEASE NON-INDIGENOUS "PETS" INTO THE WILD, PERIOD.
HTH
Doug Dame
Interlachen/Gainesville FL
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