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Re: Exotics
Hi, Guys!
We have to understand that fish are skilled survivalists... I remember
reading (if memory serves it was in TFH)about a species that couldn't live
in the cold and so no one was worried that they would establish themselves,
it was discovered that a outflow from a factory/power plant warmed the
water enough so that the species did survive. Caution is the name of the
game.
Dave Hall
----------
> From: Herb Harris <top_side at geocities_com>
> To: nfc at actwin_com
> Subject: Re: Exotics
> Date: Saturday, May 30, 1998 11:47 AM
>
> Hi Sam,
>
> I am not able to speak for the DNR, but seems to me that at some point
> we have to let those guys do their job themselves.
> What I mean is this, many factors can affect whether or not a given
> species is capable of establishing itself in the wild. I'd say these
> folks really don't check each and every species of aquarium fish (exotic
> or not) as to just what particular factor will stop it, but I'm sure
> they use common guidelines on most of these decisions where called for,
> such as factoring the native range of the fish for cold tolerance, and
> perhaps even going so far as checking into whether studies have been
> done on the life history of the fish that would indicate other factors
> like water quality, breeding behavior, and such. Maybe they even take
> into account the general suitability and popularity as aquarium fish to
> judge the degree of difficulty to maintain these fish even by someone
> assisting them.
> Now we can use some guidelines here ourselves, just to see whether
> these fish can pass our admittedly non sophisticated tests. Can these
> fish arrange to have themselves moved to public water? No? Well... maybe
> that's too obvious, so lets try another. Can these fish live in your
> freezer? No? Well, we may be on to something!
> I joke here, but you get my drift, most of us aren't fisheries
> biologist, and can only go by what they tell us at some point. If they
> say on their own published document that the list of prohibited exotics
> is xyz, then who are we to argue? They have good reasons to list these
> fish as prohibited, and since all others are not on the list, we can
> only assume that they have done their job and found no other fish to be
> a problem in their opinion. We can assume that there may come a day that
> they reassess their findings for a particular species, but till them,
> let them do their job is what I say.
> We can check into it further for you if you want to go there though.
> Please don't think I'm not sympathetic to the fellow trying to follow
> the law, but the law needs clarification, and even the agency that
> administers the law has no clearcut answers for you. Bet on that!
>
>
> Herb
>
> Samuel J. Petrie wrote:
> >
> >snip<
> > As I said in my first (inadvertent) post, it is a little unclear to me
> > how one can be certain whether a given fish could survive outside it's
> > normal range. Even though I would never release a native aquarium fish,
> > I think that it is important for people such as us who are interested
in
> > keeping native fish to set a good example by learning and obeying state
> > fishing regulations. If they mean only that the listed species (ruffe,
> > sea lamprey, etc) are prohibited, that makes it simple. But if they
> > mean it more broadly, that no species capable of surviving in the state
> > can be brought across the state border, then it gets more complicated.
> > It is probably safe to say that an Everglades Pygmy Sunfish couldn't
> > live this far north, but what about, say, an Orangebelly Darter? I
don't
> > know how you could know with certainty.
> >
> > Am I reading too much into this? I would love to hear from anyone who
> > has encountered this issue before.
> >
> > Sam
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