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Re: Need California native fish (& WATER PLANTS!)
On Thu, 30 Jul 1998 Ramseyers at AOL_COM wrote:
> really surprises me that endangered fish cannot be raised in captivity and
> made available to pond owners with intentions such as mine. Can these fish
> really be as frail as California Condors?
It doesn't matter if it is a mammal, bird, fish, or bug, once they are listed
restrictions come in to stop people removing them from the wild. The only way
to ensure people aren't doing this is to make them illegal to possess (dead or
alive) unless you can demonstrate you had them prior to listing.
> I won't be bent if I cannot have endangered fish in my pond. I'm sure there
> are other CA natives that will be perfectly fine. So, any suggestions for
> fish that aren't impossible to get in 1998?
Given that you live in southern California most of the fishes there are listed
to the best of my knowledge and there aren't that many native fish to begin
with. There are some chubs (Gila orcutti) and probably sticklebacks that one
can collect. I'd make a trip to the upper Mohave River and see what you can
find there, it is full of exotic fish and no natives are present anymore
though some other Californian natives have been translocated there. You need
to drop by a fishing tackle shop and get a copy of the fishing regs, they may
contain a list of prohibited species, or at least tell you what you can
collect as bait fish. You should visit a library first at look at Fishes of
California by Peter Moyle so you at least have some idea of what you are
catching so when the ranger says "that's an endangered so and so" you can
reply, "no, it's not, it's an uppius yoursius, don't you know your fish?" :-)
Tootles
Peter Unmack
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