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Re: -- serious letter



Let me suggest that if the outflow of the pond is not contained from
draining into natural bodies of water, that you consider carefully what you
would stock.  Ideally, you would want to stock fish collected from natural
bodies of water in the immediate vicinity of the pond.  Of course not all
of those will necessarily be naturally occuring natives either, so you
might want to wittle those species down to only those that are naturally
occuring.  Though not a certainty, the possibility exists that anything you
introduce could move from there into other water bodies.  This is why it
would be important to use only locally collected, native fishes.
Introducing fish from more distant systems could change the genetic
constitution of the local populations.  This may seem to be nit picking,
but there's no way to really know what the impact of an introduction might
be.  If you want to take the ecological high road, this is it.

Granted, others may not be as concerned about dumping whatever generic
fish-like animal into whatever body of water.  That's no reason for those
of us who really know our native fishes to perpetuate this ignorant
attitude.


Mark Binkley
Columbus Ohio USA          <))><
mbinkley at earthling_net

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach him
to use "the Net" and he won't bother you for weeks.