Fw: Cardinals in the Wild

["Karen Randall" <krandall at world_std.com>]

Dear Karen;

       Happy Hollidays!

Thank you for forwarding this "mis"-information.  The rarity of cardinal tetra in the pet shop is mostly caused by inadequate management and care throughout the trade chain.  Wild cardinal can double to 60 million fishes per year and they are still sustainable.  The major problem is the stress that cardinals go through from forest streams, to exporters, importors and finally to consumers.  When cardinal reach to cosumer, they probably already over-stressed and die soon after.  Retail stores do not carry cardinals, because the customer satisfaction is usually low.  

`We are working on this problem, change the way way fishers and local buyers are managing the fish.  We just had finished a first expedition with NEAq and NAIB vets to check the stress conditions from the fishing grounds to exporters.  

Captive breeding of cardinal tetras can destroy the entire ornamental fishery in the Amazon.   This will bring disasterous consequences to rural-riverine communities, then they may opt to harvest much more environmental damaging livelihood, such as, logging, mining and hunting threatened wildlife, the social structure will also change; massive urban migration have already ocurred in the last decade in those communities without sustainable resources like ornamental fishes.

During the high water season (May to July), also the spawning season, fishery stops.   Project Piaba has sucessfully helped the fishers to obtain unemployment benefits from government program this year.  For fish and fishers it is a win-win situation.

Improving the wild caught fish quality and health is the most urgent task of Project Piaba.


Sincerely Yours,


Labbish 


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