Re: reintroduction -- or - The Etiquette on How to Introduce Fish

["S. Hieber" <shieber at yahoo_com>]

Bill Wichers said a lot of good stuff about the
environment, plastics, introducing elements from one
environ to another, etc.  But he also said this:

> The idea that taking a fish
> out of a population 
> for a while for study and then returning *the same fish*
> to *the same 
> population* is going to somehow introduce all kinds of
> diseases is simply 
> illogical. 

Respectfully, Bill, I think this is a bit of a strawman
argument here, although I might be reading too much into
asingle remark in a self-avowed rant.   Technically, it's
not actually illogical (in principle it is possible); it's
just extraordinarily improbable -- enough so that no one
actually suggested this as far as I can recall.  I think
the points were more along the line that there was some
risk that *any* (not all) of large number of things could
be introduced, with the potential for substantial effects. 
I agree that the probability of an occurence is extremely
low (and I personally think it's too small to fret over)
but they aren't unreasonable positions to maintain -- heck
they could even be right.  that would mean that I was
wrong, but that happens, or so I've been told.

But forget about arguing that Tom should not put the fish
in the water -- I'm more concerned about the bigger issue. 
I'm not sure I'm comfortable with Tom going in the water --
what the heck is that introducing ;-)


Scott H., who hasn't been introduced for quite some time.

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Search - Faster. Easier. Bingo
http://search.yahoo.com