Andy Sager
Aquarium Advice Addict
I think you may have misinterpreted me, I don't support wild catching either. We have thousands if not Millions of tank bred species that are out there to go home to an appropriate tank! We don't need to create or catch fish. Probably should've been more clear with that.
But this brings up the question " When have we gone too far with our fish?" Yes, most of the fish we have available today are tank bred and raised but not all fish available are that way. There would be no new discoveries of fish species if there were no fish being collected for the aquarium trade. People fishing for food fish aren't interested in those "pretty little fish" that got stuck in the nets.
Look how many fish weren't discovered until the 1990s or later. I missed out on a whole bunch of fish because I got out of the freshwater fish biz around 1987. Then again, there are so many new variations to the fish that were available to me back then or before that don't even resemble their wild ancestors. It's on the verge of fascinating but then the production of glo-fish types makes me think we finally crossed the line. They ran out of things to change about the fish's appearance so they made the fish genetically different? All in all, these are still the same fish they started out as ( i.e. Zebra Danio, Tiger barb, etc.) they just look different. So if making a long finned variety of a fish is okay, then we should be OK with making a genetically altered fish. Right? I guess it's an ethics thing. To me, they crossed the line with them. I won't be keeping them in my tanks for that reason and that reason alone. It's up to us all when to say STOP, we have enough variety. ( BTW, there are a number of fish we used to keep back in the day that I don't see anymore in fish stores. I wonder why not? Is it because good enough is never really good enough? Just something to ponder )