Dojo/Weather Loaches are Officially Banned in Australia

[Bubble_B0y]

:crp

i'm not sure about Hillstream loaches
i'm trying to find that out too.

shame for aquarists in australia - not many coldwater fish to choose from

Dojo are considered noxtious species from the lakes where they originate

 

[mr86mister]

now is this because people are releasing them into streams and rivers?

 

[Hrafnkel]

Aren't all loaches illegal in Australia?

Come to think of it, everything's illegal in Australia.

 

[Bubble_B0y]

i'm not sure

i was asking a few fish importers and specialty aquarium stores and this is what they told me.

 

[Bubble_B0y]

Aren't all loaches illegal in Australia?

Come to think of it, everything's illegal in Australia.

LMAO !!!!

well Kuhli and Clown Loaches are available- but they are tropical !!!
hillstream and dojo are coldwater

 

[Toirtis]

Coincidentally in the news yesterday:

Woman Allegedly Smuggles Fish in Cream Jar

BRISBANE, Australia - A 50-year-old woman has been charged with a quarantine offense for allegedly smuggling three tiny fish in a face cream jar into Australia from Taiwan, a government official said Thursday.

The woman, an Australian resident of Taiwanese descent, faces a maximum prison term of 10 years and a 110,000 Australian dollar ($82,889) fine on a charge for smuggling wildlife - juvenile fish each less than half an inch long, Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service spokesman Carson Creagh said.

"It does mystify us why she would bring such tiny fish in such a strange way," Creagh said.

Airport officials found the live fish in a cold cream jar filled with water in the woman's luggage when she arrived at Brisbane International Airport on Australia's east coast Tuesday.

The fish had not yet been identified, Creagh said. They will eventually be destroyed.

The woman was also carrying aquarium weed, leading officials to suspect she wanted to keep the fish as pets.

The woman's name has not been released and she has yet to appear in court on the charge.

"Quarantine officers couldn't be certain they were free from diseases or parasites that could have devastated our native wildlife," Creagh said.

Source: Associated Press/AP Online

 

[Bubble_B0y]

OH DEAR !!!

i better NOT persuade my LFS to try and import hillstreams and dojo's !!

 

[Felf]

everything is illegal here too

 

[Toirtis]

everything is illegal here too

Yes, and you poor beggars cannot even have snakes.

 

[Felf]

you're telling me...ferrets, snakes, spiders, many amphibians, SHRIMP(except local ones), PLANTS(a good number), CLAMS, you name it. we have wild mongoose though lol. tons of things are illegal because most of the indigenous wildlife never had to defend themselves from an onslaught of predators so when ppl released alien species, it was already too late. we used to go to the local stream and catch cichlids, gigantic plecos, koi, etc but never see any native fish...it's all sad but i think we should be allowing even less pets into the state.

 

[Bubble_B0y]

did u know that KOI is banned in certain australian states !!

very sad

 

[Toirtis]

But to be fair, a lot of Hawaii's invasive species came from stupid governments past...like the introduction of cichlids and dart frogs to control mosquitos. Has the current gov finally done something to help mow down the chameleon population problems?

 

[Felf]

i'm seeing more chameleons than ever...yeah tilapia for mosquitos, mongoose for (i forgot what), tahitian prawns for food, etc but the government didnt introduce all the different fish and such i see; not nearly that many.

 

[greenmaji]

I would venture to guess the mongoose were for some kind of snake control..
Ive always wanted a chameleon, I never knew HI had issues with them though.
This has been a great thread for this particular issue.. "invasive species" good work guys!

 

[Toirtis]

I would venture to guess the mongoose were for some kind of snake control..

I would have too, except that Hawaii has never had snakes, so prophylactically introducing a predator makes no sense.

Aha, an excellent site that explains it....mongoose were introduced to prey on the introduced rats.

http://www.earlham.edu/~biol/hawaii/mammals.htm
http://www.earlham.edu/~biol/hawaii/reptiles.htm
http://www.earlham.edu/~biol/hawaii/amphibians.htm

Ive always wanted a chameleon, I never knew HI had issues with them though.

Big problems with the Jackson's chameleon....with large litters, ideal climate and plentiful food, and no natural predators, the population exploded...capture and exportation in 1984-2000 kept the population somewhat in check, but for some reason the governor halted this practice about 5 years ago, so the population has been increasing ever since.

As for how they were intriduced, a few stories exist, but this one seems most accurate (although I took this patrticular quote from a site that has some glaring inaccuracies in information....

"In 1972, Robin Ventura was given a Hawaii State Department of Agriculture permit to import Jackson's Chameleons to be sold in his Kaneohe pet shop. Several dozen chameleons arrived thin and dehydrated, so he released them into his Kaneohe Bay Drive backyard, incorrectly anticipating that they could be retrieved later. The chameleons increased in number and by the late 1970s had spread to the base of the Koolau Mountains."

Another interesting quote:

"Jackson's chameleons have established breeding populations in several areas around the Big Island, including Glenwood in East Hawai'i and Honaunau in West Hawai'i. They've been found in Mauna Loa Estates, and may have a resident population in Volcano Village, just outside the Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park boundaries.
Left to themselves, the Jackson's chameleons can rapidly build population density in one area - according to Duvall, a survey one half-acre test plot yielded 173 chameleons - but slow-moving lizards probably wouldn't spread very rapidly. They've found a strange ally, however: humans, who are often fascinated by the lizards' very oddity."

"On Maui, Duvall and members of the Maui Invasive Species Committee (MISC) are fighting to prevent one of those scenarios. They're in the thick of an effort to contain a breeding colony of veiled chameleons. more than 60 veiled chameleons have been captured or turned in from an area near Makawao. Another dead lizard has been found on a coffee plantation above Ka'anapali in West Maui."


http://www.hear.org/species/chameleo_calyptratus/chameleo_calyptratus_misc_flyer_feb2003.pdf
http://www.hear.org/misc/misc_target_species/veiledchameleon.htm

A good list of Hawaiian invasives (including tropical fishes):
http://www.hear.org/AlienSpeciesInHawaii/InfoIndexVertebrates.htm#refs

 

[Felf]

oh yeah rats. my grandmother used to always say that the problem was that rats were nocturnal and mongoose were diurnal; my great grandfather used to bet on mongoose fights :| anyone want a fighting chicken? we have a ton of those running around and everyone in this neigborhood owns at least one. there's a kind of saltwater growth/plant that's linked with polution that smothered most of the coral in this bay. i live in a slightly rural suburb on oahu so these things are all common place. i'm really tired so i apologize if i'm just going on tangents. i do what i can like not releasing anything into the wild and promoting awareness to younger kids. i myself am only 19 and have seen the disappearance of many things around me especially fish. it'd be comforting to know that when i have children i can show them a wild hawaiian owl, a reef full of fish, a patch of native plants but things change for better or worse. i can only hope and do anything short of devoting my entire life to preserving what we have.