IMO, keeping wild caught Discus is not horrible. Other than being far less colorful
and without the extra long fins, I found that the wild discus did just as well as the Jack Wattley turquoise and the German Cobalts I used to keep.
I don't believe Discus are endangered. Although they are considered by some in the US to be one of the apex fish to keep. I imagine that the average South American consider Discus to be nothing more than a common and abundant sunfish type fish.
I join in with questioning the term "Horrible" when it comes to collecting wild fish. In fact, without the wild fish, genetically speaking, the farmed fish would be ruined to the point that they would no longer produce viable amounts of fry to make the venture profitable. But sustainably harvesting wild fish has more benefits than just more fish. Articles such as this one
Buy a Fish, Save a Tree | DiscoverMagazine.com shed light on what is really happening. Without the income from collecting fish, the local peoples of the world would have no choice but to sell what they can in order to make enough money or enough credit to survive on. What is the easiest item to sell? TREES!!!! So there go the forests. When the forests go, then goes what depend on them to survive. That means fish, animals, plants, etc. That means new medicines and food sources are lost. And that's just for starters.
There can be no better example of how deforestation has killed a country than looking at the island of Hispaniola ( Haiti and Dominican republic.) While the deforested side suffers, the lush green side flourishes. ( I've been to both countries to see this for myself. ) There is some very good pictures and explanations of this in the "Environmental Impact" section of this article:
https://www.cnn.com/2016/10/11/americas/haiti-dominican-republic-visual-explainer/index.html The article is about the aftermath of storms through the island but the picture alone of the Haiti/ DM border can not be more self explanatory.
As for wild Discus, before they were kept in Aquariums, my older books state that they were used as food fish, so they were plentiful. Today, they help sustain the indigenous people with more than just food. In certain areas they are seasonal, not endangered. iucnredlist.org lists them as " of least concern". So their collection for the reasons I've stated have had no impact on their population.
Horrible: it means different things to different people. I think it's horrible that these majestic fish have been altered to the point that the farmed fish no longer have the same body shape or finnage of their wild counterparts. Strains of tail less Discus have hit the markets. I think that is horrible.
Yes domesticated Discus may be easier to keep than wild ones. In my opinion, mastering the art of keeping wild Discus shows your aquatic excellence and prowess more so than keeping the farmed varieties. ( But I'm a purist when it comes to fish.
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Hopefully you all will read the articles in this post and get a better understanding of how important it is to harvest wild fish for the hobby and for the world.