| I'm actually suprised still that captive reared fish are not seen as much. The Japanese have been captive rearing tuna for a long time. Captive reared angels come out on the market once in a while, mainly large angels.
But you are correct Michelle, the market could head that direction, although I'd be suprised if it did that within the next 20 or so years. There are occasional Xanthic fish caught in the wild, I remember when there was axanthis trigger caught in the pacfic once, who knows how much that fish fetched.
I will say however, that the fish rearing condition for marine fish would probably be much different than the FW ponds you see down in Fl. Just to make it to market size marine fish have to be well taken care for. If places were run like ORA then you really wouldn't have much problem with the poor health, and hopefully no inbreeding.
They do sell misbars, but I don't know enough about clownfish genetics to know what that is caused by. I don't think a misbar is to bad though. you do occasionally get in wild misbars or "stubby" clown missing vertebrae. As long as they are not actively breeding those specimens than yeah, your good. Since those guys probably would get a chance to find a mate in the wild.
It is a which evil is worse question.
Can you imagine if every angelfish or neon tetra that has been sold in the hobby the last 30 years was caught in South America. It wouldn't look to good for the species in the wild. Same goes for many of the fish caught in the ocean. Just look at the yellow tangs in hawaii, compared to what naturally occcured there 30 years ago.
Can't even imagine what it is like in the Phillipines where most of the collecting is unregulated.
Mike |