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- Feb 4, 2020
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The ones that should get ban are the replaceable freshwater! It’s their fault most of us started this hobby anyways lol
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Dogs and cats are not wild caught running in a field somewhere. They are bred.
Fish and coral that are aquacultured....still have a very short leash connection to the wild.
As far as "pets are pets"..... then that line of thinking can be said about raising tigers, lions, elephants, monkeys, snakes and exotic birds (????)
Hmmmmm. I could raise some tigers in my backyard. Wonder how the State of Ohio would like that?
But in the end its treated processed and goes back to the waterway or in the ground. All water is recycled and reused.I think this hobby probably does get regulated out of existence at some point. We take loads of fish out of the wild, only to have very even make it more than a few months in someone's tank. The other thing I think not enough people think of is how we go through the most precious resource on the planet, water, like it's candy.
It is absolutely cruel, but it wont be banned.Do you ever see this hobby being viewed as cruel to animals thus becoming banned/illegal?
Our hobby is inherently cruel to animals. There’s no getting around that, you just have to make peace with it (or delude yourself into thinking otherwise). I don’t subscribe to this sort of Christian/creationist worldview where people are the apex of creation and everything else exists for humans to use, or that human life is inherently, existentially of more value than any other life. So ethically I can’t overlook the cruelty of our hobby. Its definitely something I wrestle with, it’s a selfish and cruel hobby.
But that said, I don’t think it will ever be banned. It might become more regulated and inevitably collection sites will have temporary or even permanent bans, but there will always be aquacultured livestock and I don’t think it will ever become so over regulated as to fundamentally change the hobby. And any regulations won’t be born out of animal rights activism, or because of the cruelty of the hobby, it will be purely because of conservation (whether or not you agree with it or if there is sound science/data backing up the regulations is a whole other discussion).
It is absolutely cruel, but it wont be banned.
In all animal trades, there really needs to be some accountability for the welfare of the living things being bought and sold.
To be clear, any fish that ends up in a good home is a very, very lucky one. Whats cruel about this hobby is that one lucky fish is one in a thousand.
Ive worked at a LFS and a wholesaler. This hobby causes so much unnecessary death, and workers are held to NDAs so they cant show the public the piles of bodies every day.
For every single fish you see in a store, dozens more died in order for it to get there. I am not exaggerating.
For every good hobbyist (like anyone on a forum who actually cares about doing right by their animals), there are at least 10 idiots who buy and kill fish on a regular basis until their kid gets bored or they give up.
A person should not be able to walk into a store and buy a living thing no questions asked. It should be treated the same as buying a cat or dog - prove that you have a place for it and that you at least have some idea of what youre doing (because we all start somewhere, right?). Buy from a breeder or have a professional help you plan and stock your tank.
There is so much broken and corrupt in this business, I could elaborate on every point Ive said. Lmk if you want an essay haha
More accountability, support captive breeding, and where you spend your money really matters.
Freshwater seems crueler if just by scale... how many dead bettas do you think pass through Petsmart in a week? How many fancy goldfish live out their lives in a 3 gallon bookshelf aquarium?
The hobby is inherently cruel and it will always be so long as there's money to be to made over the well-being of the animals.
That aside yes I can see wild collection of corals and reef fish being banned eventually, for environmental reasons. And it will probably be for the best with the state of wild coral reefs. But there may be no helping that and possibly our aquariums will start to preserve species that no longer exist in the wild.
We're all that little girl at the dentist on Finding Nemo.
How many of us would be willing to watch 10 fish being captured, 9 of them die in the supply chain so that we can have 1 encaged in our tanks?
Reality will make these ethical questions disappear soon.
50% of the great barrier reef has died in the last 20-30 years. How many more years before the rest goes?
The next couple of decades are going to be very interesting.
Tuffyyyyy,I think this hobby probably does get regulated out of existence at some point. We take loads of fish out of the wild, only to have very even make it more than a few months in someone's tank. The other thing I think not enough people think of is how we go through the most precious resource on the planet, water, like it's candy.
Considering the fact that for every fish caught in the ocean, 10,000 of its brothers and sisters have died - the argument is lost on me. I think the supply chain, and the people catching/importing/shipping fish need to be mindful. But lets face it lol. No one here 'needs' a reef tank. This is a rich person's 'hobby'. I always wondered why keeping living things its called 'a hobby'.Wow - thats a shame about the LFS's - Ive often wondered that. It gives me pause to be a consumer in such an industry.