What, if anything, should we be doing about Czech hybrids?

[Dinyar]

Artificially hybridized catfish from Czech breeders seem to be flooding the hobby of late.

What do you think we should be doing about this, if anything?

Dinyar

[Jools]

I think the question is what can we do. I also think it unfair to any Czech breeders who do not condone this practice. It is not beyond the realms of possibility that many of the farm plecos, whiptails and bristlenoses are hybrids (at some point).

The issue here is how to spot (no pun indended) hybrids and how to educate the fish buying masses what is what.

To play devils advocate: What happens if the rest of the fish farming world joins in? Aare you saying we should reject farm raised fish in favour of trawling whats left of the worlds rivers for young fish?

All just to stimulate debate...

Jools

[Dinyar]

My purpose is to stimulate debate, not to advocate any particular course of action (yet).

That being said, I'm alarmed by the recent spate of these reports. I knew this was happening, but it seems to be happening on a much larger, more systematic scale than I was aware of.

I'm all for captive breeding, but this hanky-panky actually gives captive bred fish a bad image, and may serve to enhance the premium that F0 fish command.

Some investigative journalism would be great. Who are the individuals and companies that are doing this? Who are they distributing their products through? What exactly are they advertising their fish as? If we had more specific info, we would be in a better position to craft an intelligent response.

Dinyar

[Jools]

Scotcat is the man to ask. Or at least one of the old school CAGB folks, maybe coryman or dorad. The NACG had a speaker in the past who had all sorts of details on this sort of thing if my memory serves me correctly.

Before my time (or at least before I went global) I'm afraid.

Jools

[Yann]

Hi!

Interesting topic. Well we sure must be condamn Hybridize fish and everyone should refuse to buy any. But is this really possible. For the people who care and want to keep good strain of their fish , I guess it would possible but for all the other ( the majority) they just won't give a d**n.
It is a long way to educated all the fish keeper to do so but it is not impossible either. We should also stop to ask all the time for new fish, with great colour. Becuase the shop owner will ask his wholsaler and on and on. If farms are creating more and more colour and body morph of hundreds type of fish, it is only because they are selling well!!!

We should all ask our shop to be able ro provide a sort of tracking of the fish we are buying, where does he buy from, and the wholesaler, where does he get his fish from.
Our days all entreprise should present qualities chart, guaranding the consumer that they can trust the company. One of the few buisness left aparts of these system is the pet trading market. We must be more demanding in the quality of the fish propose to us.

The shop owner should sometimes as well make some satsifaction poll among their customer. Sincerely I would not mind paying a fish a bit more, but with perfectly knowing where and how the fish are raised, and that the farms can show me that they do not pratice Hybridization.

Secondly one of the hottest topic is the use of artificial hormon injection for bredding fish. Sincerely I would not mind to use this, but only with fish extremly rare and/or extremly hard to spawn.

Finally I can only encourage people to buy several fish from a same stock, wherever they are wild caught or farm bred, with wild caught there is a good chance that all the fish here at the shop comes from the same region, this way you might lessen the chance to cross to seperated species that are very look a like, or maybe different geographic population.
There is a good chance that if you buy your fish in different shop to avoid consanguinity, you will do it anyway, as the chance that the shops from a same region buy their fish from the same wholesaler is rather high!

In the conclusion: I can only encourage people to keep track of their fish, where they have bought each fish, when, farm bred or wild caught, and where you shop got them and on and on. It is really very usefull you can trust me!!!

I hope I have not been too long ! Just my little though on the topic!!!
Cheers
Yann

[Coryman]

The problem is, we on this and other fish forums are a small band of fish keeper known as 'Hobbyists' and are a tiny minority of the fish keeping fraternity. The majority of fish keepers have that one tank in the corner of the living room, they put in it whatever takes their fancy and would not know a hybrid or dyed fish when they see one. Now to my mind the shop keeper is the person I feel we should be aiming our arguments at. If the shops don't have the hybrid/Dyed fishes for sale then Mr & Mrs public cannot buy them.

Ian

[Silurus]

The problem with that is that selling dyed/hybrid fish probablyaccount for a substantial part of the shopowner's income. I don't think they'll be happy killing the goose that lays golden eggs.
Call me a cynic, but the only way that dyed/hybrid fish will disappear from the hobby is if they were suddenly to pose some kind of a health/genetic hazard to humans.
Otherwise, I think they're pretty much here to stay, whether we like it or not.

[Yann]

¨Well!
Starting a rumor is not the hardest thing to do.
The thing is , we Hobbyist can spread our believes through the net but also through magazine. We can sensibilise people to that problem.
But I agree with Ian and Silurus...

Cheers
Yann

[coelacanth]

Artificially hybridized catfish from Czech breeders seem to be flooding the hobby of late. What do you think we should be doing about this, if anything?

Tell that imbecile Bush there's oil there maybe? By the time he's finished, no hybrids!
Seriously though, I'm not sure there is anything that can be done. No laws are openly being broken (although I somehow doubt that all the hormones being used are properly licensed). As long as there is a market for these fish, they'll keep producing them.
The best we can do is to educate people through media such as this forum, and maybe embarrass the retailers who bring this rubbish in. Surprising what a bit of mouthiness on a busy weekend can do. Or be more diplomatic and explain your objections to the dealer. We in the UK also have OATA, and bit of pestering them might have an effect.
The next thing would be, if you are sold a fish as a distinct species, and you can demonstrate that it is a hybrid (or at least not the species it's supposed to be), you can actually use the Trades Description Act to give the dealer some hassle. That'll soon put them off labelling them as true species at least.

[Dinyar]

Well, there are a number of hot buttons one could press. Let's take the Czech Republic and the EU as an example. The former is anxious to join the latter.

As Pete pointed out, deceptive advertising is a simple angle of attack. The Czech fish sold as "Synodontis granulosus" were not in fact S. granulosus.

Europeans and the EU take a guarded approach to GM technology. The EU is also much more environmentally conscious than say the US gov't. "Animal rights" is no longer just a kooky slogan, especially in Europe. One could make a strong case that "species integrity" should be at the top of any "animal bill of rights". (Take it one step further: how would gov'ts react if they found someone had successfully hybridized a human with a chimp?)

A few well placed newspaper articles on some of these themes, picked up by some major media, could have quite a wide effect.

Of course, we will not change the fact, pointed out by Ian, Heok Hee and others, that most people who have a fish tank don't give a hoot as to identity or provenance of their fish. But we don't need to. Make the suppliers squirm a bit and we'll have taken one step forward. And as they say, "a journey of ten thousand miles begins with a single step!"

Dinyar