Fish collection tour to Xingu?

[Thomas W]

Does anyone know if there is some way to get to Xingu for fish collection?
A guided tour or anything like that?

Best Regards

[Griz13877]

I know of no organized tours. Having said that, I can give you some ideas. A group of us organized a tour several years ago. We flew to Altimira for a kicking-off point. We were accompanied by some graduate students from the University Amazonas in Manaus. The rocky nature of the river precludes using anything but outboard powered river boats, so camping on the many sand bars is the method of living while actually in the bush. Be sure if you can go to take some snorkeling gear, we had a memorable day swimming in one of the cataracts. Also many of the popular species are best collected in deep, dangerous water. The safest way to "collect" these types is by purchasing them from the collectors that live along the River. There are opportunities to collect some interesting types using "amateur" methods also. Another item of interest would be sport fishing methods. We took such varied types as a fish the locals call "bicuda" which is a spectacular leaper when hooked, to a Wolf Fish (not the Wolf Cichlid), and at least two species of pike cichlids.
A possible contact in Altamira would be a local businessman/wheeler,dealer named Tim Ne. He was affiliated with an export business called the "Xhingu Aquarium" a few years back as well as being a local gold buyer/seller. Altimira is very much remindful of the Wild West gold rush towns of the American West. If you can get a tour organized I promise you'll have a highly memorable time. The only people I've seen come away disappointed from any of our 7 Amazon trips were those that were fixated on collecting a single given species. This almost never works out. Go with an open mind and enjoy whatever the river presents.

[Bas Pels]

Be careful collecting fishes in that part of Brasil: It's plainly forbidden for anyone but native indians, and recognized traderrs, to own living fish.

They do control this and the penalties are high. Rumor has some Germans are kept in Brasil for quite a few years.

If you want to be safe, pay a trader to go with him, point to the fishes you want, have the trade buy and transport them and let the fish be sent to an importer in your neighborhood.

That is, never touch the fishes, never own them and never transport them yourself in Brasil.

[antec]

very cool, I'd love to go on a trip like that.

[jamisonpatrick]

Thanks for sharing information,your information are very helpful for me and increase my knowledge.

[Panquetalk]

I would love to go to south america but cant- i've never been outside north america actually.