Cruel to catch fish + aquatic animals?

[jazzx101]

Basically just a general question to get everyones thoughts. I live on an extremely large freshwater pond in the northeastern United States. View from my Window. Now there are plenty of larger trout and other similar fish I obviously know I can't keep in any of my small aquariums. But I am curious as to what you all think of the ethics involved in taking a fish from a natural environment like this to put in a tank, as opposed to specially bred fish. I am aware that some tropical fish are also caught in the wild and sold in stores. As an added bonus, we have a large population of turtles, which I est to be about 150 total. These seem to be mostly of the red ear slider variety, although I have seen some exceptionaly large turtles sunning themselves on rocky alcoves, approximately the size of a pizza pan. In my state taking these turtles out of the water to keep as pets is illegal, but I know of a few people in the past who have done this. Horrible or not?

Thanks as always.

 

[diVer]

I was going to do a tank with native fish (I'm also in NE USA) but decided not to because of the diseases I would risk bringing in with them. If you do want to try this try getting fish when they are very young as opposed to mature fish.

 

[jgrennan06]

I have a 55 long and had nothing to stock with it, and i considered getting trout or small mouth bass. but it never happened. i would just advise putting them in their own tank, with feeder fish and the like. Josh

 

[amazingbioloboydp]

red eared sliders do end up getting that big somtimes...and they lose thier "red ears"so they might be the same...not horrible...but the reason there are som many is becuase people let them go when they get too big...so everyone do us a favor...when u get a pet...KEEP IT!

 

[David]

I live on a lagoon in California, and I am planning to box off a small section of it beside the dock so I can study the organisms that live there. (I know, I'm crazy). I see nothing wrong with doing this. The fish are technically still in their natural environment, and it basically maintains itself, like a mini ecosystem. I will of course let the small fish leave when I see the other fish in the area begin to migrate.

 

[Logitech]

I live in Japan and I am not really sure if it's illegal or not.

 

[jazzx101]

Oh, I wasn't saying that I was doing this, sorry if I implyed it.
I haven't kept any fish I've caught, which has been a lot(been a good fishing summer for some reason..caught over 100 fish)

All of the ones i've caught get to be way too big for me to handle. The fish are legal to take from the pond I live on and eat if you wish, the turtles are not.

 

[parker313]

I don't see a problem with it

On our last vacation, my husband and I caught bluegills, sunfish and striped bass that would have been small enough to fit in my 46g tank. Pretty sad comment on my fishing talent

 

[endparenthesis]

I really don't think fish have the ability to consciously discern the difference between existing in the wild and existing in a tank. I don't think they can do much of anything consciously, for that matter. Of course putting them in poorer conditions will affect their health and their growth, but it's not like they're sitting there going, "You jerk, why'd you have to take me out of the lake." There are tons of things I wouldn't do to a fish, and tons of things I wouldn't advocate doing to a fish, but when it comes down to it, I don't feel like there's much you can do to a fish that's undeniably cruel. Cruelty implies that the entity on the receiving end 'cares' what's happening to them, rather than simply showing a sequence of autonomic responses.

 

[David]

I really don't think fish have the ability to consciously discern the difference between existing in the wild and existing in a tank. I don't think they can do much of anything consciously, for that matter. Of course putting them in poorer conditions will affect their health and their growth, but it's not like they're sitting there going, "You jerk, why'd you have to take me out of the lake." There are tons of things I wouldn't do to a fish, and tons of things I wouldn't advocate doing to a fish, but when it comes down to it, I don't feel like there's much you can do to a fish that's undeniably cruel. Cruelty implies that the entity on the receiving end 'cares' what's happening to them, rather than simply showing a sequence of autonomic responses.

True, I agree with your insightful response. Pretty much the only "cruel" thing you can do to a fish is to knowingly and deliberately cause it pain for your own sick enjoyment or pleasure. (I don't know why, but some people seem to enjoy this, such as the people in Thailand who fight bettas).

 

[fishdudein]

My kids and I went fishing a couple years ago, not much was biting but you could see all kinds of baby bluegill in the water. Too small to take a hooked worm, but if you threw a bare hook out and were quick, you could occasionally catch one (yeah, we were bored....found out this also works with crawfish too). We ended up with about 6 small bluegill in a bucket which we took home and put in a 50 gallon tank. It was quite fascinating to watch them as they grew, we didn't have any problems with them, ate anything we gave them, and they eventually spawned several times in that tank.

 

[melleth]

When I was a kid we caught some baby Bull head cats and kept two in a big tank with a few goldfis. They lived a long time and were prety neat to keep. I remember one of the goldfish tried to swaqllow one tail first and looked prety funny with the cats head and mouth spikes sticking out of its mouth. We were able to remove the cat from the goldfish without loosing either fish and the gold fish never tried to eat a cat again.

I bet those bluegill were cool. They are rather prety fish. Certainly it would be a bad ideat to keep natives in with tropicals but I don't think it is wrong. It's truethat many tropicals are wild caught. I know Neons arealmost all wild caught so why not natives too.

 

[plecoperson]

i would never do it because animals who were born in the wild should stay there. if I had my way, all fish sold in the world would be bred in aqauriums. aside from everything else, could you possibly offer the fish everything it has in the wild? I am aware that the first fish came from somewhere, but surely most fish dont need to be wild caught? I am in no way suggesting that fish have the same level of emotion as a human or even a rodent, but I wouldnt take an animal from the wild when it can look after itself perfectly well, and more pretty fish can be rescued from walmart.

 

[Paul_MTS]

Why are you keeping fish then....most tropicals you/we have in our tanks are netted as small babies in the wild.

I don't really have a problem with this as long as you look after the fish properly your going to give it a much better life than it would in the wild, as it has food out on a plate no predactors to kill it and no chance of being hooked

Personally I caught some stone loach whilst on holiday, I brought 4 of them home and there in my pond now after qursntine, there's 2 water falls into the pond there in and i added gravel to the base and shelfs to care for them.

 

[FishDan]

I agree. I find it ironic when people who keep any pet start going on about how animals should not be removed from the wild. Whether the animal you are keeping now was taken from thew wild (like many fish) or an animal that has been domesticated over an extended period of time (yes, even millions of years), you are still enjoying the companionship of an animal that belongs in the wild. Even when you get a fish that has been tank bred, it's ancestors came from the wild, so you are still enjoying a "captured" animal. Personally, if you are keeping a pet, any pet, you are not able to say things against taking animals from the wild to keep in a home.

\Dan