Endangered Fish Illegally On Sale In Uk

[Tokis-Phoenix]

"Aquatic retailers may be trading in a fish that has been illegal to sell without authorisation since the 1970s; shops or fishkeepers caught using the species for commercial purporses without certificates risk £5000 fines for each specimen and/or up to five years in prison.

Practical Fishkeeping can exclusively reveal that retail outlets in the UK may have offered one of the world's most endangered fish, Probarbus jullieni (the Isok barb), for sale to the public in recent months.

The protected species is listed on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species as "Endangered" and has been at risk of extinction in many parts of its range for over 30 years.

International trade in the species has been controlled since 1975 when it was first listed on Appendix I of CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora).

Other endangered species afforded the same level of legal protection on CITES Appendix I include rhinoceros, gorilla, cheetah and a small number of extremely vulnerable fish such as coelacanths";


Full story;

[URL="http/www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/pfk/...m.php?news=1486"]http/www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/pfk/...m.php?news=1486[/URL]




Really bad stuff, but what i find the most stupid is what the retailer said;

"The retailer told Practical Fishkeeping that the fish is the only one he has ever seen and did not know its identity until it was compared to an image in a fish identification guide"


Well, NUH! You shouldn't sell an animal if you don't know what it is. Geez. The retailer deserves what they get for their irresponsability, although they claim the fish was brought in by a customer, they shouldn't have tried to sell it if they didn't know what it was. Otherwise it would be like a petshop accepting some random birds given to them by a customer, which they then try to sell on to other customers, only to find out they're a type of critically endangered amazonian parrot etc.




Anyhoo, i just thought you guys should be aware of stuff like this, keep a close eye on what is being sold in your petshop, because it may not be legal .

 

[StaniFish]

well thats a bit stupid! they should check what the fish is before they sell it, it's like selling a bomb as they're concerned!

 

[Zeoth]

Friggin Sleazy LFS get what they deserve!? If they weren't endangered and i had the money, I'd keep one of those babies. . they look realy good!

 

[andywg]

Friggin Sleazy LFS get what they deserve!? If they weren't endangered and i had the money, I'd keep one of those babies. . they look realy good!

Sleazy? For offering for resale a fish that was brought in before getting a definite ID on it?

Some people really need a reality check...

 

[CFC]

I would have bought it without a seconds thought

 

[raptorrex]

http/www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/pfk/...m.php?news=1473
another tail of arrogance and ignorance by our trade
what really worrys me here is the fact that the Fish/aquatic supply industry, seems to think its above the law. i have been offered illegal crayfish, on two occasions over the last 12 months, from apparently reputable retailers. i have seen Jellybean parrots sold in an outlet that claims, it does not sell dyed fish?? "sorry mate i didn't know", now seems to be a legal defence , especially if the problem has anything to do with making money. now as far as i am aware, ignorance of the law is not any form of defence, for any crime. its time the whole trade pulled up its pants, coz like it or lump it, especially in the UK, the end result could be an almost total ban on fishkeeping. our hobby is a tiny part of the economy. and policing it could be more expensive than the income the country derives from it. if that gets to be the case, we could see our past time almost disappear.

 

[benniebru]

just imagine a swat team busting into a fish store, the threat is neutralized , we have the package (the orange crayfish) haha, ya know as long as there are people they will always find something to ***** about

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Friggin Sleazy LFS get what they deserve!? If they weren't endangered and i had the money, I'd keep one of those babies. . they look realy good!

Sleazy? For offering for resale a fish that was brought in before getting a definite ID on it?

Some people really need a reality check...

I agree its not really sleazy, but at the end of the day petshops hold a position of responsability and they should know full well what their responsabilities are and where they stand with the law (and if they don't, then they probably shouldn't be selling animals).

Yes, a lot of petshops are very irresponsable when it comes to selling animals, a lot of petshops will sell a fish to any customer (even if the customer obviously won't look after the animal well) as long as the customer is waving a handful of twenty pound notes under the petshops staffs nose, but does that mean we should accept the petshops irresponsability as an inevitability? No, i hope we do not, and to be honest i think the petshop does get punished for selling critically endangered fish for profit- afterall no one forced the petshop to do it, all the petshop cared about was making some money from the fish, regardless of what they could have turned out to be. IMHO It was very stupid and irresponsable of the petshop to do such a thing.

I would have bought it without a seconds thought

And what would you have done with them if you did buy them?

 

[andywg]

Yes, a lot of petshops are very irresponsable when it comes to selling animals, a lot of petshops will sell a fish to any customer (even if the customer obviously won't look after the animal well)

How do we "obviously" know that the prospective purchaser will not look after the fish well? Should all us keepers sit a test and submit our homes to inspections by the shop?

as long as the customer is waving a handful of twenty pound notes under the petshops staffs nose, but does that mean we should accept the petshops irresponsability as an inevitability? No, i hope we do not, and to be honest i think the petshop does get punished for selling critically endangered fish for profit- afterall no one forced the petshop to do it, all the petshop cared about was making some money from the fish, regardless of what they could have turned out to be. IMHO It was very stupid and irresponsable of the petshop to do such a thing.

Prosecuting the shop will do nothing. The fish should never have got here. The prosecution should be aimed at whoever allowed it to get here. The shopkeeper didn't know what it was. I know that I do not know how to identify every species in the world. Even CFC, who has a knwoledge of fish better than anyone I have ever met managed to buy a fish not realising it was something else. If CFC can make that mistake, so can anyone. A shop is there to sell fish, how unreasonable is it to assume that if the customer had the fish then it is probably ok to be in the country?

Would you be so vociferous if the shopkeeper had tried to ID the fish but got it wrong?

 

[Esfa]

"How do we "obviously" know that the prospective purchaser will not look after the fish well? Should all us keepers sit a test and submit our homes to inspections by the shop?"

How about if the buyer says they have a 10gal tank, and are ttrying to buy a BGK, an oscar and a goldfish? I have seen that before.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

How do we "obviously" know that the prospective purchaser will not look after the fish well? Should all us keepers sit a test and submit our homes to inspections by the shop?

You know a customer is not going to look after the fish he/she is buying well when you are selling them a 12inch long pacu and ask the customer about their tank and they tell you its a 25gallon tank that has only been set up for a week and has 12 fish already in it.
Yes, maybe the customer may eventually look after the fish properly, but they aren't going to be able to do it for the time being when they don't even have a tank set up that is anywhere near appropriate for the fish. I have seen so many petshop staff sell fish to customers even after asking the customer questions which did not make the customer appear very promising/good etc.

Prosecuting the shop will do nothing. The fish should never have got here. The prosecution should be aimed at whoever allowed it to get here. The shopkeeper didn't know what it was. I know that I do not know how to identify every species in the world. Even CFC, who has a knwoledge of fish better than anyone I have ever met managed to buy a fish not realising it was something else. If CFC can make that mistake, so can anyone. A shop is there to sell fish, how unreasonable is it to assume that if the customer had the fish then it is probably ok to be in the country?

Would you be so vociferous if the shopkeeper had tried to ID the fish but got it wrong?

The thing is, in this situation the barbs do look very distinctive and you can't really confuse them with any other type of fish- can you think of any type of fish which may have been confused with the barbs?
It is hardly like it is like trying to identify juvenile catfish which all look grey/brown with barbels on one end and a fins on the other and no distinctive characteristics other than that, which make ID'ing such fish difficult because there are so many catfish that look very similar to each other when only 3inches long. But this wasn't the case with the barbs- they are very distinctive looking and have been banned for a very long time.



Prosecuting the petshop will teach it a valueable lesson it should have known earlier- don't sell animals if you really don't know what they are. Petshops know full well that they have to obtain certain licences to legally sell many different types of animals, and the petshop was completely ignoring this.
Do you somehow disagree with this? Because this was the case with the petshop, why do you think the petshop is not to blame when they were the ones that tried to sell the fish? And i think the case of the person who brought the fish in should be looked into more so we can find out the circumstances surrounding them and the fish, but i also think the petshop should be punished as well for its irresponsability.

 

[andywg]

"How do we "obviously" know that the prospective purchaser will not look after the fish well? Should all us keepers sit a test and submit our homes to inspections by the shop?"

How about if the buyer says they have a 10gal tank, and are ttrying to buy a BGK, an oscar and a goldfish? I have seen that before.

And it is "obvious" they won't buy another tank or already have other tanks?

Also, you say trying, you don't say they were successful, which would appear to go against the point made by TP.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

"How do we "obviously" know that the prospective purchaser will not look after the fish well? Should all us keepers sit a test and submit our homes to inspections by the shop?"

How about if the buyer says they have a 10gal tank, and are ttrying to buy a BGK, an oscar and a goldfish? I have seen that before.

And it is "obvious" they won't buy another tank or already have other tanks?

Also, you say trying, you don't say they were successful, which would appear to go against the point made by TP.

If the customer says they have a 10gallon tank, you assume thats what they have- if you have 3 tanks and a petshop staff asked you about how many tanks you had, it would be unlikely you would tell the staff you just had a 10gal when you actually had a 80 and 120gallon tanks as well.


And even if they are buying another tank that is the right size for a BGK, it is still not adviseable to sell them the fish on the same day they get the tank, since such fish need matured tanks and the fish will not fair well in a 10gallon waiting for months on end for its proper size tank to cycle and mature.


At the end of the day, you can't look after a fish well if you don't have the right tank set up for it, even if you do want to look after the fish very well.
So yes Andy, there is an easy way to tell if a customer is obviously going to be able to look after a fish well or not.

 

[Esfa]

It really annoys me when people mis-interprets what somoene says on purpose, just for the sake of having an argument.

Go do something more productive.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

It really annoys me when people mis-interprets what somoene says on purpose, just for the sake of having an argument.

Go do something more productive.

Yeah i agree, but then again on the other hand, nit-picking through the obvious details is sometimes the only way to get the message across to some people .