Future Of Fancy Goldfish In Doubt

[Tokis-Phoenix]

"The government has confirmed that a study on freak pets, including fancy goldfish and genetically modified fish, will help shape the forthcoming Animal Welfare Bill.

The study titled Breeding and Welfare in Companion Animals has been produced by the Companion Animal Welfare Council (CAWC) and emphasises the many problems that occur in pets through selective breeding.

According to a report in The Times, Ben Bradshaw MP, the minister responsible for animal welfare at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has received a copy of the CAWC report and has confirmed that it will be used in some parts of the new Animal Welfare Bill.

Bradshaw told The Times: "The CAWC report is particularly well-timed, given the opportunity the Animal Welfare Bill offers to government to support measures to raise breeding standards."

The report says that there has long been a drive for novelty by breeders who produce pets, and not long after species are first bred in captivity new colour morphs and other strains that differ from the wild type are produced and start to be selected.

Fancy goldfish, which have been selectively bred for centuries and modern forms such as genetically modified fish like the Glofish, are mentioned in the report";


Full story;

http/www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/pfk/...em.php?news=941







I have always questioned whether it is morally correct to produce certain varieties or types of fish, particularly fancy goldfish, because fancy goldfish suffer from numerous health problems which are often caused because of the way the goldfish has been bred to look.

I don't know if its right to keep such fish, but we have to ask the question: Is it fair to buy a fish because of the way it looks which may suffer because of the way it looks? Certainly at the end of the day when it comes to choosing fancy goldfish, it is all down to the fishes appearance, since fancy goldfish do not differ in personality from non-fancy goldfish.

The only good thing i can really see about fancy goldfish over non-fancy goldfish is that they generally grow smaller and are less active than non-fancy goldfish, so do not require as large a aquariums as non-fancy goldfish varieties.
If people managed to breed dwarf varities of common or comet goldfish, which looked the same as common or comet goldfish but grew to a smaller size, i would certainly be interested in buying them. One of the major problems which many people face when it comes to buying non-fancy varieties of goldfish is the large aquariums they require to live in since non-fancy varieties of goldfish can grow to over 15inches+ long.

What do you think about this article?

 

[OohFeeshy]

Meh... I really wish whoever is coming up with the Animal Welfare Bill could take an extra 10 seconds to find out what actually matters... Yes, fancy goldfish are deformed and delicate, but perhaps an overall better way of solving that would be to push up legal standards of how fish should be kept (ie, to the same standards as fluffy things like kittens and puppies) and deal with working out what is too deformed *later*... And an end to their demonisation of anything that could even *possibly* be GM, I mean, that has no effect on the fish in question and can't 'escape' into other fish, so honestly... And even though PFK's done a good job getting shops aboard, it would take less time to ban import of dyed fish full stop than it took them to come up with the strange notion that the UK has an underground fish dyeing subculture...

 

[fall-apart-dave]

I feel exactly the same way about any animal that is bred for novelty. Toy dogs are by far teh WORST gripe I have on the subjec.t Handbag dogs, fashion dogs. I think it's disgusting.
I love dogs, I love that most breeds were bred to do a job and their physiological characteristics reflected that.
Collies - very wolf-like, stalk well, very predatory looking, highly intelligent, very fit, very trainable. Perfect for herding sheep.
Old English - big shaggy coat, very strong powerful animals, look like sheep at a distance, very protective, placid unless provoked. Perfect for defending a flock against wolves.
Gun dogs, hounds, mountain dogs - all bred for a purpose and as a result are very sturdy, strong... Toys? Whats the point? Dogs with snouts so small they cant breathe, dogs with legs so fragile they cant run, dogs that are so inbred they can't survive properly.

Same goes for fish - I like them because nature has shaped them for a purpose. I love watching their natural traits. I hate fancy goldfish.

 

[Butch]

Well the government in UK will have a little trouble get rid of fancy goldfish because they were here for hundred years. I think the fancy goldfish will stay here but not in UK. I hope this forum don't starting " I love/I hate fancy goldfish" war here because its pointless to do any thing about it. Fish don't live long time and so are wild animals don't live long in the wild, so what's their problem with fancy goldfish? Yeah they have health problems but pretty most of them can live to 10 years if properly care just like dogs lived up to 10 years too. Toy dogs can live up to 15 years old, five more years than larger breeds. I don't think United States would banning the fancy goldfish for no reason because if the people don't want fancy goldfish, they dumped them in waters. The fancy goldfish can't survive in the wild for long time unless its goldfish/koi pond.

 

[Waterbox]

Many large breed dogs are just as over bred and delicate as small breed dogs actually. Take a look at many breeds of Shepherds and they have horrible hip problems, larger dogs develop bone and joint problems, and many more. Just through man's conscious act of selectively breeding for traits, whether it be a smashed face or a hunting extinct, the animals develop health problems which were not anticipated by breeders. It happens with any kind of line breeding.

If our good old dog friends were set out into Yellowstone I highly doubt they would do very well, but we do not do that to them. We created the dog breeds and for the most part we are caring and responsible for the well being of our pets and that is why we can see dogs that live a long life. Like others were saying it is more important to inform people and change the way they take care of the fish. Putting a fancy goldfish in a Cichlid tank is not smart, or dumping it in a pond with common goldfish will lead to death. But being responsible and bright about the issue can let your fish live for 10 or more years.

 

[nakomis90]

OOOOHHH im far to oppinionated,

A. i bred comets for a couple of years and even cross bred them to make new strains,
some would say i was wrong but all fancy goldfish are strong and healthy IF cared for right!!


B. about the goldfish being bred being like toy breed dogs!,
well if done right you get a nice healthy looking starin of fish,
to some they may find the strain ugly others (like myslef find them great!
its all to do with oppinion....

I personally think to breed or sell fish is fine, maybe im not getting this...
but goldfish are as randy as guppies ya just got to know what to do
so why should breeding them be any different to breeding guppies.....

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

OOOOHHH im far to oppinionated,

A. i bred comets for a couple of years and even cross bred them to make new strains,
some would say i was wrong but all fancy goldfish are strong and healthy IF cared for right!!

Comets are not really considered as fancy goldfish, i think the article focuses more on breeds like eggfish, telescope ye goldfish, oranda's etc. And either way, comets are not a great deal different from common goldfish- they have longer tails but thats about it.

B. about the goldfish being bred being like toy breed dogs!,
well if done right you get a nice healthy looking starin of fish,
to some they may find the strain ugly others (like myslef find them great!
its all to do with oppinion....

I personally think to breed or sell fish is fine, maybe im not getting this...
but goldfish are as randy as guppies ya just got to know what to do
so why should breeding them be any different to breeding guppies.....

Even guppys are having problems, the first problem being with inbreeding, which has seriously weakened guppys on the whole (inbreeding leads to all sorts of problems like weakened imune system, shortened life expectancy, poor growth rates, poor fry survival rates, increase of pregnancy problems etc).

There are a lot of different varieties of guppys, although most are still uncommon in petshops. But the longer tailed guppy breeds are already facing problems because of the way they have been bred to look, for example many of the longer tailed guppy varieties have a hard time coping in tanks with medium strength filter current (the longer tailed guppys tend to suffer from split tails and low activity levels because their long tails weight them down and make them less stream-lined), even though their standard short tail variety cousins have no problems in such tanks.



All short bodied fat fancy goldfish are prone to suffering from digestive problems because of the way they have been bred to have a short compact gut- with slim type goldfish like comets and commons, they have a longer body so their guts/intestines are more evenly and naturally spaced along the goldfish, but with short fancy goldfish their gut/inestines have been forced into a short compact body so the fish becomes prone to have digestive problems like constipation and other problems like swimbladder disorders, both of which can be easily fatal to fish if not treated properly and soon enough.

I have seen so many countless cases of people calling for help over their sick fancy goldfish suffering from constipation and/swimbladder problems, i am really beginning to wonder if it is ethical/morally correct for people to breed fancy goldfish knowing that by making them look the way they do, they seriously increasing the chances of the fish suffering from painful and life threatening health problems.
Half the time someone calls for help on this section with a sick goldfish, it seems it is almost always a fancy goldfish. Apart from just internal problems like constipation and swimbladder disorders, there are many other health problems short bodied fancy goldfish are prone to because of the way they look, i would say that they seem to be more inbred too than non-fancy goldfish, since their imune systems in general don't seem as strong and don't seem to cope with a lot of diseases and health problems as well as non-fancy goldfish.

 

[OohFeeshy]

Half the time someone calls for help on this section with a sick goldfish, it seems it is almost always a fancy goldfish.

The thing is, it's a bit of a roundy round thing. My first point on that is, well, that's probability for you- non fancy is common or comet (usually lumped together anyway), fancy could be oranda, moor, telescope, bubble eye, ranchu, veiltail, ryukin, pearlscale....

Anyway, roundy round. The main problem is...

Are problems keeping fancies to do with their anatomy/inbreeding or poor keeping practices? And are poor keeping practices partly a product of the weakness of the fish (ie, well they're not meant to live long so this must be normal)? And is the continued poor anatomy partly due to these poor keeping practices (ie, people aren't keeping them well anyway so there's little point in upping the standards when it's perfectly fine to ship in masses of poor quality fish anyway)?

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Are problems keeping fancies to do with their anatomy/inbreeding or poor keeping practices? And are poor keeping practices partly a product of the weakness of the fish (ie, well they're not meant to live long so this must be normal)? And is the continued poor anatomy partly due to these poor keeping practices (ie, people aren't keeping them well anyway so there's little point in upping the standards when it's perfectly fine to ship in masses of poor quality fish anyway)?

I guess that is always a posibility, however i have seen people loose fancy goldfish even when the person did not appear to be doing anything wrong, so it is a hard question as to how much the owner is to blame over their sick fancy goldfish.
At the very least though, fancy goldfish don't tend to live as long as non-fancy slim type goldfish like comets and commons, comet and common goldfish have been known to live to over 30 years old (as far as i am aware there was also a guiness record breaking non-fancy goldfish which lived to whopping 46 years old), but i have yet to hear of a fancy round bodied goldfish than has lived for more than 20years, and most seem to die long before that, even 10 years old seems like a really ripe old age for fancy goldfish. So i think maybe that round bodied fancy goldfishes excessive selective breeding seems to have at least had an effect on their life expectancy?

 

[OohFeeshy]

Again though, not nessecarily. The problem with assumptions like that is that it's impossible to come up with a 'fair test', as it were. There are so many variables to take into account between water, breeders, shops, tankmates, tank size, decoration, diet, oxygenation, maintenance, sods law etc. that although you can probably say 'commons are generally more hardy than fancies', that's about as far as you can go.

And you can't really say that a possibly shortened lifespan is proper grounds. I'd imagine the same can be applied to any species of fish in some way.

 

[pica_nuttalli]

also, mind you, plain goldfish are more likely to be bought by people who don't care very much about fish and are often expected to just live a few weeks. remember, we don't see everyone in the fishkeeping demographic. we just see the folks who care about their fish.

oops almost forgot to say this about small dogs: very few of the tiny breeds originated as pure "lap dogs." most of them were developed in order to hunt small game and vermin. which is why "toy" terriers are more accurately described as "distilled."

 

[OohFeeshy]

also, mind you, plain goldfish are more likely to be bought by people who don't care very much about fish and are often expected to just live a few weeks. remember, we don't see everyone in the fishkeeping demographic. we just see the folks who care about their fish.

Well, indeed. Commons are usually the ones sold to the 'worst' people- if you're spending a bit more money on a 'better' tank (such as the smaller Aquaone tanks, cubes, Arc tank etc.) it appears you're more likely to get fancies. The upshot of this (and that commons are hardier) is that commons don't exactly show symptoms of poor care until they've snuffed it- and where's the point in looking for help about dead fish that you expected to die soon anyway?

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

I guess i agree where you guys are coming from. I do think it is such a shame that goldfish are treated with so little care and respect by so many people- its like people think if you give the name "feeder" to a fish you can do any cruel thing to it and it wouldn't matter (which i obviously disagree with).
I remember over-hearing a conversation with a petshop staff guy and a customer, i remember the petshop staff guy talking and advising the customer on cycling tanks with fish and saying "oh you should just stick a load of goldfish in there, they're cheap and common fish so it doesn't matter if they die when the tank is cycling" .

 

[dingweding]

This is totally rubbish, how about dogs and cats? In east, goldfish have been cultivated for thousands years to have many vairtes now. same as show dogs and cats in western country.

I think this MP should pay attention to something else he need to worked on

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

This is totally rubbish, how about dogs and cats? In east, goldfish have been cultivated for thousands years to have many vairtes now. same as show dogs and cats in western country.

I think this MP should pay attention to something else he need to worked on

Oh, so by your reasoning because these fish have been bred for hundreds of years that makes it ok? Thats no sensible reasoning at all! It would be like saying there's absolutely nothing wrong with bear baiting because its been done for thousands of years. And no one is saying that there aren't similar issues with the goldfish breeding issue as there are in with other domesticated animals like there are with dogs and cats, but this thread is about focusing on the goldfish issue- there are plenty of other threads for debates concerning the morality of breeding certain types of dogs etc.

And by the way numbnuts, one of this MP's primarily jobs is concerning the welfare of animals so he's doing his job by paying attention to the fancy goldfish problems. You're the type of person who would probably complain just as much if no one cared about goldfish- at least this MP does care about goldfish and is looking at various issues from a serious point of view with the goldfishes welfare a top priority.