New Laws Coming In For Australian Fish Imports

[Baccus]

The government has made changes to how fish are imported into Australia and these changes will take effect March 1st 2015, the species affected include all Cichlids, Gouramis and Poecilids. The leglislation will require these fish to have additional testing and be accompanied by a new health certificate prior to be being shipped to Australia.
Initial estimates of $2000 per test species has been suggested, which will substantially increase the landed costs to importers. The fish most likely affected are going to be ones that are imported in low volumes, such as large Cichlids and Gouramis and many of the wild caught species. In order to conduct the test to determine if the fish do or don't have any diseases in question the overseas exporter will need a certain number of fish of each species to be sampled for the testing protocol, and it is most likely that Australian importers will have to pay for the fish sampled and for the actual test.
For example if the importer wishes to import 20 fish, 19 of these will need to be sacrificed for sampling, 31 of 40 will be sacrificed, 45 of 100 and 51 of 200 will be sacrificed for each species in that consignment order. In some cases an importer can have over 50 species in a single shipment.
Unfortunately this will lead to further losses of fish species being kept in Australia.
 
Aquarium Industries along with other importers have lobbied the government about these changes to no avail. As it is expected that many fish species will be lost to our industry forever, there will be some larger orders placed with suppliers over the coming 2-3 months to ensure everyone can order these much loved fish before they are possibly never imported again.
The first large order will be with a Glaser shipment from Germany in October. For further information please visit
http/www.aquariumindustries.com.au/tanked/

 

[Raticataticus]

This is why we can't have nice things

 
Not that I blame them, because there's so many stupid, people who do the wrong thing and release fish into waterways.
 
It's bloody annoying, everything in Australia is overpriced as it is, and this will only make it worse.

 

[Mamashack]

Sorry it's going to make things more difficult for you in Oz.
Just wondering when it's going to get here in UK!

 

[star4]

It is very sad , trying to change these sorts of legislation once they are underway is pretty impossible. The same is going on in Europe with Action for Animals, details here.  http/eurogroupforanimals.org/get-involved/the-need-for-national-and-eu-action-to-protect-wild-and-exotic-animals most people I try and speak to about it stick their head in the sand and say "it isnt going to happen" but it does happen. South Africa has had so many species banned in the last few years also, now Australia, the UK is next!!

 

[Baccus]

Sadly this happened years ago with bird keeping here in Australia, with many species that used to be readily available now extinct in the Australian Bird Keeping Industry. Bird keepers are trying at the moment to get more people to keep and breed some of the more limited bird species so that we can at least keep some genetic diversity.
 
Since we are not allowed to keep many small rodents that are readily available overseas things like gerbils, hamsters, chinchillas are pets us Aussies can only dream about. I feel that as Australians we should be able to keep our native animals as pets. In NSW and VIC some native mice and possoms even quolls can be kept as pets, so I see no reason why more of the small possom species and other small native animals can not be kept Australia wide.

I know that the environemnt and pet leglislation is never a high priority for parliment members, but I feel it is time for all Austrlains to start lobbying thier local members, especailly since histroy has proven the squeeky wheel gets the oil.

 

[SeanTrollope]

It is very sad

, trying to change these sorts of legislation once they are underway is pretty impossible. The same is going on in Europe with Action for Animals, details here.  http/eurogroupforanimals.org/get-involved/the-need-for-national-and-eu-action-to-protect-wild-and-exotic-animals most people I try and speak to about it stick their head in the sand and say "it isnt going to happen" but it does happen. South Africa has had so many species banned in the last few years also, now Australia, the UK is next!!

yea the keeping, breeding and racing of pigions has just been banned here. seriosly its stupid

 

[Baccus]

What was the reasoning behind banning racing pigeons? Was it disease related e.g. Risks of Bird Flue being transmitted to humans or some other disease? Was there some way in that racing pigeons affected the livestock market? Or was government concerned about the numbers not returning home and becoming a feral pest in the towns and cities?

 

[Better is Betta]

What a sad state of affairs but its like this with everything we do in life.  I feel its become worse because of the irresponsible action of a hand full of people.  It only takes a few people to do the wrong thing to make life so hard for people who always do the right thing.  Its not just hard for fish keepers, bird keepers, breeders etc but for ordinary people in general. I mean you can't even go camping out in the bush without running into so many restrictions and when you do find somewhere to camp, you have to put your hand in your pocket to pay.......I'm heading off the subject in general into another direction sorry.
 
But I feel with all this unreasonable red tape bull fodder laws and restrictions, will only open up the black market  more so, putting a bigger burden, higher costs etc of people who do the right thing. 

 

[Lillefishy]

What a sad state of affairs but its like this with everything we do in life.  I feel its become worse because of the irresponsible action of a hand full of people.  It only takes a few people to do the wrong thing to make life so hard for people who always do the right thing.  

I agree, it's the actions of a few irresponsible people that are leading to bans in many countries.
Here in the Uk we have bans on some aquatic plants, apple snails & soon many species of fish.
It's becoming even more important for people to breed certain species of fish as wild fish may no longer be available & in part I agree with reducing the number of fish taken from the wild.

 

[SeanTrollope]

What was the reasoning behind banning racing pigeons? Was it disease related e.g. Risks of Bird Flue being transmitted to humans or some other disease? Was there some way in that racing pigeons affected the livestock market? Or was government concerned about the numbers not returning home and becoming a feral pest in the towns and cities?

no apparenly it was crule to let the birds fly ??? not deseses, not livestock market, so many are ferile already it wont make a difference, our government was concerned that they wernt making money from it. but we are still allowed to hunt them which often does not kill but wounds birds (the governmnt is making money out of hunting) so it baffels me how they think and what goes on in there heads.

 

[star4]

 

What a sad state of affairs but its like this with everything we do in life.  I feel its become worse because of the irresponsible action of a hand full of people.  It only takes a few people to do the wrong thing to make life so hard for people who always do the right thing.  

I agree, it's the actions of a few irresponsible people that are leading to bans in many countries.
Here in the Uk we have bans on some aquatic plants, apple snails & soon many species of fish.
It's becoming even more important for people to breed certain species of fish as wild fish may no longer be available & in part I agree with reducing the number of fish taken from the wild.
 

Those most irresponsible (guilty) for introducing none native species is in fact governments! - The pacu introduced in Thiland to keep down vegitation instead of paying someone to do it, the asian carp in america - brought in because it was a filter feeder - which "escaped" - The wells catfish introduced to UK waters for the purpose of sport fishing, the cane toad was introduced to Australia by the Queensland Agricultural department in the 1930's to keep down beetles ... this list goes on and on, it is not the odd person chucking a few guppies in a pond that causes these problems.