Apparently “Finding Nemo” has led to such a demand for clownfish as pets that wild Australian clownfish are now endangered. Wasn’t Nemo lost in the first place because he was captured to be a pet to an evil kid? I believe this can only be described as a conservation EPIC FAIL.
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I hate you for posting the link to FAIL blog. Now I must read all of it.
This is precisely the reason behind the Marine Ornamental Aquaculture research program here at Roger Williams. We have tanks full of lab reared clown fish (and sea horses, and jawfish, and flame angelfish, and neon gobies, and….). There is talk of a business spin-off from this work, but I’m not sure where that stands at the moment. But if you want clownfish, call us and keep the wild fish where they are!
Jim – I think lab reared fish only solve half the problem. There also needs to be serious penalties for shops that sell illegally caught wild fish. Otherwise, since it’s really cheap to illegally catch wild fish (even if they die soon after being sold) and thus highly profitable to sell them, the problem will continue.
That said, awwwww…tank o’ clownfish!
I guess I’m just surprised that people are actually buying clownfish in any quantity. I always figured that saltwater setups were pretty daunting, and not for the casual goldfish buyer… but then, maybe there’s just a really high clownfish mortality rate once they’re taken home.
In any case, parents who buy their kids the Disney-star-animal of the month need to be smacked down. It’s probably just limited access to lions that prevented a run on lion cubs in 1994.
At least lion cubs would have delivered their own punishment. You have a 30 pound juvenile lion living in your house, your house is no longer yours.
I went to see WALL-E this weekend. If you have been living in a cave with both fingers in your ears on Mars, then there’s a chance you might not know it is about a robot trying to clean up cheap plastic crap that humanity has trashed earth with. I don’t know if this promo was going on everywhere, but the first 1000 childrens tickets came with, you guessed it, a cheap plastic watch. I hope someone chokes on the irony and sues.