darters and natives

[sskruzr]

Well, when I had them, they weren't a problem except when kept with angels. They'd grab their ventral fins and hang on for dear life. It was really interesting in how they memorized the landscape and rarely bumped into anything. Also, they're very easy to breed. I may pick up those in Neosho next Saturday. I think they had 3 but unfortunately looked like all males, but we'll see.

[mewickham]

why are Sticklebacks illegal in AR? To catch? Keep? Both? They are on my bucket list (pun intended)!

I'm not sure why. I just remember reading it somewhere. Without looking it up, I believe it was a law against keeping them, since they aren't native to the state and capturing them wouldn't be an issue.

[sumpnfishy]

Yeah, I'm not sure about the reasoning behind the sticklebacks. It is doubtful they would survive except perhaps in the man made trout waters. The farthest south they live around here is Iowa except for the California species.
Snakeheads are awesome. Unfortunately they are on the FEDERAL list of species you can't keep. That one is just a big fat knee jerk reaction by people who don't wish to take the time to do a study and find out that only a couple species can live in the US outside of Florida.

[aulonocaraaddict]

Oh ya? I didn't research them I just seen the one on youtube when I was looking up videos of the bowfin. I actually think the snakehead I seen was in india in a studies program. Why can't you keep snakeheads?

[mewickham]

Why can't you keep snakeheads?

Do you remember the "frankenfish" incident of about five years ago? Some idiot in Maryland bought some green snakeheads and released them into a local pond. He was Asian-- they eat the fish there-- and bought them for food. This fish is highly predatory. When someone discovered the fish breeding in this pond, right next to a major river, the government got called in. They drained and poisoned the pond to prevent the snakeheads from spreading to local waters. The media picked up on this story and blew it way out of proportion, dubbing the fish "frankenfish." I'm not sure why they came up with the name. They emphasized how predatory and indestructible the fish was, and how it could slither across land to reach other waterways. It made news for weeks. Later, there was even a lame sci-fi movie made about some of these fish coming in contact with chemicals dumped into a pond and growing into monsters that came on land to eat people!

The end result was that the government got so scared that they banned every single snakehead species. This is what happens when hobbyists release non-native species into the wild. They often do it with a good heart, thinking they are giving a chance to a fish that they no longer want. But the end result is often the outlawing of the keeping of that fish for everyone. One of the reasons piranhas have been banned in so many states is because people release their cousins, the pacus, into local waters and fishermen catch them. Not knowing the difference, a news story always results of some guy holding the giant "piranha" he caught. Pacus are largely vegetarian.

In the interim since the frankenfish story, they have caught many green snakeheads in the nearby rivers of that area. So the eradication of the fish was not successful, and green snakeheads can now be found in Maryland waters.

[aulonocaraaddict]

Thanks Mike for the explanation. Wow! I actually hadn't heard that. Really stinks because they are beautiful fish!