Responsible Fishkeeping

By Carol Boker

Editor in Chief of Pet Product News International and Pet Style News

As editor of Pet Product News International, I feel there are specific issues in our industry where we must take a stand. Releasing certain fish into the wild is one of them. David Lass, one of our writers, has joined forces with Frank Sandor of the Blue Zoo talk radio show, Russ Case and our sister aquarium publications of BowTie Inc., NexPet and Sera to work with retailers on responsible fishkeeping practices.

The Responsible Fishkeeping Initiative (RFI) seeks to voluntarily limit the retail sale of pacus, iridescent sharks and red-tailed catfish due to these species' propensity for attaining huge mature sizes, putting them beyond the capacity of most fishkeeping hobbyists. When desperate owners who can no longer care for these huge fish find out that public aquariums and local fish stores cannot accept their "donation," they sometimes resort to releasing these fish into local lakes, ponds, etc.

The RFI is not a legislative effort, but simply an effort on the part of the aquarium industry and hobby to stop these problems before they get out of hand. Any fish store that joins the RFI agrees not to sell the three species mentioned, as well as to euthanize any fish that have outgrown their owners' tanks, at the owner's request. We really have to stop having aquarium fish released into local waterways.
We are surveying what fish store owners and others in the fishkeeping industry think of this idea. Please take our poll (on the left side of our Web page) and send along any additional thoughts to this blog or to PPNeditor@bowtieinc.com.

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