Government mistakes are just people mistakes. I have made quite a few
in my life time. I do seem to remember many years ago an alligator
problem in the sewers of NYC I believe brought on my dumping pet
alligators down the toilet.


On Wed, 7 Jan 2004 17:43:09 +0800, "Jim Morcombe"
wrote:

I'm from Perth Australia,

We have a very fragile Freshwater system here.

There are only seven species of freshwater fish native to the Perth
waterways.

First Carp were introduced into the lakes so people would have something to
catch.

This upset the eco system and caused plagues of mesqitos.

So they (the government) introduced Gambusia (Mesquito fish) only to find
they prefer fish eggs to mesquito larvae.

I don't believe there is even a record of what we had in most of our lakes.

Then they introduced Trout and other fish into the rivers.

Now we have very tight controls over what fish we can import - but its a bit
late.

On my last trip to the Moore River I caught about 50 of the introduced
mesquito fish and two tadpoles.

All of these fish were introduced by government experts or approved by gov't
experts.

I think we folks in the Hobby do occassionally make mistakes - however our
mistakes are usually small and easily corrected. It really takes gov'ts or
gov't backing to truly destroy an environment.

However, I fully import the restrictions in place because I see the effects
every day.

I have heard lots of people complain that the Fisheries deprtment is useless
when it comes to processing requests for exemptions, but I have never been
knocked back and hence haven't found the rules restrictive at all.

Jim


Jim


Joseph wrote in message
.. .
I live in a state where many fresh water plants are illegal, e.g.
Anacharis and milfoil. There are also several species of aquatic
animals that are illegal, e.g. ghost shrimp, fresh water snails, and
killifish (a HUGE fine if your caught with killies).

I've been wrestling with the ethics of buying an illegal animal on
line (ghost shrimp), and wonder what other people think about this in
regards to both plants and animals.

Any thoughts?