I was sitting in a hotel room passing time when these two videos popped up on my Youtube feed. We see so many lies about "wild caught" animals furthered by political groups with an agenda, and we've been seeing and hearing it for so long, that we don't even know the truth of the matter. I was LITERALLY, in every sense of the word, a part of this chain. A direct part. I had no idea of the positive impact that my activities were having on PROTECTING the Amazon rainforest from destruction and annihilation. I had no idea of the families and communities that I was supporting. I've never had a problem with taking sustainable numbers of animals from the wild when it was done sustainably and humanely, but I really never pondered the positive impact my little hobby could be having around the world.
My father had aquariums when I was born, but I don't remember them. My Mom showed me a picture of myself as a toddler in front of one of them. He had piranhas and large predatory fish, and he got rid of them when I grew tall enough to reach the tops of the tanks and stink my fingers in. My parents divorced shortly after that, and outside of annual trips to SeaWorld, I didn't give aquariums or fish keeping much thought. Years later, on a monthly visit to my Dad's apartment at the age of 13, I had a life changing experience. Since my last visit, he'd gotten a 40 gallon aquarium on his kitchen counter and it was filled with the most colorful and interesting fish I'd ever seen. African cichlids from Lake Malawi. To say I was transfixed would be an understatement. I was mesmerized, fascinated, hypnotized, enthralled... It was magical. The way the light played through the water and on to the fish and gravel, the way the fish went about their fishy business all day, the way the fish watched me watching them, the comforting sound of the water trickling out of the filter, even the smell of the water captivated me. Seeing that I shared his fascination, my Dad happily explained the whole thing to me at length for the entire weekend. He explained that its not just fish and water, its an entire living eco-system. This was a concept that I'd neither considered nor cared about in the previous 13 years, but NOW it meant everything to me. It was the greatest gift he ever gave me. That weekend changed my life forever.
I grew up in a bad neighborhood surrounded by concrete, asphalt and violence. I'd always had a love of animals, but beyond dogs, cats, rats, roaches and pigeons, there wasn't much animal life to view, appreciate, or learn about. There was a pet store about a mile and a half from my house. After that weekend at my Dad's, I was in that pet store nearly every day. I talked my Mom into letting me get an aquarium of my own, and it grew from there. Within a year, I'd read every aquarium book in print, had 6 aquariums lining the walls of our tiny little house and worked in that pet shop. For the next few years, I worked in the fish rooms of several local pet shops, eventually becoming the fish room manager in a couple of them, and after graduating high school, I went to work at a local tropical fish importer/exporter/wholesaler, while attending a community college to get my general ed done so I could transfer to a University as a bio major and become an ichthyologist. Part of my job at the wholesaler was going to LAX at all hours of the day or nights and picking up the incoming shipments from around the world. Africa, Asia, Peru and Manaus in Brazil... I marveled at what was in those boxes. I saw one off incidentals that were un-named and unknown to science. In all these years, I've only been able to catch glimpses of what was really happening on that end of the supply chain. I used to talk with the rep from the Brazilian fish exporter we did business with and she attempted to teach me some Portuguese at a time in my life when I was busy learning Spanish. How I wish I had followed her back to Brazil. She invited me, but it just wasn't meant to be.
If you are one of the many people who think removing animals from the wild is always bad, please take the time to watch these videos. When done incorrectly, it most definitely can be bad. When done correctly, as in the case of the fisheries for the aquarium trade in the Rio Negro, it actually is good for everyone involved, including the fish, the indigenous people, the entire rainforest eco-system, and every bright eyed troubled kid, like I was, who has no idea what the heck an "eco-system" is. I hope that after watching some eyes will be opened and we can converse further. These same concepts can apply to our turtles and tortoises. For people to receive the bounty of nature, whether that be little fishes for an aquarium or turtles and tortoises for back yard pens, the environments that produce the bounty MUST be protected from destruction. People who live in those areas must feed their families. They need a sustainable positive way to do that, or they will have to turn to destructive negative ways to do it.
My father had aquariums when I was born, but I don't remember them. My Mom showed me a picture of myself as a toddler in front of one of them. He had piranhas and large predatory fish, and he got rid of them when I grew tall enough to reach the tops of the tanks and stink my fingers in. My parents divorced shortly after that, and outside of annual trips to SeaWorld, I didn't give aquariums or fish keeping much thought. Years later, on a monthly visit to my Dad's apartment at the age of 13, I had a life changing experience. Since my last visit, he'd gotten a 40 gallon aquarium on his kitchen counter and it was filled with the most colorful and interesting fish I'd ever seen. African cichlids from Lake Malawi. To say I was transfixed would be an understatement. I was mesmerized, fascinated, hypnotized, enthralled... It was magical. The way the light played through the water and on to the fish and gravel, the way the fish went about their fishy business all day, the way the fish watched me watching them, the comforting sound of the water trickling out of the filter, even the smell of the water captivated me. Seeing that I shared his fascination, my Dad happily explained the whole thing to me at length for the entire weekend. He explained that its not just fish and water, its an entire living eco-system. This was a concept that I'd neither considered nor cared about in the previous 13 years, but NOW it meant everything to me. It was the greatest gift he ever gave me. That weekend changed my life forever.
I grew up in a bad neighborhood surrounded by concrete, asphalt and violence. I'd always had a love of animals, but beyond dogs, cats, rats, roaches and pigeons, there wasn't much animal life to view, appreciate, or learn about. There was a pet store about a mile and a half from my house. After that weekend at my Dad's, I was in that pet store nearly every day. I talked my Mom into letting me get an aquarium of my own, and it grew from there. Within a year, I'd read every aquarium book in print, had 6 aquariums lining the walls of our tiny little house and worked in that pet shop. For the next few years, I worked in the fish rooms of several local pet shops, eventually becoming the fish room manager in a couple of them, and after graduating high school, I went to work at a local tropical fish importer/exporter/wholesaler, while attending a community college to get my general ed done so I could transfer to a University as a bio major and become an ichthyologist. Part of my job at the wholesaler was going to LAX at all hours of the day or nights and picking up the incoming shipments from around the world. Africa, Asia, Peru and Manaus in Brazil... I marveled at what was in those boxes. I saw one off incidentals that were un-named and unknown to science. In all these years, I've only been able to catch glimpses of what was really happening on that end of the supply chain. I used to talk with the rep from the Brazilian fish exporter we did business with and she attempted to teach me some Portuguese at a time in my life when I was busy learning Spanish. How I wish I had followed her back to Brazil. She invited me, but it just wasn't meant to be.
If you are one of the many people who think removing animals from the wild is always bad, please take the time to watch these videos. When done incorrectly, it most definitely can be bad. When done correctly, as in the case of the fisheries for the aquarium trade in the Rio Negro, it actually is good for everyone involved, including the fish, the indigenous people, the entire rainforest eco-system, and every bright eyed troubled kid, like I was, who has no idea what the heck an "eco-system" is. I hope that after watching some eyes will be opened and we can converse further. These same concepts can apply to our turtles and tortoises. For people to receive the bounty of nature, whether that be little fishes for an aquarium or turtles and tortoises for back yard pens, the environments that produce the bounty MUST be protected from destruction. People who live in those areas must feed their families. They need a sustainable positive way to do that, or they will have to turn to destructive negative ways to do it.