The Core Con­ser­va­tion Pro­gramme (CCP)

Inspired by our work which we started in con­nec­tion with Chester Zoo (insur­ance pop­u­la­tions, guided by IUCN red lists) but also urged by the gen­eral impor­tant need for action, we have decided to add more struc­ture to our ex-​situ con­ser­va­tion work for all Parosphromenus species.

It is quite sim­ple, but it is also challenging.

All species of Parosphromenus are at risk due to loss of their nat­ural habi­tat. There is no doubt about this, but dif­fer­ent fac­tors are involved regard­ing how acute and imme­di­ate this threat is regard­ing our stocks, — habi­tat area and devel­op­ment, ex-​situ stock global, ex-​situ stock Europe and likeability/​popularity/​difficulty of each species. We have there­fore divided the species into 3 groups, which has dif­fer­ent needs in terms of actions needed here and now regard­ing con­ser­va­tion within the PP. Species will be mon­i­tored for need to change to a dif­fer­ent status.

The Core Con­ser­va­tion Pro­gramme: We wish to estab­lish sta­ble pop­u­la­tions of each species by mak­ing per­sonal con­nec­tions to key breed­ers, attempt­ing to have a min­i­mum of 2 – 3 sta­ble pop­u­la­tions of each species. We have found that it is not enough to use our ‘old god­fa­ther’ sys­tem, — we found that there is a need for an ini­tia­tive involv­ing per­sonal con­nec­tions, and contact.

We there­fore con­tacted some peo­ple, using our Cen­sus as guide, and the pro­gramme has since been broadly wel­comed by the breed­ers. We are very grate­ful and want to thank those of you who already con­firmed their con­tri­bu­tion. More needs to come, — and we invite any­one to con­tact us, if they do indeed feel they would like to par­tic­i­pate and contribute.

We wish to imple­ment more direct sup­port and con­nec­tions with and between key breed­ers in order to help with exchange of fish, off-​spring and other issues if necessary.

For some species we will be sup­ported by insti­tu­tions such as Zoos and Aquar­i­ums and hope­fully more in the future.

It is impor­tant to note that Cen­sus will con­tinue com­pletely as before, but this new sys­tem will replace the ‘old’ god­fa­ther system,

which no longer will be used.

Par­tic­i­pa­tion in the CCP pro­gram is always pos­si­ble, but please con­sider this:

1. Your wish to par­tic­i­pate should be for a longer period, and it is good if you already have expe­ri­ence with this kind of long-​term keep­ing of Parosphromenus.
2. All species that you want to intro­duce to this pro­gram will have to be iden­ti­fied cor­rectly and prefer­ably have a known location.

The prob­lem­atic area of P. gunawani and P. bin­tan

The PP. has decided to try to estab­lish ‘true’ lines of P. bin­tan and P. gunawani, when this is pos­si­ble. P. bin­tan has been obtained with local­ity, but for now con­sist­ing only of a few pairs. This does not mean that we do not see the impor­tance of the very large group of often com­mer­cially traded Parosphromenus, which are labeled either as P. gunawani or P. bin­tan or P. sp. bin­tan or some­thing within this group. All of these are of course equally impor­tant and valu­able, but we are not attempt­ing at the moment to include these in the con­ser­va­tion program.

The group is sim­ply too big, and com­pli­cated to iden­tify safely . We will keep focus on this group in a gen­eral and dif­fer­ent way, always seek­ing to become more knowl­edge­able about the specifics of these variations.