Hello,
I have to agree with martin’s reply/opinion. Paros shouldn’t be imported commercial anymore. I guess that’s the opinion off mostly all members of PP.
We should only import Paros in small numbers private by our own during vacations or with the help of native paro friends there. Then we have to breed how much as we can. But about several problems we have/had with that we discussed a lot of times. Sometimes we need more or new fish to get a feeling for breeding and of course for fighting against inbreeding.
When I recognized Parosphromenus the first time about 10-15 year ago I had my first chances to get them in the igl’s forum. I still happy about that Plattform! Nearly the same hardcore people were active like in the PP today. At this time, comparing to today, I had the feeling that Paros were more available in commercial trade. The paro friends were happy if they found some species in trade but also angry and sad about the same problems we talk about today. Most of them died in the tanks because nobody was interested and they lived in wrong water with wrong food.
Therefore it would be the best if it’s not allowed to deal commercial with Paros anymore! It should help to keep the last individuals of rar species in their more and more destroyed habitats.
But that’s only one point of the problems to keep alive this fishes.
On the other hand we all know about the damage of the habitats.
To my mind that’s the other point martin is talking about.
What could we do if the habitats and species are lost completely? Maybe we will have some individuals in our tanks and go on breeding them. It’s the same with a lot of rar Bettas. We will never know when will be the last chance to get some individuals of a rar species from the small habitats. Maybe we think we should protect all fish there but one day there will be no more fish anymore to catch again for breeding.
But what will be the aim of PP then? I was not into that topic a lot of years and don’t know what ideas were discussed in the PP.
To my mind we don’t have a real symbol like Orang Utan or Panda. Nobody knows about this fishes and the problems. That’s a real problem!
Bernd told about a meeting with sealife for trying to arrange a exhibition about Parosphromenus. What happened to that? That’s a good way to make this topic more commercial. But for most of the humans Paros will just be a “fish” like thousands of others. They don’t look cute and seem to special like Orang Urans.
I don’t know, but did we try to develop relationships with zoos to start breeding Programms with exhibition tanks?
Maybe it sounds a little bit naive but most breeding Programms started like that. Will be a aim cultivating offspring of lost species in new habitats?
A lot of questions, opinions and ideas
just for discussing.