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Unread 01/10/2018, 05:16 PM   #24
Tripod1404
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Join Date: Mar 2016
Posts: 1,821
Quote:
Originally Posted by saf1 View Post
Home aquaria a refuge, no. Probably not in the long term or big picture. On the other hand I think aquariums like the one on Monterey, Atlanta, or say Churaumi in Okinawa Japan could be. I'm sure there are others but these are a couple examples anyway.

I'll say this though - this is a hobby that can be self sustaining by sharing of coral frags, anemones that split, captive breeding of fish, among other things. Rock and sand can, and are, being aquaculture that help the hobbyist and environment by the reefs they form. While collectors of rare fish, and even us that collect fish that can't be captive bred, would throw a fit we can at least do our part with the rest and lower the burden.

Just the way I see it anyway.
It wont work even for the large aquariums with science programs. Gene pool of animals in captivity are always severely reduced. For example there are more tigers in captivity (just 5000 in US) than there are in wild (3200), but almost all captive tigers (let this bee zoos, reserves or Private ownership) are decedents of 100-200 individuals. So there is extensive inbreeding. If wild population goes extinct, captive species could not be used to reintroduction to wild to to severely eroded gene pool of the captive population.


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