Article on Fish Surgery

[Afrodesiac]

The Wall Street Journal posted an interesting article on surgery for pond fish. People are willing to spend a lot of money saving their favorite Koi. There's a copy of the article at
Hotlips or http/www.mongabay.com/ under September 9.

 

[William]

Goodness, haven't read the article yet, but some of those big koi's cost hundreds of pounds I say buy small and grow them yourself, at a rate of about 3-6 inches a year (used to have a koi pond never measured fish using estimation here, may be way out... ) Then it'll only be a few years, apparently though homegrown koi do not have the quality of colour as the foriegn fish. Gone a bit of topic, but for a fish worth a few hundred maybe 1000$ it may be finacially worthwhile...

 

[William]

Just read about hotlips! For a $4.95 fish, going through that ordeal, surely it would be better just to euthanise it.

 

[Great Lakes]

Penny wise, pound foolish....

 

[adeyc]

I agree with William. If you buy a fish for a few £/$ the cost aint worth it but if you've had the fish for a while, it's got a lot bigger, and become worth a hell of a lot more then go spend the money on a vet for surgery.
Then with the Koi thing it's a whole different game. these fish when mature can sell for thousands and there is a big market in stolen ones. There was a thing on TV a while ago about all the koi from peeps ponds in one area going missing, turns out it was from all over the country. But still you buy a fish for say £10 and spend £250 on surgery for a fish that will be only worth£1000. why not buy 25 others that way you're at least in line to make youre original £1000 +.

 

[Great Lakes]

Why not just shoot all the people that would spend 1000 bucks on a fish, that would fix the problem.

 

[Rose]

I'm with you GL

 

[Great Lakes]

I'd eat a thousand dollar fish before I took him to the surgeon... :evil:

 

[Alien Anna]

Personally, I'd rather shoot the kind of person that thinks a fish's value is entirely monetary - like the guy on another group recently who didn't care about his poor water quality. He'd just buy lots of cheap fish and accept that he'd suffer some losses, he said!

If an animal is a true pet, or if it's a hobby animal (like a koi) that you've spent years attending to with loving care, and you can afford it, why not get it decent vetinary treatment?

After all, people spend thousands on dogs and cats.

 

[Great Lakes]

Not this people. I am not against treatment really. I just get sick of the rich folks and the silly amount of money they spend to have something better than someone else. You can love a 60 dollar dog from the shelter as much as a 2000 dog from an overseas breeder. Spending big money when you don't have to is foolish.

 

[Rose]

AMEN!!!!!!