Fish On Tv

[businesslamb]

I was watching the latest David Attenborough nature series on TV last night, life in cold blood about reptiles and amphibians and of course as you would expect it was superb but it got me thinking.
They have covered the life of mammals, birds, plants and now reptiles and amphibians as well as life in the sea (blue planet) but very little on freshwater fish, Indeed the they only programme to mention fish is an episode of planet earth (freshwater) and even then it seemed to cover little on fish. Apart from the obligatory piranhas.
Why is this? I’m sure everyone on the site would agree that fish are fascinating there is a huge range of colour, size and shape (neons, killifish, giant catfish, discus), interesting breeding behaviour (diverse parental care, livebearers) , a stunning array of feeding practices (eye biters!) So why don’t we see this on TV. It can hardly be a logistical problem as there was film of mating crocs last night which is surely about a difficult as it gets (not to mention the underwater work in the blue planet) and you could always set up some biotope aquariums to film behaviour (don’t believe all you see on TV it is done regularly for small creatures).
I can only put it down to the fact that tropical fish are well known “pets” so aren’t seen as particularly worth the effort, why film cardinals in the Amazon if you can see them in your living room. Perhaps I shall write to the BBC and suggest they cover freshwater fish sometime.

Cheers


Businesslamb

 

[kewskills]

well there was the amazon abyss series on bbc that was focused quite alot on the fish in the amazon river.

 

[Larissa]

I am always flipping through the documentary section on Sky looking for fish programmes. I have only seen one - on piranhas of course. The freshwater episode of Blue Planet is wonderful but besides that, I have never seen any other programmes on freshwater tropical fish. I think it would be a great idea to write to the BBC and recommed they film some freshwater fish. I'm sure we could send a in letter backed by hundreds of members from this site.
(On a side, I used to live in Dullingham right outside of Newmarket - it's a small world)

 

[bleepy]

Maybe if you write to them and tell them you're willing to make a petition.. if they accept it, maybe an admin/mod could set up a poll that is available to all users on the main topic boards, and the numbers could then be made available to the BBC for them to look at.

I'd love to count towards getting these programs on the telly!

 

[Darkstar]

well there was the amazon abyss series on bbc that was focused quite alot on the fish in the amazon river.

Good series that one...did give some useful info but not enough imo.

It's downloadable here:

http/www.mininova.org/search/?search=amazon+abyss

 

[kewskills]

well there was the amazon abyss series on bbc that was focused quite alot on the fish in the amazon river.

Good series that one...did give some useful info but not enough imo.

It's downloadable here:

[URL="http/www.mininova.org/search/?search=amazon+abyss"]http/www.mininova.org/search/?search=amazon+abyss[/URL]

Excellent cheers for the link

 

[Edge]

I was enjoying Life in Cold Blood last night and had exactly the same train of thought. I'm always looking for more shows about freshwater fish, I'll definitely support any letters/petitions etc.

 

[Shrimper]

National Geographic have shown a program called "Jewel of the Rift" about African Cichlids.

It was on Youtube but i can't check if its still there from work.

 

[shroob]

I've seen jewel of the rift, it was excellent, and I don't really find old world cichlids that intriguing.
Just doing a quick search on youtube, I think its been removed, shame really but I think copyright issues may have come about.

Amazon Abyss was disappointing to me, not enough footage of fish too much on the divers. Though the scene where they went into a lagoon and they showed you pike cichlids, angels, discus and festivums aswell as numerous tetras was good. Though it was overshadowed by the presence of a snake.

There are fish DVD/Video's though if you wanted to watch some.

EDIT: Nigel Marvin's Piranha adventure might be the programme with the piranha's, its showed on discovery every now and then, and at 41 minutes (since the show started) has about 5 minutes on convicts+dovii's where a dovii eats some convict young.

Another thing, I just typed 'fish in natural habitat' in youtube, came up with a few videos that seem alright.

 

[Tobigara]

i'd support a petition. i haven't seen any good shows on fw fish either. if they were to do a show, hopefully it wouldn't just be in the UK

 

[Colin_T]

Unfortunately most of the old aquatic documentary makers have died or are no longer able to dive. Jaqcue Cousteau was one but his son Micheal has taken over to some degree. In Australia back in the 70s and 80s we had the Ben Cropp series for channel 7. They have actually started running htem again lately. It is so nice to see coral reefs from back then. They were full of fish and other life forms. It is a bit of a laugh to because you see the people picking things up and moving them around. That would be frowned upon these days. Ben Croop did one called Life in the Billabong and it has some nice footage of archerfish and rainbows and Lynn his missus Neville Coleman did some as well I think and he has an online website. These days David Ireland, aka the wildlife man, does the odd marine doco.

There is a company in South Australia called Abyss Pictures and it produces marine documentaries. They have a website online and mail order the dvds to people. They don't have a big selection but the footage is fantastic. I got one called The Vanishing Dragon and its about seadragons of southern Australia. They have one on Giant cuttlefish from down that way too.

The company that does Aqualog books have done a few movies and there was a company in Canada that did a documentary on the Amazon and it was absolutely bloody stunning. Nothing but underwater footage of fish and turtles and stuff in the Amazon. It was actually in the Rio Negro if my memory serves me right. Unfortunately they wouldn't send it anywhere except the US and Canada, and it was only available on video back then.

I have a video camera if someone has a gun to shoot the crocodiles that are trying to eat me while I am in the water. Somewhere in my collection I have some footage of Pygmy Perch. I really should get off my ass and do some more filming. Damn this forum. If I didn't spend so much time here....

 

[col748]

yeah lets get in touch with bbc would be great tv

 

[invader]

Damn this forum. If I didn't spend so much time here....

 

[DiscusKeeper403]

I always think about how cool it would be to see a show on tropical/freshwater fish. I too, wish they had something. Even the more common fish would be cool to see in their habitat and such.


I think a petition would be great! I think quite a few people would sign, especially if a bunch of forums caught on

 

[Colin_T]

The other option is to buy a video camera and an underwater housing and go drop it in the local lake.
The CSIRO is doing that around the coast of Australia to see how many fish are left in the oceans. Also to monitor shark populations after the Indonesians have been there.