What ever happened to Hong Kong eels???

[Magnum Man]

they were pretty solid in the aquarium trade 20 plus years ago, but I tried looking them up on the www. a while back... it looks like they didn't make the transition to the digital age... as there is not much on them... the closest thing I could find, when I looked a while back, I think they were called Rice Paddy Eels, or Asian Swamp Eels... if these are the same thing, they must have determined them as invasive, or decided they couldn't be kept in an aquarium??? anyone remember them??? I had one thriving in a smallish tank, in a ceramic skull, with a juvenal Piranha... for a year or so, until one day I came home to a blood red tank, & the Piranha had eaten the eel... yeh... I was young and dumb...

 

[GaryE]

I believe they are critically endangered in nature, and trading in them is illegal.

 

[jaylach]

I believe they are critically endangered in nature, and trading in them is illegal.

I sort of have mixed opinions on this type of action. Fine as to wild harvesting and openly selling but part of me feels like it just may be better to let experienced private breeders have some to try to repopulate with let's say 75% of the new beasties returned to the wild while the breeder is able to sell 25%. Sigh, I know there are a lot of problems with this as it would be hard to monitor and also hard to select the proper breeders. Just a thought that popped into my feeble mind. Of course, if their near extinction is due to environmental damage, none of the above would help as returning them to the wild would just put the new in the same danger as those already there.

Here is another off the wall thought on such situations... Harvest sperm and eggs from such endangered species and store. Once we, if the planet is still alive, actually become an intelligent species as humans and quit destroying our home planet we could used the stored eggs and sperm to repopulate species that have become extinct.

 

[GaryE]

Species are created by their environment. Take it away, and they're done.

Plus consider this forum. It's full of brilliant aquarists. But how many actually know how to breed fish?

As a hobby culture, we're losing skills rather than developing them.

Eels are really hard to breed, and if this specific eel was from Hong Kong - urbanization has moved quickly on that island. I have a bleak view of conservation that doesn't save the environment. Very few aquarists have any interest in the work it would take to build conservation networks. I've been in a couple, and they collapsed very quickly. Farms? They're full of TB, and that wouldn't help. Institutions are underfunded, and taxpayers don't want to pay taxes. Hopefully, there is a degree of protection of the habitat, and banning the trade in endangered species can keep people from fishing out the few survivors.