Please don't buy wild dwarf puffers!

[Pallokala]

I just heard about recent studies of dwarf puffer, carinotetraodon travancoricus, becoming endangerous species. It is listed as "vunerable" in IUCN Red list of threatened species
http://www.iucnredlist.org/
(write 'tetraodon' into search to view list of pufferfish, for example)

Here is one article of it, that says one reason for it is it's popularity in aquarium hobby:
http://news.mongabay.com/2013/0725-smit ... india.html

Another article (I don't have access to it, it costs something to read but I heard this) says that during the past 7 years,
1 000 000 wild dwarf puffers have been imported from India to the pet industry. That is a lot!

We don't want them to extinct, right?
So don't buy wild ones and please let your local pet store owners to know about this too, so that they don't order them anymore. I'm sure any responsible customer and fish store owner will think twice what to order, if they just knew about this.
I don't know if there is any captive bred dwarf puffers on the market, since they are quite hard to raise due to their size. It would be nice to hear, if someone knows better!
Hopefully some hobbyist can breed even small amounts of them, to offer a better and more sustainable choice.

After all, there are plenty of other puffers to choose from!

(Sorry if this topic has been posted before, I haven't been here for ages, I had to make a new profile and all. I recently continued my long aquariumhobby after a break, and I wanted to let you know about this 'cause I think this is very important matter.)

[Pufferpunk]

My LFS still buys Jellybean parrots. I don't think any LFS will care about wild-caught species...

[G S P Freak]

They don't care, most people don't either. It's all about the $$. Humans cause species to go extinct all the time, it's quite sad how destructive our species is.

[bertie 83]

That is not good at all. We need to start a breeding programme!

[Iliveinazoo]

That is not good at all. We need to start a breeding programme!

That's a great idea and I would love to join in if I had dwarfs,hopefully someone takes you up on it.

[sgtmyers88]

*sighs* If only I could get mine to breed...

[RTR]

In the early days of dwarf puffers in the hobby, they were captive bred - in Florida if I remember correctly. It is possible that wild caught fish may be cheaper than wild caught these days - I am not up on those details.

Practical breeding programs at the hobby level require non-trivial investment of time, tanks, and money by the hobbyist. Not everyone has the space and investment to do this at a practical level. I have and do this with one non-puffer species, but would be hard-pressed to take on another species. Access to distribution is big problem with hobby breeding for other than limited local distribution. Only commercial quantity breedings are likely to be practical, and I am not at all sure if that is practical for a fish species which is best in species-only tanks.

Wild-caught versus commercial breeding is a huge issue for non-"community" fish. If you live in a metropolitan area it is more easily done, even on a limited scale, due to access to more retail outlets.

[Pufferpunk]

PetSmart used to breed them!

[Pufferpunk]

PetSmart used to breed them!

[Iliveinazoo]

In the early days of dwarf puffers in the hobby, they were captive bred - in Florida if I remember correctly. It is possible that wild caught fish may be cheaper than wild caught these days - I am not up on those details.

Practical breeding programs at the hobby level require non-trivial investment of time, tanks, and money by the hobbyist. Not everyone has the space and investment to do this at a practical level. I have and do this with one non-puffer species, but would be hard-pressed to take on another species. Access to distribution is big problem with hobby breeding for other than limited local distribution. Only commercial quantity breedings are likely to be practical, and I am not at all sure if that is practical for a fish species which is best in species-only tanks.

Wild-caught versus commercial breeding is a huge issue for non-"community" fish. If you live in a metropolitan area it is more easily done, even on a limited scale, due to access to more retail outlets.

Or a network of people within driving distance from each other and different retailers. If there is a place to arrange doing it though it is a forum like this together with fish clubs.

[Pallokala]

I think that besides metropolitan areas, smaller countries (like Finland, where I live) it would be possible to gain a reputation that you are breeding and selling these. We have one very active aquarium forum, where it's easy to reach lots of hobbyist who come to the forum to search information of the fish they are going to get. There is very active "for sale" -section, and If sellers would mention that this species is getting endangered in their ad, I'm sure people would rather buy them than ask LFS to order them.
Why wouldn't that work anywhere where there is active groups of hobbyist, forums or fish clubs.
And I'm also trusting that not all fish store keepers think only money, and a reputation of selling endangerous fish or species that grow much too large for aquarium etc. does affect their sales. In the time of the internet shops being more popular and lots of fish stores have to close because they can't compete with the prices anymore (that is happening in here, I just assume it shows elsewhere, too), they really can't afford to lose their regular customers.
So if you do succeed in breeding dwarf puffers, I'm sure also the stores would be interested of the possiblity of getting them from time to time.
Customers have become more interested of what they are buying and how it effects nature etc.
There is always mentioned wheter the fish are wild or captive bred on the stock lists, so the sellers do know that. And I know many people who always asks this when they are buying fish, so people do care. And together we can make a difference!

[RTR]

Bendalcat has a good point. Several European countries or language groups do have very active pet communities which occupy what would be to USA hobbyists smallish land areas and would thus lend themselves to hobby-scale breeding and distribution. That seems to occur over here only in some metropolitan areas.