Why are Asian Arowanas illegal in the U.S.?

[Eric A]

Thanks.....

Asians are all native to lakes and rivers of Vietnam, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia.

theres actually several species of Asians.. u have the green, red, xback.. etc.. theres more i just can't name them top of my head..

I know for sure that Red / chilly red are native to Northern Indonesia.. but I think theres a farm in the Philippines too..

Most Asian Arowana breeding farms are in Indonesia and malaysia...

But i know that Japan breeds asian arowanas, same with Hong Kong (only limited) and Parts of China...

You forgot Singapore.

Also, they are not different species of asian arowana. There are just different colour varieties. All are S.formosus

 

[masone]

Also, they are not different species of asian arowana. There are just different colour varieties. All are S.formosus

Once upon a time but not anymore. Asian aro's were revised in 2003. Scleropages formosus now only refers to green aro's. S. macrocephalus is silver(?), Scleropages aureus is your golds and Scleropages legendrei is the reds.

 

[David R]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scleropages

 

[patatmblife]

Okay kids...play nice. From what I understand from what he's asking, he's asking WHY are they ILLEGAL, not IF they are LEGAL.

I don't get your comments. Who is saying if they are legal? They are all saying why they are illegal like he asked.

 

[viewofthebay]

Based on what I understand is that the reason why it is illegal in the USA is because the USA do not have a governing agency to over see the fishes being brought in. They do not want to or have the resources to set up and maintain a separate agency for that purpose. Even though there are many farms that bred the Asian Arowanas, it is because the greedy breeders that do not release part of the off-springs back into the wild. If they did, it would be like any other fish in term of importing and exporting . One example is the white sturgeon. They are endangered but can be sold to pet store because half of the off-springs must be released back into the wild at a certain age by the farms and the other half can be sold to pet store or raised for food. CITES stands for Conference on International Trades of Endangered Species. The participating countries which USA is one of must follow the guide lines set forth in the conference. Basically the idea is to protect endangered and threatened wildlife from the wild from being exploited. You would think an animal bred in captivity should be do no harm in exploiting the wild population, the US Government will not look past that. Because you can not prove that the fish is farm raised or wild caught. A micro chip can be insert in a wild caught fish just as easily as a farm raised one. So basically it is the population count in the wild that CITES is ultimately concerned about.

 

[dudey]

I don't get your comments. Who is saying if they are legal? They are all saying why they are illegal like he asked.

he probably cleaned up some of the post that he was referring to and either deleted them or edited them.

thats why you cant see them.

 

[JustinWong]

Is there any chance for the arowana to come offthe endangered list

 

[Sisiliano]

They are illegal.yhey are in extention
Some eople get them.with out havin the knoledge
Of how.to take care of them just to have something.
Rare

 

[HungDang]

the main reason is: "some of the US laws are stupid!"

 

[y26tan18]

the main reason is: "some of the US laws are stupid!"

I like this reason ^^