Dennis the ever-knowledgable sez:

> Gambusias are not a problem in Florida; they're native there, and all
> through the southeast west to Texas, where a second species occurs.

OK, obviously not where I read THAT newspaper! Wonder where I was?

Perhaps it was Washington! (just joking).

Should've known Dennis would know more about icthyology than the
rest of us put together...

> But
> there is a *tremendous* problem with introduced fish in Florida, as Don
> Baccus wrote, and in many parts of the Everglades all you see are
> introduced species when you look into the water!

(nah-nah-I-told-you-so!)

Yeah, the pet trade has done a horrid job. I kind of find it
interesting that one of the pioneers of the tropical fish industry
in Florida is an icthyologist, Dr. Herbert Axelrod, who's discovered
and had about 1/2 dozen amazonian species named after him.

You'd think he of all people would know better, though I think perhaps
it is more indicative of the times than of any excessive shortcoming
on his part.

> This was happening when I
> left there in the 60s, and it's gotten much worse since. It broke my heart
> when I visited in the 80s.

The late 50s, early 60s is about when the trade boomed. It was
the advent of the 707 and offspring that brought about the boom,
BTW. Fast transport meant fish could be bred in Florida and
shipped airfreight nationwide with relatively low loss. Previously,
tropical fish were bred regionally (mostly indoors, for obvious
reasons related to winter, mostly) or caught wild and transported
with great loss. Made prices high.

A nice lesson in some of the indirect and very unexpected consequences
of the introduction of new technology, in this case 550 mph airplanes
that were big and (relatively speaking) cheap.

I could easily write an essay about the consequences of the invention
of the chain saw...

> For some reason, introduced fish have the potential to have MUCH greater
> effects on ecosystems than do introduced birds, something about aquatic
> systems, I guess.

Could this have to do perhaps with the fact that most fish eat anything
they can stick in their mouths, in particular smaller fish?

After all, starlings don't eat but outbreed other species.

> I think Gambusia can be called killifish, as they are in a family
> Poeciliidae that is closely related to the family Cyprinodontidae, the
> official "killifish" family.

Hmmm...next I see a redtail I'm going to shout "hey, look at the falcon!"
In a sense correct, but ...

> And we've got enough boo-boos in Congress with which to contend.
^^^ ^ ^
String the marked letters into a single word if you want my opinion!

-Don Baccus-