Another sad story, courtesy of the exotic pet industry
November 17th, 2009 by admin
Last month, a young boy caught a red-bellied piranha while fishing in a retention pond in Palm Springs. 10 days later another piranha was caught in the same pond. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) believes the piranhas were dumped in the pond from someone’s aquarium.
It’s not known who dumped the piranha into the pond, or why. Maybe the person(s) had purchased the fish online, but were disappointed when the fish did not live up to their reputation as bloodthirsty killers. Or maybe the fish grew too large for their aquarium. Or perhaps they learned that piranha- native to South America- are illegal to possess in Florida, as they are in more than 20 other states. But if they thought that the pond would make a good home for the fish, they were mistaken. Not only are the piranha dead, but soon so will every other fish in that pond.
Florida is warm enough that piranha are able to survive in the wild, and could potentially reproduce. For that reason, they are strictly prohibited (possession of piranha in Florida is punishable by a $1,000 fine and a year in jail). Today, FWC biologists began using a chemical called rotenone to kill all the fish (and possibly some frogs and turtles as well) in the pond to make sure there are no surviving piranha. It’s not a painless death; the FWC explains that rotenone, “stops fish from using oxygen absorbed in the blood.”
The father of the boy who caught the original piranha told the Palm Beach Post that killing all the fish in the pond was “terrible” and a “freakin’ tragedy.”
This depressing story is only the latest incident in Florida involving exotic “pets.” On ARFF’s website (click here) we maintain a list of escapes, attacks and other incidents involving monkeys, pythons and other wild animals kept as pets. The growing list is strong evidence that the sale and breeding of exotic animals should be banned in Florida.