NANFA ENDANGERED SPECIES CONSERVATION PROGRAM
            by John Bondhus, Monticello, Minnesota
Almost every year a new North American freshwater fish species becomes 
extinct.  Most of these extinctions could have been prevented by  
reproduction in aquariums or in protected areas. Many became extinct because 
people willing to help simply did not know which species were in greatest 
need of help or what they could personally do to help.  Many NANFA members 
re
working individually on conservation programs but no
coordinated effort exists. Therefore, the NANFA board of
directors has decided to establish a species conservation
program to coordinate and help promote activities.
NANFA is a unique organization.  It's heavy emphasis on
aquarium study of North American fishes may give it more
potential to prevent extinction's  of our native endangered species than any 
current organization including the government. The federal government has a  
program for endangered fishes,but  less than $1,000,000 is allocated  each 
year for fish
recovery programs (U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service 1992).
Congress simply lacks the political willingness to spend money except on a 
few high visibility species.  A few other
conservation efforts are being done by state and federal
agencies. The largest being at the Dexter National  Fish
Hatchery that allocates about $400,000 from game fish hatchery funds.  Most  
programs depend on the individual initiatives of dedicated biologists who 
find their own ways to get grant money or do them on their own time.  Today,  
at least 50 species  get no funds or attention at all.  Many other 
organizations have started conservation programs and some like the Desert 
Fishes Council and the Aquatic Conservation Network have been very successful 
in working with universities and government agencies to attain common goals.  
Only NANFA  covers the entire North American collection and has a heavy focus 
on aquarium
reproduction. A large percentage of the biologists  working on rare fish 
conservation programs are already NANFA members. Many of our amateur members 
are very knowledgeable as well,
especially in  breeding and collecting fish. Aquarium spawning is not a 
permanent solution but it's better than total
extinction.  Often, it's the last line of defense.  It can buy time until an 
adequate recovery plan is implemented and it's an area NANFA member's usually 
enjoy.
For more than thirty years now, I have been watching sadly as more and more 
species become extinct.  I kept telling myself the government would start 
doing something about solving this problem.  I really hoped with the 
Endangered and Threatened Species Act of 1973 something would start to 
happen, but only a token amount of money is allocated to it.  In fact, our
congress allocates less than a cent per person per year for fish recovery 
programs.  Many low priority species are
deliberately ruled out for federal reproduction programs
because of lack of space.  One species no longer existed in the wild and its 
removal meant automatic extinction. (Minckley, W. & Deacon, J. 1991).   Yes, 
they raised a tremendous hullabaloo about the Snail Darter Percina tanasi and 
delayed a major dam construction to protect it but this was done only with
publicity and legal pressures.  At the same time, just in the last few years, 
 three or four easily reproducible species
became extinct with no efforts expended.  These species would have been 
relatively easy for NANFA club members to breed and perpetuate.
I have always felt "well, there is not much I can do because the government  
would not let me breed endangered species with the regulations in place."  I 
was wrong.  Al Castro, phone
number 415-467-9344 told me you do not even need a permit in most cases to 
keep, breed, and distribute them.  This assumes you legally obtained them and 
do not buy or sell them.  An
exception may be if they are covered by your local state game and fish laws.  
Normally these laws cover only game and
commercial species  living within the state's waters.
STUDYING CURRENT SPECIES STATUS TO ESTABLISH PRIORITIES
The more people we become involved, the more species we can save.  This 
involvement is often due to lack of  knowledge of what needs to be done, how 
urgent it is, or how to do it
without legal troubles.  We can maximize this involvement by communicating to 
members the current project needs, status on each species and applicable 
laws. There are at least one
hundred species on Federal Threatened and Endangered  Species Lists and at 
least as many that are as rare but not officially listed yet. In addition 
there are locally threatened stocks in almost every state (Schmidt, K. 1990). 
 We can gather
information on each of these species, report on their current status and then 
members can more easily select projects that fit their interests, resources, 
and abilities.  What we do can only increase the current efforts of others 
and to help ensure more species survive.  We should maintain a data base on 
what is actually being done for each of these species and who has legally 
obtainable species.
In many cases, there are programs in place, and we should
support  organizations doing those programs.   Members may want to volunteer 
to help on some of these programs.  Let me give you an example -- a frequent 
NANFA member, J.R. Shute is
currently working on seven species.  He developed a non-profit organization 
to do this, Conservation Fisheries, Inc., 7108-A Commercial Park Dr..,  
Knoxville, Tenn. 37918 and has secured funding from various organizations to 
work on these seven
species.
This example may be interesting to you because a non-profit organization can 
pay its employees a reasonable salary.  Many of our members could get jobs 
this way doing what they really like.  There should be money available for 
protecting
endangered species in both the public and private sectors.  The traditional 
sources, state and federal grants may be more
limited than private grants.  Large corporations can easily justify spending 
a million dollars for the publicity value
alone if they can see concrete ways to tie the success of a major effort into 
their company's image or their management's personal values..  We need to put 
our collective creative
efforts together to find new ways to redefine the economics of species 
conservation.  NANFA  can help here by publishing new fund raising ideas that 
you may develop for your project.  If one or two other members develop 
similar programs to what J. R. Shute is doing we  would be instrumental in 
helping to save several species.  The limitation to a project is usually 
taking the initiative to raise  money to get the job done, taking the time to 
do it themselves, or organizing volunteers.
Many species became extinct  because nobody was involved.  No central 
communication system existed to communicate the serious status until it was 
too late.  Certainly someone cared with the Snail Darter.  In other species, 
they never reached the
political limelight, and died for lack of a few thousand
dollars worth of efforts.  For example, 10 years ago there were five species 
of Gambusia that are endangered.  Today, probably only 3 of the 5 still 
survive.  How complicated can it be to take a simple live-bearing fish as 
this and reproduce it in several members' aquariums to at least provide some 
redundancy in case the wild population is lost.  The Goodenough gambusia 
(Gambusia amistadensis) program lacked this redundancy and that species is 
now totally extinct.  This extinction was caused by hatchery errors occurring 
simultaneously at the only two
captive breeding locations. (Hubbs and Jensen, 1984).  With captive breeding 
its very common to make mistakes and  there must be a much higher level of 
redundancy here than in the
wild.   The captive breeding populations need to be perpetually managed in a 
data base as members  change their interests or accidentally lose their 
individual populations so an adequate number of separate locations are 
maintained with frequent
--- Maximus/2 3.01
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