the illegal pleco list

[TwoTankAmin]

Seeing them for sale in the USA means little in terms of the legality of removing them from Brazil, especially going back in time. I can remember ordering wild zebras in 2002 and having problems with them coming in DOA. This was due to poor shipping practices and the use of too much of a drug referred to as Hypno. My order for 8 was tried twice and in both cases all but one zebra died in transit or withing about 36 hours of arriving. And the price for them was $45.

When I lost one of my first pair of adult zebras, I replaced them with 3 wild caughts (or what were called wild) from a prominent seller on AquaBid (not done at auction but as a direct sale). I did this in 2004. I also lost money buying some from an Aquabid seller which were shipped on the morning of 9/11 from California. he seller dropper them off at LAX about the time the WTC was being attacked. That was the last he saw the box of fish and they never got to me. Those were priced at $25 each.

I would almost argue that making them illegal to export made them more expensive and thus more profitable to smuggle. Ultimately, this in turn resulted in more of them being taken out of Brazil. I am aware of a couple of people who were bringing in 100s at a time from about 2008 to 2012 or so. And the demand for them at the time was strong.

The article I linked above seems to imply that removing most fish from Brazil was not legal well before the white lists came into being?

[Narwhal72]

You missed my point.

The fish were available BEFORE IBAMA even existed. Which means that the fish were available in the hobby before the regulations restricting their export ever existed.

I see nothing in that article about any restrictions prior to 1994.

[YSR50]

Don't have any insight as to the legality of Zebras back then, but I would see them at many LFS around here back around '90-'91. I remember paying $30-35 each, which seemed like a lot at the time. I also remember purchasing 1 or 2 Blue eyed Panaque from local pet stores.

[TwoTankAmin]

While is is correct that IBAMA was created in 1989, there is more to the history of protecting Brazilian resources.

The Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources, known as IBAMA, is a federal agency under the Ministry of Environment......

IBAMA’s role in environment protection

The institute must guarantee the implementation of the National Environmental Policy which was established in 1981 and intended to preserve, improve and restore the environmental quality of Brazil..........

How IBAMA was created?

The idea of creating IBAMA began with Brazil’s participation at the United Nations Conference held in Stockholm in 1972. After this conference there was a lot of pressure from society and other countries for Brazil to start protecting it’s natural resources and manage their environmental in an integrated way. In response to the commitment made by Brazil at the Stockholm Conference, the Special Secretariat of the Environment or Sema, which regulates the activities aimed at preserving the environment was created.

Another agency that also worked within the environmental area was the Brazilian Institute of Forest Development, known as IBDF, which was responsible for forest preservation. Besides this institute, there was the Superintendent of Fisheries, known as Sudepe, responsible for the management of fisheries and also the Superintendence of Rubber, known as SUDHEVEA, which was intended to enable the production of rubber. Even though, there wasn’t an agency that operated in an integrated manner. IBAMA was created in 1989 and was formed by the merger of Sema, IBDF, Sudepe and SUDHEVEA.

from http://thebrazilbusiness.com/article/in ... n-to-ibama

So, unless some other government department such as the Superintendent of Fisheries, known as Sudepe, was doing the work handed over to the Ministry of the Environment, the earliest possible date that zebra (and other fish) might have been not allowed for export would be some time after 1985. If it was not until the creation of IBAMA, it would have been 1989. But it could have been earlier than that since the article traces the concept of IBAMA to the early 1970s. And if IBAMA is enforcing a regulation from 1981, was this when exporting zebras first became illegal? I have no clue what the regulations regarding the export of fw fish might have been during the 1970s or early 1980s in Brazil.

What I do see is the possibility that zebras might have been restricted any time from the 1970s on. If anybody can fill in the history, please do so.

[Narwhal72]

Zebras did not hit the hobby until the '80's. Prior to the creation of the IBAMA white list (which happened several years after the creation of IBAMA itself) there were no restrictions on exports of tropical fish from Brazil. Only CITES listed fish would have been restricted and that would have been regulated more on the destination side of the process vs. the departure side as it is now.