PlanetCatfish.com

Well, this just goes to show it's important to buy your cats from a reputable source. It's probably just the tip of the iceberg so far as fish smuggling is concerned and it shows that at least in some places there's enough demand in certain species to make it worthwhile.

They look like L333 in the photo. Anyone know any better?

Customs press release: http://www.customs.gov.au/site/page.cfm?c=5650

Customs fish pictures: http://www.customs.gov.au/site/page.cfm?u=4556

looks a male and female L066.

i hope they don't get destroyed.

you can bet on it they WILL be destroyed; sad but true.....

Customs government employees aren't exactly the most flexible in mind.

If they don't destroy them, what should be done with them? too costly to send them back, and if not illegal they wouldn't have taken them anyway.

If these are on the "not to be imported in Oz"-list, they're dead meat.

I can remember a very messy situation a few years back, here in the Netherlands;
there was this shipment of at least 400 groundsquirrels from China.
The paperwork on those wasn't good, or missing.

guess what the emplyees did.....

Put ALL the squirrels in the papershredder!!!
LIVE mammals, mind; ripped to pieces by rotating knives

The public outcry was HUGE when it came out; but killing animals because the paperwork wasn't OK was obviously no problem at all for Dutch government workers.

Hopefully in Oz they got a broader state of mind!

Oh my god that's awful!

as for the fish, i'm just a bit sentimental, but it would be better if a public aquarium or zoo could take them.

When an illegal fish reaches the U.S., Customs/Fish & Wildlife usually send them to a public aquarium.

Those fish will be destroyed
I know a guy that use to work for the customs dept in Darwin. It was his job to quarantine/destroy animals and plants in customs. Sad but true.

Who ever smuggled them in should be expecting jail time and a huge fine. Because we have just been bombarded with adds about quarantine, staring (the idiot) Steve Irwin.

If you were interseted, those fish wern't for the aquarium trade, their young were.
How is that? i hear you ask, it is a loop-hole in our government that if you smuggle an animal into the country and you are able to breed it, you can sell its young legaly. That is because the young are Australian animals, unlike their parents.

I love Steve Irwin!!!

Even though he almost fed his baby to a croc in a show

I don't know....every time I see the Croc Hunter on TV, I get the idea that his entire skit is just that; acting. I'm plenty sure that 99% of Australians don't speak exactly as he does too.

Myself, I find any nature show that he stars in annoying, since the show is about him rather than the animals. Whatever happened to animal shows that didn't need hosts?

Amen Taratron!

it wasn't a tv show that almost cost the baby's life. it was a live croc feeding at australia zoo!!!

similarities any one?
http://www.mediaman.com.au/articles/irwinjacko.jpg

...still think the man has done alot in changing how people look at crocs and snakes, as animals instead of monsters. He always, in every show that i've seen anyway, talks about the importance of saving endangered species etc.

not to mention he's got a very nice zoo, and I've never seen ANY zoo in wich animals had such large cages (enclosures is a better word), so few animals per enclosure and such healthy animals.

yeah, he's a hyper show-off alright, but he's a damn fine zoo-keeper too!

and, for the record, yes; been there, seen the man up close and personal.

If you were interseted, those fish wern't for the aquarium trade, their young were.
How is that? i hear you ask, it is a loop-hole in our government that if you smuggle an animal into the country and you are able to breed it, you can sell its young legaly. That is because the young are Australian animals, unlike their parents.

I get the joke MDOU

its no joke, its what actually happens.