Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!husc6!m2c!jjmhome!cpoint!alien
From: alien@cpoint.UUCP (Alien Wells)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: rec.aquaria vs. sci.aquaria
Message-ID: <2665@cpoint.UUCP>
Date: 10 Oct 89 13:33:45 GMT
References: <6402@ficc.uu.net> <798@pmafire.UUCP> <20568@gryphon.COM> <530@banyan.UUCP> <20766@gryphon.COM> <2084@hudson.acc.virginia.edu>
Reply-To: alien@cpoint.UUCP (Alien Wells)
Organization: Clearpoint Research Corp., Hopkinton Mass.
Lines: 30

In article <2084@hudson.acc.virginia.edu> gsh7w@astsun9.astro.Virginia.EDU (Greg S. Hennessy) writes:
>I would be willing to wager that both the number and percentage of
>professional astronomers who read/post to sci.astro will be larger
>than the number of professional fish breeders who will read/post to
>[rec,sci].aquaria. 

I'm unconvinced.  I suspect I would take the wager.  While I am not a 
'professional' now, I have - in the past - financed my fish operations with
sales of fish that I bred.  There have been lots of discussions in 
alt.aquaria on breeding fish.  There are also a number of killie buffs, and
you aren't 'allowed' to own killies unless you breed them (1/2 :-).

I will grant you that there probably isn't anyone in the group that earns
his entire living off breeding or collecting fish, but there isn't exactly
the level of governmental and academic subsidy for aquaria either.  When
I was the president of the MIT Exotic Fish Society, we looked at getting
together a proposal to get a grant to do some research in raising/breeding
the Snail Darter (remember the Snail Darter?) and keeping it from extinction
by commercially introducing it as a hobbyist fish (they are quite attractive).
We got a resounding yawn as a response.  The closest things to aquaria that
get government support are trout hatcheries and a few public aquaria.

On the other hand, the people that ARE involved in research (primarily 
European, I'm afraid) we WANT involved in this group ... thus the request for 
sci.aquaria.
-- 
--------|	Sometimes I feel like a ball
Alien   |		in the great pinball game of life.
--------|   					- Steve Steir
     decvax!frog!cpoint!alien      bu-cs!mirror!frog!cpoint!alien