By Team Ayurved Sutra
Posted on
Fish in Drawing Room
If there is one trade in India which is completely illegal, unregulated and unlooked at by government and wildlife activists, it is the aquarium trade. Millions of fish are caught and put into small glass prisons every year where they die within a few weeks.
If watching these poor animals struggle for space and swim endlessly to and fro in two feet of space is relaxing then you have to be as mentally disturbed as the fish probably are. In a mammal, this endless repetitive swimming would be analysed as stress behaviour. But who cares about fish?
Where do coloured fish come from? No one in the trade will tell you, or they will give you vague replies like they have been bred in Kolkata or Mumbai. But clownfish, for instance, the demand for which shot up after the cartoon Disney film Finding Nemo, cannot be bred. They come from coral reefs and they are long distance swimmers. Baby clownfish travel as much as 400 kilometres to find anemones, without which they cannot live. 90% are killed by natural predators during their travels. Now the other 10% are being poached for your “relaxation”.
