Why aren’t fish more popular?

RatioTile

RatioTile

Well-Known Member
5+ year member
It seems to me that even among zoo lovers, of the animal taxa, fish tend to get the short end of the stick in terms of knowledge base and appreciation. Many species collectors looking to fill captive life lists don’t even bother cataloguing fish species they see in zoos and aquariums (I know people who collect mammals only, and people who collect all vertebrates except fish). Even most staff in public aquariums besides aquarists and curators have no idea what species they look at every day. This is in spite of there being incredible fish diversity in colors and shapes (qualities that make birds attractive and popular). I’m wondering why?

Here are some of my hypotheses:

1) People tend to find charisma and identify with animals closest to humans, which is why mammals are the most popular. Being mammals ourselves, we see plenty of similarities with other mammals, making out their facial expressions. But we’re pretty far removed from fish and share fewer similarities in morphology and behavior, so they’re kinda alien to us. Invertebrates have it even worse in terms of getting people to care about them.
 
birdsandbats said:
I usually don't keep track of fish because there are too many species is a single exhibit and signage is poor, so oftentimes I have no idea what I'm looking at, and when I do there's just too many species to keep track of.
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2. Fish tend to be some of the worst signed animals in public zoos and aquariums. In some tanks, fewer than half of all species are labeled, and due to the fact that many species die easily or get moved to other tanks (water parameters, aggression by tankmates, etc.) turnover can be high, leading to outdated signage and maybe even the sign department not bothering to make signs at all. I often have to rely on encyclopedias, databases, and Facebook ID groups to get unsigned fish identified, with mixed results.
 
birdsandbats said:
I usually don't keep track of fish because there are too many species is a single exhibit and signage is poor, so oftentimes I have no idea what I'm looking at, and when I do there's just too many species to keep track of.
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The diversity and number of fish species in captivity are actually quite limited. When collecting at a normal pace, one would probably not end up with a lot more fish species than bird species. The only problem seems to be signage, which is tricky to keep on updating for an aquarium since fish collections change a lot faster than is the case with other animals.
 
Yeah that's the other part, signage and you'd have to be into fish to want to identify them yourself. Shedd Aquarium is the one exception I can think of where it would be possible to keep track of fish relatively easily. Although people do manage to keep track of other unsigned animals, so I feel like if people were interested enough they could do it. I want to, personally, for completion's sake.
 
3) It seems like zoo and aquarium management themselves tend to shaft fish, either because they think guests don’t care, or because they don’t want to do the research. I’ve seen so many hippo/croc ponds and display tanks full of random, hybrid, and morph Malawi mbunas. Also abundant are koi, goldfish, freshwater angelfish morphs, balloon rams, and blood parrot cichlids, which almost never get labeled. These are places that wouldn’t display a white tiger, but they’ll display aquarium fish that wouldn’t exist in nature.
 
RatioTile said:
These are places that wouldn’t display a white tiger, but they’ll display aquarium fish that wouldn’t exist in nature.
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I’d argue that this sentence goes back to your your first point with humans relating to mammals more than fish. For many, a tiger is a free wild animal that shall not be bound by human greed and therefore shall not be bred for novel color morphs. But when it comes to fish it’s just a case of “whatever” or “they are just fish”.

In another, the plight of tigers are always more brought up than the plight of fish. For example while I am familiar with the problems of tiger farms and cub petting for the longest time, but I have only heard of fish getting tattooed on a few months ago.
 
ifesbob said:
Yeah that's the other part, signage and you'd have to be into fish to want to identify them yourself. Shedd Aquarium is the one exception I can think of where it would be possible to keep track of fish relatively easily. Although people do manage to keep track of other unsigned animals, so I feel like if people were interested enough they could do it. I want to, personally, for completion's sake.
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Shedd Aquarium is actually the primary reason I don't keep track of fish. I don't know how you could ever visit there and think it's easy to keep track of everything.
 
birdsandbats said:
Shedd Aquarium is actually the primary reason I don't keep track of fish. I don't know how you could ever visit there and think it's easy to keep track of everything.
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By "easy" I mean "possible, without a lot of digging and asking people to identify fish for you, since they have an app that is relatively reliable with all of their fish" not "trivial"
 
Fish are popular, see the zillions of Sea Life centers and aquaria.

But they are small, much like songbirds or small mammals don't attract attention,
They are displayed in a boring way - generally a row of tanks,
There is little effort to make people interested - signage is usually only name and eventually, range.
They usually don't have an interesting behavior,
There are too many species in aquarium trade outside zoos.

Zoos and aquaria could make much more interesting exhibits, but they don't normally care.
 
ifesbob said:
By "easy" I mean "possible, without a lot of digging and asking people to identify fish for you, since they have an app that is relatively reliable with all of their fish" not "trivial"
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Yeah but there's so many species in each tank it's basically impossible to keep track of.
 
birdsandbats said:
Yeah but there's so many species in each tank it's basically impossible to keep track of.
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And with tanks that have more than a couple of species, what's in them can change often with deaths / new species added, etc. Every year I start by saying I'm going to keep track of fish, and it never lasts more than maybe one aquarium. I do try to at least keep track of sharks, rays as best as I can, and some other easier species, like arapaima, seahorses, cephalopods, that sort of things.
 
TinoPup said:
And with tanks that have more than a couple of species, what's in them can change often with deaths / new species added, etc. Every year I start by saying I'm going to keep track of fish, and it never lasts more than maybe one aquarium. I do try to at least keep track of sharks, rays as best as I can, and some other easier species, like arapaima, seahorses, cephalopods, that sort of things.
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That is an issue in most aquariums, but thankfully it isn't at issue at Shedd thanks to the SheddGo app.
 
It is still a bit weird that there isn't more interest in fish, it probably has to with the general cultural trend of not relating to fish much that even zoo people fall victim too.... fish are incredibly, incredibly interesting, and they deserve appreciation... but they're also not exhibited in a way that facilitates really getting to know them, which is fair enough.
 
birdsandbats said:
That is an issue in most aquariums, but thankfully it isn't at issue at Shedd thanks to the SheddGo app.
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Shedd is probably the only one, assuming they do keep it up to date (nothing against them specifically, but places tend to start out with stuff like that in mind, then it gradually gets forgotten about).
 
TinoPup said:
Shedd is probably the only one, assuming they do keep it up to date (nothing against them specifically, but places tend to start out with stuff like that in mind, then it gradually gets forgotten about).
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It's probably infeasible to keep it completely up to date unless it's tied into some internal system that has to be completely up to date and/or they have someone who's explicit job it is to keep the app updated.
 
TinoPup said:
Shedd is probably the only one, assuming they do keep it up to date (nothing against them specifically, but places tend to start out with stuff like that in mind, then it gradually gets forgotten about).
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Yes, I sure hope that doesn't start happening, but for now at least it should remain up-to-date.
 
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