Lucas Lang
Well-Known Member
As for me I would say fish is so hard to identify especially if you have learnt a lot of knowledge of identify many species that may only have difference on their scale number for exam, which is very sad.
Why aren’t fish more popular?
- Thread starter RatioTile
- Start date
odd, I can't even find an entry for it on ZTL
Not that unusual for an obscure freshwater fish; zootierliste remains largely unreliable for fish, especially at larger collections, for a lot of the reasons mentioned in this thread.
La Cucaracha
Well-Known Member
This, but with birds.
I'm sorry, what?
Birds are easily the second most common animal group in zoos, are usually signed correctly (except in some large areas) and are not being ignored by pretty much any ZooChatter other than Giant Eland.
Although I guess the general public does view birds in zoos the same way they view fish- pretty to look at with lots of bright colors, often kept in large, mixed-species exhibits, but with no regards to specific species except for the most popular (e.g. sharks and clownfish for fish, but for birds penguins and raptors). I can certainly see where the comparison is coming from, although I agree on this site birds are popular and get a lot of attention.
La Cucaracha
Well-Known Member
Don't get me wrong, I love birds as much as the next ZooChatter.
I'm not as confident in the general public's ability or desire to differentiate different bird species; especially with comments I've heard at the zoo such as: "Birds are boring."
Perhaps, but I guarantee there's much more interest than fish.
I disagree - most people will still recognize numerous groups of birds readily enough. Swan, duck, parrot, eagle/hawk, ostrich/emu, pheasant, pigeon, toucan, crane/heron, penguin, pelican, etc. I've found the public to be much closer in IDing at least the right group for birds than fish, no contest. I've generally been far more surprised in people knowing birds, but they're also all over the place and birdwatching is steadily rising in popularity still.
I agree with this. Birding is really popular and can be done on foot in accessible places close to people’s communities, whereas with fish nobody lives underwater, so encountering fish takes more effort than encountering birds. Boats, fishing gear, and scuba equipment aren’t cheap, so it takes a lot more money to see a good diversity of fish than a good diversity of birds. The global population of people who can ID birds well (at least their local common names) should far exceed the global population of people who can ID fish well (more limited to fishermen both commercial and recreational, scuba divers, and aquarists).
I think the answer is quite easy, the same reason why it's just as not popular as amphibians or small reptiles.
Comparatively speaking, their activities are simply not really as engaging for zoo visitors as much as mammals.
Really, the only reason fishes would be popular are how big, scary, or beautiful they are. Whale sharks don't really do much outside of swimming around and occasionally eat some fishes, but their gigantic charisma certainly makes them incredibly popular.
Comparatively speaking, their activities are simply not really as engaging for zoo visitors as much as mammals.
Really, the only reason fishes would be popular are how big, scary, or beautiful they are. Whale sharks don't really do much outside of swimming around and occasionally eat some fishes, but their gigantic charisma certainly makes them incredibly popular.
Really? I would expect a fish this is swimming to be doing a more "engaging activity" than a lion that is sleeping, and yet lions are one of the most popular zoo animals.
Behavior is always an interesting one, as it does impact the popularity of some animals (e.g. meerkats, otters, primates), there are other animals that live predominately sedentary lifestyles that remain popular as well (e.g. big cats, crocodilians, red panda) While behavior may certainly be one piece of the puzzle for zoo animal popularity, its certainly not the whole picture, as there are some unpopular species with really interesting behaviors and some popular species that are sedentary.
You know lions don't just sleep. They also roar, hunt, groom, and play if you get the chance to see them. Whenever you hear a lion roar within a mile, you just know how much presence it has over the exhibits. Yes they spend a lot of time sleeping, but clearly there are a lot of factors on why they were popular in the first place.
In comparison, fishes mostly don't really seen doing much outside of swimming, though they are definitely really pretty and that's why mostly everyone would be captivated by them. Though they wouldn't really be remembered as more than a "fish" unless it happens to be a shark, a ray, a seahorse, or clownfish and blue tangs.
I'm one of the rare big fish nerds on this site, I'm more into aquariums than I am zoos, and I am an fish keeper myself, with a garden pond full of native (Southeast Texas) fish, and an Amazon paludarium, as well as a couple of smaller tanks. I am a strict biotope aquarium keeper, try to keep only fish that could reasonably be found together in nature in one aquarium with decor that approximates their natural habitat. Even just in the fishkeeping hobby, I cannot stand the artificial fish. I've never understood the appeal of albino versions of fish, you usually take a fish with attractive natural colors and breed a line of it that lacks those colors. And yeah, lots of mbuna morphs that are less attractive than wildtype. I can't stand the fancy goldfish branch of the hobby - fish bred to be deformed so that they can't swim properly, with eyes very prone to injury and infection, I think it's really inhumane. Same with other species like balloon rams. What I hate most are what I call the "Frankenfish" - the interspecies hybrids of different cichlids, like the blood parrot you mention, and the flowerhorn. Most of this comes out of an unscrupulous, unregulated ornamental fish industry in Southeast Asia, where surplus livestock are dumped into local waterways where they have become a serious invasive threat to native fish there.
It's bad enough to see my fellow hobbyists, many who profess to "love" fish, embracing these monstrosities, but zoos and aquariums displaying them seems to me a violation of a public facility's purpose.
I think you sum it up pretty well, and I am a fish enthusiast who does have a lot of interest in fish behavior. I can get lost looking at each little tank that focuses on one or just a few species, but I get it for the average aquarium goer, it's about the whole gestalt of a vibrant reef, or a big tank full of large pelagics.
There are opportunities to make fish behavior interesting, like having scheduled feeding times for archerfish (Toxotes), or mouthbrooder tanks, mudskipper tanks, or having tanks that focus on commensal and mutualist/symbiotic relationships, - clownfish/anemone tanks are always popular (judging from the little kids squealing "Nemo!" when they see them), there could be exhibits with emphasis on things like pistol shrimp/shrimp goby pairs.
You don't have to go that far, here in the US we have the hogchoker (Trinectes maculatus), a small flatfish, about the size of the palm of a grown man's hand, that is amphidromous (can freely move between saltwater and freshwater, and not just to breed). I've caught them in a small creek in west Houston that is a tributary of Buffalo Bayou, over 30 miles inland from where the bayou enters Burnet Bay, which isn't a very salty bay, only about 7 to 13 ppt (normal seawater is about 38 ppt)
I knew about the Hogchoker, but I had no idea there were fully freshwater species.
By the way, an interesting explanation why fish are unpopular was given in the book of Desmond Morris “The naked ape”. He proposed that popular are animals which visually resemble humans, especially have short face and upright body. Fish are not humanlike. However, seahorses with upright body and giant groupers with round faces are among the more popular fish. The second, less important criteria is whether animals can be interacted with, like dogs and horses. Here again, fish lose.
spelunker1994
New Member
I think most people find interest in things that are more active, if that makes sense... All one can really do when looking at fish is watching them swim around and around. Whereas if you were looking at a caracal or something, you can see them interact with other caracals more expressively. In my personal belief fish are cool and they totally need better representation. Maybe that will help spark interest. Finding Nemo (2003) was clearly not enough.