# 1000 pound fine for selling a goldfish to a 14 year old.



## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1262250/Great-grandmother-tagged-selling-goldfish.html

This one is weird. I know plenty of 14-year-olds the "are capable of taking care" of a fish. I know some 50-somethings that aren't. Age doesn't really correlate with responsibility. 

IMO they should let the kid keep the fish and sentence the store owners to building him a pond to keep it in.

This is another case of "save the puppies" laws being applied to fish. Although I hate to see goldfish sold in stores or fish abused, laws like this will keep people from selling and keeping fish altogether.


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## Guest (Mar 31, 2010)

this is STUPID! wht was the court thinkin? oh i forgot THEY WERENT!


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## pinetree (Nov 29, 2009)

Talk about not seeing the forest for the trees...sheesh.


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## Cam (Nov 9, 2009)

Wow. That is quite strange! I have bought fish from our local shops multiple times. I would agree that some people, no matter what age can't take care of animals worth a crap. Weather Dog, Cat, Fish, Bird, Etc. Some people for some reason just don't care for the well being of their animals and that is just sad. They buy some fish bowl and purchase a goldfish and think that it will be okay...and fill it up with tap water and wonder "Why did my fish just die, after 3 days?"

Our family has quite the time with the animals we have, me doing nearly all of it myself. We own a male Netherland Dwarf Rabbit ( Thumper ) who is 7 years old, our male Dog ( Buddy ) who is a Shih-Tzu, and I keep my tank in my room.


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

This was England. I heard reports the Brits were afraid of the electronics in their trash cans and that the "nanny state' was watching them. I thought they were paranoid, now not so much.


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## Cam (Nov 9, 2009)

Yeah. Crazy.


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## OCtrackiepacsg1 (Oct 18, 2009)

"Defending the goldfish case, Iain Veitch, head of public protection at Trafford Council, said: 'The evidence presented for this conviction clearly demonstrates that it is irresponsible to sell animals to those who are not old enough to look after them."

F you dude. I'm 14 and I'm teaching adults at walmart they can't put a parrot cichlid in a 1.5 gallon tank!


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

I don't get it. Here 14 is old enough to babysit a toddler, drive a tractor, get married in S. Carolina, if you are a girl. A 14-year-old can't handle a fish, but at 16, he can join the British army? And he can "sting" a pet-store as an agent of the government. Who takes care of a feeder goldfish anyway? What if he just want to feed it to a frat-boy?

I think this was local law-enforcement. Usually, I advocate for local control, but there is an advantage to be had in 'big-government' and 'federal takeovers' compared to power-crazed local school boards and town councils. Federalism weeds out some of the nuttiness in exchange for wasting tax-dollars. Ask the Soviets how well 'central planning' worked.


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## llamas (Jun 29, 2009)

The interesting part is that at the end, it says that the goldfish was adopted by a welfare officer and is in good health. I can bet you that it's in a bowl...

Besides, I'm 14 and all my fish are doing well!


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## hXcChic22 (Dec 26, 2009)

Shoot... I'm an adult and I've been accused of being a terrible pet owner before, and that I don't deserve to have any pets, just because my husband and I decided to get our cat declawed, and because I used to have an outdoors-only dog. 
All of these people that think their way is the only way... can kiss my butt.


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## TheOldSalt (Jan 28, 2005)

You can bet that the anti-pet people are behind this.

By the way, goldfish bowls are illegal in many european countries already.

Here in america, we are about to lose our right to own any Acropora corals. Many Acroporas are endangered and "they" are going to put them on the endangered species list in a few weeks. Unfortunately, it is extremely difficult to tell them apart, so they are going to ban them all. I'm not talking about just banning the import of them, either, but the ownership.
For those of you who don't know, acroporas are some of the most commonly kept corals in the hobby, and commonly farmed on both large and small scale.

*sigh*
Oh, well, we will likely lose the entire aquarium hobby this year anyway. We were able to stop them last year, but now that the democrats have already flushed away their careers, there is nothing more to stop them.


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

stupid, stopping farming will only increase the pressure on wild stocks. We are finally starting to see some decent, little fish in the hobby (pygmy cories, galaxy rasboras) and they are going to regulate 'pets' so much we will all have to start keeping food fish (tilapia, IR sharks) as they will be the only fish available (you can buy live "lunch" at super H mart) and no one cares how inhumanely they are treated.

Anyone want to start a group promoting chocolate-covered apistogramma as a gourmet delight?


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

Hey, any chance I got "April fooled"? How do you confirm something is real?


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## TheOldSalt (Jan 28, 2005)

I wish I were kidding, but no.

"... A petition to classify 82 stony corals as Endangered Species under US law could spell doom—or bureaucratic nightmares—for any business or individual aquaculturing corals or live rock for the American aquarium trade, marine aquarium industry experts are predicting. 

"Listing these corals would destroy the aquaculture business," says marine biologist and well-known reef protection advocate Henry Feddern, Ph.D. of Tavernier, Florida. "I do not see that listing the corals as endangered would do anything to benefit the coral populations, but it's going to put a big crimp in the plans of anyone who wants to buy, sell, or frag stony corals. You may be able to keep your existing corals, but it could require a permit." 

"I am very concerned," Marshall Meyers of the Pet Industry Joint Action Council told CORAL. "So far only a handful of objections or comments to the petition have been filed, and the deadline is April 12th. We need industry leaders and, especially, people with Ph.D.s behind their names to make themselves heard." 

"This could be devastating for native people in the Marshall Islands who are suppling us with maricultured corals," says Dustin Dorton, hatchery manager at Oceans Reefs & Aquaria (ORA). Dorton and others say that enforcement of the ban on collection, shipment, or sale of the 82 named corals could reach far beyond these species. Many predict years of chaos in the marine aquarium world if the corals are listed as endangered. As the world's preeminent coral taxonomy expert Dr. J.E.N. (Charlie) Veron has written, the fact is that many stony corals are very difficult, if not impossible, to identify to the species level by visually examining live corals. 

Feddern, who is an advisory panel member of the Coral Management Plan for the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council, is urging the marine aquarium community to "wake up and not sleep through this." He has written to NOAA and says that people who stand to lose their businesses or their rights to culture corals need to speak up forcefully. Read the full story...
..."


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## AquariumRox (Sep 29, 2010)

TheOldSalt said:


> You can bet that the anti-pet people are behind this.
> 
> By the way, goldfish bowls are illegal in many european countries already.
> 
> ...




I noticed you guys were talking about this in April. Is it still looming?


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## TheOldSalt (Jan 28, 2005)

Stalled a bit, but always looming, yes. This is only small potatoes, though; The crazies at PETA and the Humane Society routinely attempt to shut down the whole hobby on a near-annual basis, trying every new angle they can dream up or outright fabricate.


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## Albino_101 (Aug 14, 2008)

Hey TOS, remember our greatest enemy can also be our greatest ally, when PETA gets caught doing things that are outright crazy and extreme, it makes our side seem not so bad, and as far as I'm concerned, most people have fish to enjoy the beauty of one of nature's best masterworks, or to breed them for money, and both are examples of america's original vaules, a free market economy, and to help spread the arts, and YES, fish-keeping is an art in my opinion.


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