sea dragons

[kudagirl]

Hi, Seattle has them as well.

Sue

 

[Ostentum]

There is a pair down here near me also at Moody Gardens. I have had a couple discussions with the Curator of Fish down there and basically the background is this. There are a few mated pairs across the country, most have produced eggs but the fry have never survived. Its almost like there is a pod or some sort at about the 3 week mark that they are missing in its food chain. So getting them to eat at about that mark is proving extremely difficult. There is only one guy in Australia that has a license to catch the dragons. And the number he can catch is extremely limited and once he catchs that number he is done until Australia tells him he can go catch more, hince the price. So basically the only way you will ever seen one in a private house is if A) somehow they convince this one guy to sell them one or two B) you steal one from a public aquarium or C) you illegally dive in Australia, collect one or two and ship them back to the states.

 

[snorvich]

There is a pair down here near me also at Moody Gardens. I have had a couple discussions with the Curator of Fish down there and basically the background is this. There are a few mated pairs across the country, most have produced eggs but the fry have never survived. Its almost like there is a pod or some sort at about the 3 week mark that they are missing in its food chain. So getting them to eat at about that mark is proving extremely difficult. There is only one guy in Australia that has a license to catch the dragons. And the number he can catch is extremely limited and once he catchs that number he is done until Australia tells him he can go catch more, hince the price. So basically the only way you will ever seen one in a private house is if A) somehow they convince this one guy to sell them one or two B) you steal one from a public aquarium or C) you illegally dive in Australia, collect one or two and ship them back to the states.

When diving in Southern Australia (option C), the dive site location of sea dragons (especially leafy sea dragons) is a guarded secret. Even if you could fine one, remember they are highly susceptible to decompression sickness so the process for capture, removal, and subsequent transport would be "nontrivial".