Brazil, Colombia at Odds Over Silver Amazon Fish

MANAUS, Brazil, August 24, 2005 (ENS) – The silver arowana, an Amazon River fish, is at the center of a dispute between Brazil and Colombia that has become a diplomatic incident. Colombians capture the arowanas for sale as aquarium fish, but they are food fish for riverine Brazilians.

The silver arowana, Osteoglossum bicirrhosum, travels up and down the Amazon River and that is the problem, explains Henrique Pereira dos Santos, the executive manager of natural resources at the Brazilian Environmental Protection Institute (Ibama).

When the fish reach the furthest point on their travels up the river, the Colombians capture the juvenile arowanas and export them as ornamental tropical fish.

The main market is Japan, where the arowanas are cultural symbols and bring in good prices because of their beauty. One arowana enthusiast describes their swimming motion as "a mercury dance of fluid movement rolling from side to side."

The silver arowana is the largest and most common arowana. (Photo courtesy Types of Arowana)

Further complicating the situation is the fact that juvenile arowanas are raised by their parents, and capturing the babies means killing the parents.

A sharp drop in the number of arowanas has been observed and this has caused Brazilian authorities, for the first time, to prohibit fishing of them between September 1 and November 15.

The Colombians have also decided to protect the arowana, but will prohibit capturing them between November 1 and March 15.

The dispute over ornamental fish exports versus food is being discussed at a three day seminar that opened today in Bogota, Colombia.

Sponsored by the WWF and the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization, the seminar has drawn representatives from Brazil, Colombia, Guiana, Peru, and Venezuela.

"We have conflicting legislation in different countries. We would like to get other countries to be more protective, Santos told the Brazilian news agency Radiobras. They should be less liberal about exporting ornamental fish," he said.

The silver arowana can grow to four feet long and is not a protected species. In the ornamental fish trade it is considered less valuable than its Asian cousin, the golden arowana, listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, which can sell for as much as US$10,000 each.

In Asia, all arowanas are believed to symbolize luck, wealth, prosperity and strength.