Presence of prohibited fishes in the Brazilian aquarium trade: effectiveness of laws, management options and future prospects

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Regulations applied to the importation of ornamental nonnative fishes vary from country to country. In the U.S., it is possible to import many species of aquaria fish with the exception of the snakehead Channa and Parachanna spp. (Courtenay and Williams, 2004). In Brazil, at the end of the 1990s, the National Environmental Crimes Act No. 9605 of 1998 was passed to regulate the management of non-native species. This act emphasizes the trade regulation of nonnative aquatic species through vectors such as fish importation and the aquarium industry (Sampaio and Ostrensky, 2013). To reduce the likelihood of future invasions in Brazil, certain specific aquarium species were placed on the Federal Normative Instructions No. 202 and No. 203 of 2008 for saltwater and freshwater fish species, respectively (Table 1). These laws were passed by the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA), which determined the import of these non-native fishes into the Brazilian aquarium trade as illegal due to: (i) irrelevance to the hobby (Lutjanus sebae, Pangasianodon hypophthalmus, Channa argus, Channa striata, Clarias batrachus, Osphronemus gourami, Trichopodus pectoralis); (ii) aggressive behavior (C. argus, Channa lucius, Channa micropeltes, C. striata, C. batrachus); and (iii) history of invasions in other countries (Centropyge flavissima, T. pectoralis, O. gourami, C. micropeltes, C. striata, C. batrachus) (Brasil, 2008a,b). Despite the Brazilian government ruling the importation of the above nonnative species as illegal, the efficacy of the regulatory policies has never been evaluated. This paper examines the ban effectiveness on the importation of ten non-native fish species by aquarium stores in Brazil for the first time.