• Looking to buy a cephalopod? Check out Tomh's Cephs Forum, and this post in particular shares important info about our policies as it relates to responsible ceph-keeping.

Cephres Meeting of technical experts current work

perke

O. vulgaris
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Dec 14, 2002
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Hi all,

I thought I'd start a thread about the upcoming implimentation of the EU directive 2010/63/eu and the meeting I've just attended. The meeting had a good representation across the cephalopod groups although it was a shame that there were not more nautilus people there (Robyn and Greg it would have been good to see you there) although they were well represented by Jennifer Basil. Off the back of the meeting a set of guidelines for keeping ceph's for research as a reference point for the EU legislators will be constructed detailing anything from transport to euthanasia in extreme cases. As I sit both in the research and public aquarium situation I can see benefits of these guidelines to both camps and am looking forward to a combined effort in europe to get these guidelines together. What I was wondering is how other countries outside the EU see this effort and what they currently use as guidelines for keeping cephs? Also do people think there will be any transferable things out of the document that people could use for private ceph keepers?

I guess I'm just interested in what peoples view points are
 
Perke,
I think it is important to be specific on what is being discussed. This is all pretty vague to most of us and brings about concerns about restrictions rather than mutual benefits. We tend to be leery of the government making rules even with the input of experts, particularly when the subject is still little understood by the experts. Several people have commented on the need to complicate obtaining animals that are already difficult to obtain and it is to the interest of the researcher/facility to do as much as possible to keep the animal alive.

Alternately, I know at at least one researcher that would like to see guidelines that would help both with publishing acceptance and with numbers of animals used to constitute a valid study.
 
D that's a very good point, sorry I was a bit vague about the discussions mainly because there is still a lot we do not know about these little fellows and it has made it rather hard for "experts" to come up with some sort of guidelines. What I will say is that the panel of experts was not put together by any governments we have done this off our own backs and our own funding because we don't want to over complicate things due to government legislation,so hopefully this will mean that the guidelines we have constructed are a better representative of our current knowledge rather than dictating practices.

Also our hands are already tied with the legislation as it has already gone through with no input from the community (which has upset the EU ceph community). What was interesting from the meeting is that we all tend to keep our animals in relatively similar conditions and all care a great deal about our animal welfare so if this is the case as long as the individual governments of the EU states don't take the legislation and input directly into play then we should have some hope.

I guess I would like to amend my original question If guidelines (not legislation) were constructed that included husbandry, transport, capture, illness, euthanasia, dietary requirements etc would other countries also produce their own similar documents not so that we have them for legislation but so that the ceph research community has comparable research when it comes to cephs or is this not possible? Also are things such as husbandry and treatment for illness techniques transferable to the home ceph keeper?

I guess I feel we are a small community over the world and if we can come up with something that shows what we do and don't know. Then if any other countries start going through what the EU is currently going through then they have something to show the government before the legislation gets passed rather than having someone who works on rats determining the governing of our research.
 
We need to alert Robyn, Greg and some of our other research team members for in-practice knowledge but I don't think cephs have grabbed any specific political interest here. We have had a bill trying to limit our imports scare the pants of the aquarium industry in the last year and when that bill gets resubmitted it is likely to break down the animals into some kind of groupings (the initial bill pretty much banned anything from coming here without an extensive study that no one could afford and there was no grandfathering of existing imports. The bill failed to pass but is expected to be revisited). However, that is the only bill I am aware of that might poke around in the ceph world at the moment. Unofficial adaptation of what the EU drafts may well impact our funding and publishing for research on a private level but I have never been remotely involved with grant writing or publishing so it would be good to get conjecture from our active researchers.

As a home ceph keeper I can say that openly available shared info on ceph illness and husbandry would be welcomed with open arms as information. Implementation, however, is anyone's guess as far as general impact on the home keepers. A lot would depend on what the guidelines recommended and viability for the home aquarist to implement. I suspect collection policies would be ignored since many of the available animals are not collected in the US. Those that are fall under existing "fish" rules, are often serendipitous as by catch and are unlikely to change.

I tend to think public aquariums will lag in accepting the out come if it means restructuring their environments. However, lag is better than not having a reference for new facilities and we definitely see requests on TONMO for guidelines from some of the smaller, private aquariums as they construct new environments.

A bullet list of what has been discussed, what the general consensus has been, where there has been disagreement and any ideas on implementing collaboration would be great if you are up to doing some writing :sagrin:
 
Thanks for the info!

We had a good talk about this subject at the last TONMO meeting. My stance on the EU legislation and possible US legislation is that there appear to be many things under consideration without definite scientific research to back the regulations up with. I was having a conversation with a colleague a few weeks ago. While I think it is great that this type of communication is in the forefront, I think that certain sides seem to be moving in certain directions simply as a result of anecdotal evidence. I don't know all of the specifics of the meeting, although I hope to find out more when I travel to Israel on Saturday for nautilus research where my adviser, Dr. Basil, is currently on sabbatical, but I just don't see the literature out there, for any ceph, to enact some of the strict guidelines that I have heard being tossed around.

Like you said (or maybe just alluded to), guidelines would be of great importance right now but I'm not sure legislation dictating these guidelines is warranted yet.

So, I think it is an important effort and worthy of discussion but I am a little skiddish on all of the actions ready to be implemented as well.... Hopefully I will have more information in a few days!

Greg
 

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