New York man pleads guilty to smuggling nearly 40,000 piranhas into the U.S.

Maybe he's lucky that 40,000 piranhas didn't eat him up... ;)
 
They're not illegal everywhere in the US. We had 3 red belly piranha when we lived in NH. I think it's because even if you tossed them in a river there it'd be too cold for them to survive.

So the death penalty for smuggling fish that only illegal in half the states?? Seems a bit harsh.
 
ambrosia said:
They're not illegal everywhere in the US. We had 3 red belly piranha when we lived in NH. I think it's because even if you tossed them in a river there it'd be too cold for them to survive.

So the death penalty for smuggling fish that only illegal in half the states?? Seems a bit harsh.
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The owners could introduce them to wildlife - that's major concern for me like they did to pythons in Florida. It is dangerous to swimmers or anyone play with water in river.

too cold to survive? They likely to survive in southern states during summertime.

For my thought - if owners introduce them in river and kill the swimmers, so I believe that owners should receive a death penalty for kill the swimmer.

It is obviously dangerous fish and owners don't care, or not aware of illegal to introduce them to wild.
 
I think that there should be some type of repercussion for smuggling them into the US but there are crimes being committed out there way more deserving of the death penalty than a fish smuggler. I mean we have people that have plead temporary insanity and gotten off with murder. It just seems unbalanced to me. its not a perfect world though. I feel like most people are doing the best they can with what they have though
 
Foxrac said:
The owners could introduce them to wildlife - that's major concern for me like they did to pythons in Florida. It is dangerous to swimmers or anyone play with water in river.

too cold to survive? They likely to survive in southern states during summertime.

For my thought - if owners introduce them in river and kill the swimmers, so I believe that owners should receive a death penalty for kill the swimmer.

It is obviously dangerous fish and owners don't care, or not aware of illegal to introduce them to wild.
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Okay, a short education on piranha.

I wouldn't worry about these people introducing then into the wild, no money in that. It's the people that buy them you have to worry about. For instance when we moved from NH to SC we had to get rid of them because they're illegal there. So we just sold then back to the pet store where we bought them. In most cases that's what people would do, but there are plenty of bone heads out there that might try to flush or dump them.

Now they might screw up the Eco system, but I wouldn't worry about them killing swimmers. They might get bit, maybe but.....here's the thing about piranha, it's not always like animal planet where they strip an animal in like 5 minutes. My exhusband used to reach his arms into our tank ALL THE TIME, never bit, let alone have all the flesh from arm stripped. They were well fed.

What happens is, they live in the amazon. There's rainy and dry seasons, during the rainy season the river bloats, and during the dry season it shrinks, and pools of water can get separated from the main river. Then what happens is eventually the piranha in it eat everything that's stuck there with then and they start to starve. So if an animal comes along to drink from the water, they kill it. But that is not the behavior of piranha that has abundant food sources.

End piranha education for the day.
 
ambrosia said:
Okay, a short education on piranha.

I wouldn't worry about these people introducing then into the wild, no money in that. It's the people that buy them you have to worry about. For instance when we moved from NH to SC we had to get rid of them because they're illegal there. So we just sold then back to the pet store where we bought them. In most cases that's what people would do, but there are plenty of bone heads out there that might try to flush or dump them.

Now they might screw up the Eco system, but I wouldn't worry about them killing swimmers. They might get bit, maybe but.....here's the thing about piranha, it's not always like animal planet where they strip an animal in like 5 minutes. My exhusband used to reach his arms into our tank ALL THE TIME, never bit, let alone have all the flesh from arm stripped. They were well fed.

What happens is, they live in the amazon. There's rainy and dry seasons, during the rainy season the river bloats, and during the dry season it shrinks, and pools of water can get separated from the main river. Then what happens is eventually the piranha in it eat everything that's stuck there with then and they start to starve. So if an animal comes along to drink from the water, they kill it. But that is not the behavior of piranha that has abundant food sources.

End piranha education for the day.
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Ok, I just checked piranha website so thank you for educate me. :ty:

In here, we have alligators.
 
:D

The only reason I know anything about them at all is because we had 3 of them, red bellied like the ones in the article. I used to have a kibeefit when my ex would reach into the tank.

They might do a number on the Eco system if there was enough of them, I'm not sure how big of breeders they are. But legal in 25 states anyway and I've never heard of then causing problems in rivers or lakes....or people being attacked.

Obviously the guy broke the law, and needs to face the consequences, it's just an electric chair or something for it is a little.......blood thirsty? That was my only issue with your post :) the death sentence.
 
ambrosia said:
:D

The only reason I know anything about them at all is because we had 3 of them, red bellied like the ones in the article. I used to have a kibeefit when my ex would reach into the tank.

They might do a number on the Eco system if there was enough of them, I'm not sure how big of breeders they are. But legal in 25 states anyway and I've never heard of then causing problems in rivers or lakes....or people being attacked.

Obviously the guy broke the law, and needs to face the consequences, it's just an electric chair or something for it is a little.......blood thirsty? That was my only issue with your post :) the death sentence.
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Yes, I realized that piranhas are not invasive species as pythons do spread over Florida.

I learned that piranhas don't survive in cold water so they will likely to be killed during winter.

It could possible that piranha owners know better about not introduce them to wildlife, unlike python owners, so they likely to donate unwanted piranhas to pet store.
 
All I can say is OUCH!

Yea, that would destroy some ecosystems. We had a non-native fish introduced here in the Chesapeake Bay about 5 years ago...snake fish or something like that. Nearly destroyed the ecosystem so it costed the Maryland taxpayers a lot of money for the launch to get rid of them.
 
I have my friend who own a little piranha in his small aquarium. He kept showing off when he put his finger in the water to see how fast piranha can bite, he kept fingering out of water .... I told him ONE DAY, O N E D A Y!!!!!! He could not keep up with piranha's weak health anymore and decide to let it die.
 
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