An insight on health consequences of imported ornamental fish on native fish species in Iran

Ornamental fish trade is an industry with annual turnover of bilions of dollar. According to the preliminary reports of abroad trading by the Iranian custom in 2017, over 63 tons (more than 60 bilion Rials) of both freshwater and marine fish speceis has been imported to Iran mainly for Indonesia, Thailand, China and Malaysa. Neverthless, most of these fish are produced in Iran with high quality and health conditions. Most of the fish imported to Iran are not in approperiate quality class; and according to the roles, all imported fish must be quarantined 40-45 days before distribution in the market. However, this role is neglected because most of the fish will die before distribution in the market. This will easily lead to distribution of cotagius diseases in the country. There is little information about this topic due to lack of required assessments, but the present roprts suggest some pathogens namely Koi herpes virus and Dactylogyrus vastator, two non-native pathogens in Iran, have been easily indtroduced in the country by imported koi and goldfish. These pathogens can be easily distributed in the country and threaten the country fish stocks. This may threaten the endemic fish stocks of Iran in the future

کلیدواژه ها:

diseases ، ornamental fish ، quarantine ، health.