Marie,
I've shipped many fish, including many adult wilds... fatalities occur.... you do the best you can ....but it happens... In the winter it can happen more...we shipped these out the worst possible time...the christmas holidays and after a series of severe storms.... Am I surprised some died...not at all. but once I ship them...I am at the mercy of the shippers and have no control over the way they are handled... These are young fish.. I had wanted to do this earlier in the year but it was not possible.
Is this going to happen again...I hope so.. If I have fry I can part with I will again......I hope others such as Darren did in Australia do it as well here...international groups would all be welcome......I'd love to have this a yearly thing here... with as many groups as possible... I think theres a tremendous amount of information to be learned from these kinds of events.....hobbyists learn by doing...and others learn by following...
Like all things this contest will have to evolve...Next time around I think a group of 8-10 will be better...and we'll set the cut off at 6 fish to start.......of course I have to find people willing to giveway away thier hard earned FRY and any money they may have made off them first, ,,who knows Marie...maybe you'll be one to do some day...or one of these contestants this time.
So to recap...surprised no....another contest absolutely..if possible, I think this is the kind of contest we can do real well here..
-al