From Oslo to Cologne

The participants in a stud book are not always having close to one another. In our particular case a future participant looked for Allotoca meeki in the stud book. However, no suitable fish were found near his home town of Herten near Essen in Germany, so a longer wait was announced. However, it was thanks to a fortunate circumstance that a participant from Aksdal in Norway was nursing a large surplus of this kind. But how should we get 10 or 12 animals almost 1,200 km further south? Another lucky circumstance came to our aid: A Norwegian had registered for a workshop in the Haus des Meeres. Although he now lives around 500 km east of Aksdal, the animals were successfully sent to the vicinity of Oslo. From there, the animals finally began the first stage of their journey to Vienna, where they arrived on May 26^th. Well, Vienna and North Rhine-Westphalia are not exactly around the corner, but after a colleague from the Haus des Meeres wanted to start her Denmark vacation with a few days in Cologne, another unexpected door opened. She gladly agreed to transport the 10 young Allotoca meeki to Cologne, and since it is not 50 km from Herten to Cologne, the eagerly awaited fish arrived in Herten after 150 days of waiting and almost 2,000 km of travel. This shows once again what international cooperation (called networking in modern German) is able to achieve, especially in the field of conservation breeding.