Justification
Argentina has a huge diversity of aquatic environments and an important richness of freshwater fish species. In recent years, this richness has increased even more with the description of several dozens of species mostly from Mesopotamia and Northwest.
Moreover, in the country occur phenomena of intensification of the use of natural resources, caused by improving competitiveness at the international level and the development of new industrial, mining and agricultural technologies.

As it has happened in other regions of the world, prevention, control and reduction of environmental impacts is not developing simultaneously with this intensification of the use of resources, which can cause an increase in environmental pollution and degradation processes.
The fishes are one of the main indicators of the State of conservation of aquatic environments due to its abundance and species richness, having representatives in virtually all trophic levels and with species with varying degrees of tolerance to disturbance.

The delicate situation of this group is not sufficiently known or recognised. Among other reasons, because of the intrinsic difficulties for its study (little chance of direct observation, reconstruction of the use of microhábitats, calculation of precise population values, etc.) and the "invisibility" and "emotional distance" faced aquatic organisms to the public in general. However, note that the number of commercial, sports, recreational and occasional fishermen using, and enjoy, fish, is surely several times greater than the "birdwatchers" of the country.

The purpose of this site is on one hand, to work with the scientific and educational community, fishermen, administrators of all levels of Government, NGOs, aquarists, firms, etc.
On the other hand, seeks to bring the exciting, diverse and little-known group of fish to the community.

Background
Since the beginning of the nineties, the Museum of natural sciences "Rvdo. P Antonio Scasso" (San Nicolás, province of Buenos Aires) works with the fish of the River Paraná Delta. As a result of more than 15 years of sampling, lists of the Ichthyofauna of the region have been developed and published (see PDF work >> ).

This work involved the compilation of published information, what could be achieved without great difficulty, due to the low amount of published works and the help provided by Dr. Hugo López and the La Plata Museum Ichthyology team.
Then the database included the rest of the province of Buenos Aires, and finally, throughout the country.

Work was done at first from the Museum "P. Scasso" and then joined the Óga Foundation fish conservation programme. For years, took place without external financing.
In 2006, thanks to efforts of Lic. Oscar Padín, the necessary support for the printing of the book "Geographical distribution of the fish in inland waters of the Argentine Republic" was achieved from the Subsecretaría de Pesca de la Nación. The book contained the information gathered so far, about 7,500 records. It belongs to PROBIOTA programme publications (Programme for the Study and Sustainable Use of the Austral Biota) . See more data>>

Continuing with the burden of information, in 2008 international support was achieved from IABIN (Inter American Biodiversity Information Network) for on line publication of the database and evaluation of the quality of the georeferencing records See more data>>

Database Features
• Includes information based on published works, abstracts of scientific meetings and collections.
• Contains more than 11,500 records.
• Displays the precision associated with the geographic position of records.
• Provides possibilities for viewing and searching on interactive maps.
• It is free.

Contact
Corrections, additions, suggestions, consultations on more data available, or any comments, please contact base-peces@fundacionoga.org.ar.

Invited those working in different aspects, basic and applied, fish, to send
• copies of published works
• photographs of the different species
to be incorporated in this database with your data as authors, to the following addresses:

Prints:
Freshwater fish conservation program
Fundación Óga – Museo de Ciencias Naturales "Rvdo. P. Antonio Scasso"
Don Bosco 580
2900 San Nicolás de los arroyos
Buenos Aires - Argentina


In electronic format:
base-peces@fundacionoga.org.ar