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🎏Range & people

Koi · Domesticated carp whose Niigata colour mutations became a global pond aesthetic -- not a wild goldfish substitute.

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Quick answers

Are koi just goldfish?

No. Goldfish descend from Prussian carp (Carassius). Koi are ornamental common carp (Cyprinus carpio) fixed in Niigata. The atlas seeAlso cannot point at goldfish because that id is not in the taxonomy.

When did nishikigoi become a breed?

Colour mutants were kept in Yamakoshi rice-terrace ponds in the early 1800s. The 1914 Tokyo Taisho exhibition took them national.

What is the All Japan Koi Show?

The ZNA-centred championship that still sets kohaku, sanke and showa as the Gosanke core classes.

Why do Israeli and US farms matter?

After the 1960s export boom, Israeli and US growers scaled food-and-ornamental carp. Butterfly fins are largely a non-Niigata aesthetic.

What did KHV change?

Koi herpesvirus outbreaks from the late 1990s killed whole collections. Quarantine and certified-free stock became the new entry ticket.

Are escaped koi a conservation problem?

Common carp are invasive in many rivers and lakes. A show pond is secure; a flood overflow is not a garden anymore.

Money around the koi is regional even when the brand is global.

Figures are dated educational bands -- not live quotes and not a buying guide.

Encounter bands

Viewing / tourism (2010s band)

Ticketed

Safari, hide, cage-dive or parade tickets in the 2010s often sat in the tens to hundreds of USD per person -- a dated band, not a live quote.

Conflict / livestock loss

Local & episodic

Predation and crop-raid compensation schemes (US, Kenya, India) published per-head bands that changed with election cycles.

Fishery / take value

Commodity

Where the type is a catch (tuna, salmon, fugu), 2000s-2020s ex-vessel or auction bands were the political number -- not a supermarket tag.

Captive / zoo husbandry

Institutional

Annual keep for a large mammal or a specialist bird in AZA/EAZA reports ran to five or six figures USD in the 2010s.

Enforcement / reserve ops

Public

Ranger, observer and census costs are socialised; they do not appear on a viewing ticket.

Regions

North America

ESA listings, Parks Canada, Alaska runs and Churchill buggies are the English-language field the localLens keeps returning to.

United Kingdom and Ireland

RSPB, NatureScot, reintroductions and a dense NGO press shape how this atlas type is taught in British English.

European Union / wider Europe

Habitats Directive, IWC delegations and returning wolves sit beside UK practice without being identical.

Range-state core

The biological centre of the koi -- often not English-speaking -- still writes the Red List.

Australia and New Zealand

DOC, Phillip Island, Taiaroa Head and kakapo-style ICU projects are the southern English conservation dialect.

Global trade desks

CITES, ICCAT, IWC and auction houses price the animal whether or not a local language has a word for it.

Key range numbers

18Atlas speed
94Atlas resilience
64Atlas cultural impact
18Atlas ecological role

Field programmes

Niigata breeders

Yamakoshi and Ojiya houses that still sell bloodlines.

ZNA

Show rules and international clubs.

Israeli and US farms

Volume ornamental carp.

Japanese MAFF / prefectures

KHV and export health certificates.

Pond-liner industry

The suburban infrastructure that holds the fish.

All Japan Koi Show organisers

The price-setting calendar.

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