I think we can all agree that inbreeding has inherent issues. What I see unnatural is when a company decides to take fish and inbreed them, fully knowing the side effects. Personally, I can only argue for them if I see a benefit to the greater good.
Sadly, inbreeding and line breeding have been demonized for no good reason. Both are valid tools used to concentrate desireable phenotypes and genotypes (and to confirm the genotypes of phenotypes) and to eliminate undesireable traits. You talk about 'fully knowing the side effects,' and leave it at that as a scare tactic, without -giving- any good reasons.
The fact is that any breeder attempting to select for specific traits will be required to inbreed their stock. Actually, most real management programs will go through several steps of inbreeding and outbreeding in order to concentrate desireable characteristics and eliminate the undesireable ones. Good health is one of these, along with fecundity, and a good breeder understands this and will select for them.
There are now several strains of animals which have been so extensively managed, genetically, through inbreeding, that they now contain no lethal traits and no undesireable ones. The most common examples are the lab-sterile rat and mouse strains, which can be inbred to your heart's content without a loss of vitality in the brood stock. The genetic variation in the population is nearly zero.
Of course, there are a lot of drawbacks to using inbreeding, but a responsible breeding program manages the drawbacks and uses strict criteria to cull rejects. It's a massively powerful tool, and like any tool, it can be misused. Breeders with no real understanding of genetics or responsibility have resulted in a plague of genetic ailments and defects among certain types of dog breeds, for example. But without the deliberate application of inbreeding, most of those dog breeds wouldn't have existed in the first place.
There's also the fact that many r-type breeders tend to be pretty incestuous -anyway-, and their genetics are thus quite tolerant of this. Damselfish are a good example, as they tend to live in harems of closely-related relatives, and when the female dies, the dominant male will rise to femaledom, and one of the sub-males will be promoted to dominant male. The likelihood that this is a son or brother of the prior male is very high.
Given the difficulty of actually breeding clownfish and the technical expertise behind ORA, I'm pretty sure they know their stuff. It should also be noted that ORA has significant financial incentive to maintain the health of their broodstock and eliminate any negative genetic traits; part of ORA's reputation, and the reason that they can command higher than average prices, is the reputation for health that their critters have.
I can agree partially with this. But it's also like saying - We will drill in the atlantic so we can lessen our dependence on oil. Sure, sounds great - But at the same time, we're hurting the environment. There has to be a point where you have to say "no", and find other methods. For my example about the oil, you find alternative energy. In ORA's case, you find other ways to make money to drive their business needs.
This is an ethical dilemma, and they have to make a call.
So back to my question - should ORA be unnaturally creating these clowns without "significant benefit to the greater good", or is it socially irresponsible?
Not really. The animals, ORA, and hobbyists and the hobby itself benefit from managed breeding programs. It's the process of domestication that we have been applying to animals for thousands and thousands of years. The ultimate goal of an animal is to reproduce, to have its unique characteristics passed on to future generations: by definition, captive breeding programs are there to further this goal. The lightning clownfish and picassos are sports; genetic freaks, mutants, naturally unnatural. The collection of these mutants doesn't impact wild populations and furthers the spread of their unique genetics.
This is the devil's bargain that is domestication: almost guaranteed reproductive success and often significantly less chance of early mortality, coupled with a dependancy on Man to provide for them and/or the possibility that their lives will have a very set span. *shrugs*
As to the morality of it -- this is what we
are, this is what we
do, as a species. We shape the world to conform to our desires. What we do in these pursuits is no more or less natural than a termite building a mount, or a bee building a hive. And it's no more or less wrong than creating dogs from wolves, cats from ... whatever evil, less domesticated thing cats are descended from, cows from whatever they were, or domesticated ferrets from their ancestors. Or creating roses from the mutants of their ancestors. Or horses. Or sheep. Or goats. Or pigs. The list goes on.
...Or, if you ascribe to one of the religions of the People of the Book, Genesis 1:26 gives us the right. *shrugs*
