Jim Cumming hails from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada and has been keeping tropical fish for over 65 years. Other than a fifteen-year sojourn into the world of killifish (his online name is ‘notho2000’) he has kept and presently keeps Central and South American cichlids, and currently devotes about one-third of his 40 aquarium fishroom to Madagascan cichlids and the Etroplus genus from India.
Jim has made presentations to over 120 cichlid and generalist aquarium societies and conferences throughout the U.S., Canada and overseas over the last 15 years and in the Spring of 2018, was invited to Berlin and Dresden, Germany where he presented on Madagascan and South American cichlids to the German Cichlid Association (DCG). Other speaking engagements included the International Cichlid Conference in Brisbane, Australia in November 2018, the Nordic Cichlid Association in Uppsala, Sweden in March 2019, the East Anglia Cichlid Group in Newmarket, UK in April 2019 and the ACA Convention in Cromwell, Connecticut, in July 2019. He continued to be busy in 2020 and 2021, giving virtual presentations to around a dozen clubs in the U.S. and Canada.
In 2022 (post-pandemic), he spoke in person in Pittsburgh (May 20th), at The Keystone Clash in September (23rd to the 25th) and on September 30th to present at the Association Francais Cichlid convention in Nancy, France. Jim has never turned down an invitation to speak other than for a conflict of dates.
Jim has been a moderator for several on-line forums and several Facebook aquatic interest groups and maintains a Facebook site devoted to fish and their conservation. On Facebook he is presently Administrator of the groups Madagascar Endangered Fishes, Cribroheros & Beyond, Asian & Middle Eastern Cichlids, and most recently CARES Preservation. He maintains a YouTube channel under the name of 2000notho, with over 700 videos. Also, Jim has had articles published in Amazonas, Cichlid News, Buntbarsche, and the Swedish Ciklid Bladet magazines. He is also an American Cichlid Association sponsored Speaker, as well as a Madagascan Cichlid Species Specialist and speaker for the CARES Preservation program. He also has been actively involved in the local Aquarium Society of Winnipeg, where he served for many years as Program Chair, Journal Editor, and President. Jim enthusiastically looks forward to spreading the word on cichlids, whether they be Malagasy, Central American, South American, or Indian, as well as on a variety of other hobby-based topics wherever and whenever he can.
We are so grateful to have Jim representing CARES as a CARES Speaker as well as the inimitable job he does as Administrator of the CARES Facebook page and as a CARES Team Specialist. Thank you so much Jim for all that you do!
Contact: [email protected]
Presentations include:
‘The Cichlids of Madagascar – A Land in Crisis’
Talk Outline
- Where Madagascar is located.
- How large it is, comparatively speaking.
- How it got to where it is.
- Its importance in global distribution of all cichlids.
- State of the land– ‘the good, the bad, and the ugly.’
- Described genera of the endemic cichlids.
- Species that I have experience with.
- A more detailed look at some species.
- The people behind the cichlids.
- Saving a species from extinction and conservation.
- The future of the endemic fishes, and fauna in general.