Something that annoys me

I've read somewhere that most, if not all Chinese Firebelly Newts you buy are wild caught, or were up to a few years ago. Now, seeing on here that chinese firebellies are capable of being captive bred, why doesnt pet stores get captive bred firebellies, or even a program where they release a few young captive bred newt larvae back in the wild to restore the population we have been taking away and putting in our homes.

My male chinese firebelly is 11 years old, so he was one of the lucky few who was caught and managed to survive and thrive which is rare for captive caught animals. Although he is an interesting member of the family, it kills me such a healthy newt isnt able to pass his genes on in the wild where he belongs and would have been a "stud" newt. I know nothing on breeding or I would have got him a girl so he can breed because i'm so happy he is living so long and doing well, nor does anyone by me breed newts or I would have considered somehow letting someone breed him.

It just made me sad one less animal is unable to fulfill what they have been put on this planet for, to keep there population going.

Picture of my newt.

This issue has been recently discussed in a few threads:

http://www.caudata.org/forum/showthread.php?t=58736

http://www.caudata.org/forum/showthread.php?t=58205

and sort of related, and also interesting:

http://www.caudata.org/forum/showthread.php?t=58671


Happy reading!

Thanks for the links. Oh and just to clear things up I didnt catch my newt, I live in the U.S. he's from a pet store. I got him 10 years ago from Petland and not many of the other newts were healthy. I got him with another newt who died only 2 days after purchase! They were small and hanging out on land, so i'm assuming they were young juveniles being sold.

Wild caught specimens really tick me off too. I frustrates me beyond belief! At my petstore they have tons of paddletails, eastern newts, chinese firebelly newts-all wild caught. And the easterns and cfb's are in the same cage and the cage is 6 inches wide by 12 inches long with 1 inch of water! The paddletail cage has about 12 paddle tails in a cage only three times that big with 1 inch of water and stinks. sooooooo sad........

caudatadude28 said:

And the easterns and cfb's are in the same cage and the cage is 6 inches wide by 12 inches long with 1 inch of water!

Click to expand...

By me Paddletails, CFB, and even sometimes very young bullfrogs are in the same 10 gallon tank! the firebellies are all crammed on a 5 inch floating plastic circle, and the tank has no cover and the water isnt that deep but deep enough they can swim in. It's chaos and the paddletails do the best only because they are the biggest but even they are stressed badly. They used to have ADF and ACF with the newts too but they has mass causualties with that from the newts poison glands killing the frogs. The bullfrogs must be dieing too cause the newts only get pellets and bloodworms the bullfrogs wont eat those.