Britts amphibians?-anyone delt with them?

i am looking at purchasing about 400$ worth of newts from this person and i am wondering if anyone has bought from him before? he wants a M.O. or a check mailed to a P.O. box -doesnt do pay pal or credit cards..so i am wondering how he rates with any of you. i know there is one person here who he bought these newts from but has any one bought from him and how were they?

I recently made a small purchase from them, and I had no problems at all. They shipped overnight, didn't overcharge for shipping, kept up contact with me, sent me the tracking number, and the newts were in much better shape than expected.

I don't know anyone elses experiences with this company, and I've heard some no-so-good things, but mine was good.

Jessica

They buy a lot of Craig Cameron if I am not mistaken.

Is this the same person as froggy who posted on kingsnake classifieds before?I heard that guy is a rip off artist,i also am thinking of buying some newts from brit but hundreds of dollars is a risk.

he is based out of ney york-where was froggy from?

I suggest that those who have dealt with "Britt" start a thread in the Testimonials section.

Froggy was from Texas. I bought a pair T. shanjing back in December of 2003. Remember my "delivery" picture?

http://www.caudata.org/forum/messages/985/9784.html?1072008232

They were adults, fair priced, overnight shipment was excellent, good communication, and their knowledge "how to keep them" was uncanny of a typical dealer. Which I find to be a good thing, as most places don't know a gecko from a newt. (e.g. petco)

Cataldo

Hi Paris,
I can tell you they are very nice animals in surprisingly good shape, after all they are from Asia! But to be honest, I'm not neutral since I'm the one who provides the Verrucosus for Brit (via my friend Craig you are right Jesper ha, ha, ha....)
The Verrucosus are WC but don't look always the same. The 30 Verrucosus Brit sells recently were very orange and look a lot like Shanjing. I have personnaly sold last fall 7 Verrucosus to Jessica Miller and some were a lot darker and much bigger. Maybe Jessica can tell you more about this trade and her animals.
So every new batch of Verrucosus I receive is a surprise, big, small, dark or orange!!!!
I can't tell you more about Brit's amphibians because I have not direct contact with them, I can only give you info about the Verrucosus (not the other species)that I provide to them.
Hope it helps
Eric
P.S. sorry for my poor english.....

I have to say Mike is 100% correct. Brit, whoever he/she is (Steve Lake most likely so I'll refer to Brit as a "him"), has a history of shady activity on his ads.

First of all, the native species he offers are all wild caught. When they first were offered, they were sold as coming from Pennsylvania. However, that is illegal, and many people (including myself) emailed Brit about it. No response, of course, but suddenly the ads were changed to being from New York! Then of course, as Mike points out, their labeling as "wc" or "cb" has changed so many times as to simply be ridiculous. This person is not breeding Ambystoma, Plethodon, and Desmognathus, and I think anybody here with even a small amount of knowledge of our native salamanders knows that.

The native animals Brit offers are collected directly from the wild in very large numbers. They are collected indiscriminately and any species is fair game. He even offers toad tadpoles for god's sake! For me, that shows he is the lowest of the low and will sell absolutely anything he can get his hands on.

So for all you people getting "beautiful" and "healthy" exotics from Brit, congratulations. You're buying from a person proven to change the facts of his ads however he needs to. But you're also supporting a blatant poacher with absolutely no concern for our native wildlife and I think that's tragic.

So, Eric Guindon - Craig Cameron - Brit's amphibians is it?
For the imported animals that is.
It is good to know who not to trade with, hope the several hundred members(?) of caudata.org reads this and stop buying or trading with these people.

Jesper
I do not think that you should blacklist eric and craig for their dealing(s) either directly or indirectly with Brit's amphibians. You are making the assumption that they know about Brit's "unacceptable" collecting habits, which they might not.

As for the T. verrucosus that Craig sold to Brit: the ad was placed in the discussion forms here for the sale of those animals, so they were up for grabs to anybody who wanted them. Is it really Craig's fault that Brit offered to take all 30 off his hands, thus making Craig's life easier. I say easier because I can imaging that it is a pain in the butt to have dealings with 10 different people in different provinces and countries and dealing with shipping to 10 people and the paperwork that may be involved and so on... so it is much easier to sell the animals as a lot, which is what Craig did.
Tara

I think I'm missing something here. I bought from this place once, does this make me a bad person? I don't want to condone practicing habits as you are stipulating either. The Asian newts may/probably are wild caught, does this mean, we shouldn't buy anything off this place? What if they were captive bred, does it make it okay then? I can't find an ad for anything else except some dragons which are sold by every store on kingsnaker, it even has its own topic. I'm sure the CFB's I find at my LFS are wild caught, does this mean I won't ever buy cat food there?

Does any acceptable dealers exist to buy from then? Does this mean if anyone collects directly or indirectly animals, we should not buy them, but hope someday, a nice person will come along and give them away? And then again, where did they get them, Even captive bred was wild caught somewhere.

I've seen US exotics or another name selling some triturus genus recently, I'm thinking at the prices, they had to be wild caught and someone had to collect them at some point too. I'm not thinking of the seller, but on the ad section a place was selling some rare geckos, not commonly found, maybe wild caught?, Does this mean I shouldn't but anything from them either?

Not trying to argue, especially in the defense of someone that may be flagitious. I was just trying to read into this post and wanted to give some thoughts, as a confused reader at this time. I'm not against anybody or disagreeing here, trying to make light.

Cataldo

Ah, the age-old question...which I feel has been beaten to death on this forum and others. It was not my intention to bring it up, but I suppose it's inevitably linked. My intention was to corroborate what Mike had to say and bring attention the person's dishonesty about the origins of the native animals and their disregard for wild populations.

It's totally up to your conscience, Cataldo, whether you choose to support such activities financially or not, just as it is up to the rest of us. If you're buying wild-caught newts (and we all have at some point), then let's not kid ourselves, we are directly contributing to their demise in the wild. We all have to rationalize that to ourselves at some point. If you're personally ok with it, then fine. I used to feel ok with it, but I no longer do. That is just my personal opinion, and I'm sure it is not shared by many here.

But don't get me wrong, I like to keep newts and sals just like anyone else here and they all originated from the wild at some point. So let me clarify: I'm not anti-collecting, I'm anti-commercial collecting. There's a huge difference in my opinion between a person going out and responsibly collecting a series of larvae or adults in the wild (as in 4-8 individuals) for themselves and a person collecting as much as they possibly can for profit to the highest bidder. Likewise, we do rare and threatened animals like Tylototriton an immense injustice by attaching such gaudy price tags to them. All that does is ensure a continuing market for mass collection of wild adults.

As for selling captive bred offspring, it's certainly preferable to selling wc. Still, it has its problems as well. The higher the price you offer for your cb, the more lucrative it is to simply poach wild populations instead. In a perfect world, we'd take the profit out of it and simply give offspring away to people we know would take good care of them and keep the captive population going. But this world is far from perfect eh? It sure seems that most people would much rather sell captive bred than *gasp* give them away. Always makes me wonder where their motives truly lie to begin with. But I'm just an extremist I suppose...

So to summarize for a confused reader such as yourself Cataldo, I'm appealing to all those people who claim to have any interests in caudate conservation to at the very least, don't buy from a person as blatantly environmentally unfriendly as this guy.

These are simply opinions on my part, now unleash the hounds and let the harsh rebuttals begin!

To whom it may concern

It's quite funny to be judge by people that never meet you, see you or even talk to you....
But it's more funny to know that, among the E-mails I received, were donators/moderators of Caudata.Org. who eagerly wanted my WC surplus Tylototritons. Although each of them knows they were WC, Oups.....
Maybe they wanted my Verrucosus for breeding and after to put a CB tag on all their juvies before selling/trading them (we don't play with morality on this forum). Who knows?
But I know for sure that others simply want my Tylo to sell them in the USA where there is a good demand for them!!!! I guess, in the name of science or another acceptable cause (auction?)
Of course, all those possible trades were made off the record, not on Caudata Classified.....
So maybe, the several hundred members(?) of caudata.org can see now the other side of the medal in the wonderful world of amphibians.........

Eric
P.S. Sorry if I didn't know everything about Brit or Steve Lake or whatever, I simply don't spend all my free time on the net to find poachers and other «criminals». But I'm happy to see others did.
Thanks Tara for your support, I think you show more maturity than some «members», and you seem more neutral than people who should be on this site. I won't forget you...

Eric, just to make it clear to you and others who read this thread, just because I am a moderator does not mean in any way I speak for caudata.org or the other moderators/donors on this particular subject. It's simply my personal opinion, as a member of the forum community and I know I'm in a minority on this position. I'm sure countless people would love to buy Tylototriton from you or whomever else is selling them at the moment, for pets/resale/whatever. It's my hope the people buying them breed and freely distribute them endlessly so there's no future profit in wild caught adults.

Cheers

I am in now way "judging" you Eric, I just don't like WC animal commerce. To me it is maybe just maybe ok to use WC for breeding but never to sell for profit. Most of these animals are threatened you know....

I can just say that I really don't like what you are saying Eric - that you are sure that moderators/donors of this site wants your animals for selling in the states. Do you have any proof?

I would really be annoyed if someone here are making business out of WC animals - I think that is totally unacceptable, some people are probably doing just that but are too cowardly(smart?) to admit it openly.

Eric - same rules apply to you on this thread as did to Michael and any other vague posters - name names or shut up. I don't like these kinds of threads where everyone is not naming names. If you're not prepared to name names I'll remove the thread (I'm fine with that), and the same goes for the lot of you. If you want to character assassinate each other do it via email, not on my board. The only thing I want to see about bad trades/sales/buys are brief factual accounts of what went on, with names named.

The posturing doesn't impress.

Hi John

Let me tell you I'm not the one who started the game.
Why should I give names? It was private conversations and totaly legal trade after all. Do you think a keep copy of all my past conversations as future proofs just in case? This is not me who has a problem with selling extra WC animals. If I give you names, those people will be ban from this site although they have done nothing illegal?
It's strange that you jump on me so fast but you said NOTHING when one of the member of this forum try to ruin my reputation in public without any valuable proof. That's illegal! When the same member ask all the other members not to trade with me only on the base that he doesn't like the fact that I have sell my surplus newts to a guy who seems to did «unacceptable» things in the past, do you ask him to «shut up» because he doesn't have real proofs?
You tolerate this kind of power trip?
It's not the first time than members has been humiliated on this forum by others because the so-called «guardians of the morality» didn't like the way you take care of your animals or the way you trade your surplus newts; the freedom of speech must stop when it becomes false accusations...

Regards

Eric

You said "If I give you names, those people will be ban from this site although they have done nothing illegal?"

Eric, don't presume to be able to read my mind and I won't presume to be able to read yours. No one has ever been banned from or forbidden to access Caudata.org. Get your facts straight or keep quiet.

You said "It's strange that you jump on me so fast but you said NOTHING when one of the member of this forum try to ruin my reputation in public without any valuable proof." bla bla

My message above is directed at everyone. Is English not your first language or something? If not then I advise you to use babel.altavista.com before you make assumptions. You may or may not have noticed but you are not the first person I addressed by name here for being vague. Mike G did however name names and the offending messages were deleted yesterday. I hope you do the same.

You said "It's not the first time than members has been humiliated on this forum by others because the so-called «guardians of the morality» didn't like the way you take care of your animals or the way you trade your surplus newts; the freedom of speech must stop when it becomes false accusations..."

What on earth are you talking about? Explain or get off the forums. As for freedom of speech, this place doesn't have a constitution and it isn't a soap box for anyone. The long and the short of it is that I run a relatively free-speaking forum but make no mistake, if I see false accusations I delete them for several reasons. Excepting this thread (which I am thinking of deleting completely), as far as I have seen (and please correct me if I'm wrong) there are no unsubstantiated accusations on the site here. No reputations have been destroyed (Marc Staniszewski did that himself, I just let everybody know who already didn't). I still haven't decided what to do about this thread but I'm leaning towards deleting several messages on it (all the vague ones, including yours right now, so name names, etc, etc).

As for "not the first time bla bla", name the names, keep quiet or get off the site. The same goes for everyone on this topic. Do you understand that last sentence Eric? Need me to translate it for you?

-John, getting very tired of the same old posturing