Neurergus Kasieri for sale?

J

jameswei

Guest
I was wandering through the kingsnake's section recently, and to my dismay this rare species is for sale. Can anything be done to curtail this?
 
I saw that too, im kind of shocked that they have it for sale. Unfortunately, nothing can really be done to curtail it. 400 is a ridiculous price though. By boycotting the supplier, you accomplish nothing because other people will buy them. Its a lose lose, since most will probably die from inadequate care or stress anyway.
 
At $400 I'd imagine only an enthusiast would buy them. So if we all decide not to, then they will not sell. Odd they did not put up a photo of the stock either.

(Message edited by fishkeeper on September 01, 2006)
 
Unfortunately, once it is here its here.
The only thing to do is have no one buy it and show that there is no demand for such a species. Unfortunately there more than likely is a demand - with any luck the ones that are already here will go to someone who is capable of caring for, and breeding the species much like with Strauchii.
Which might I add, bravo to Jen and others who have had such great success with the Strauchii - there is no demand for expensive wild caught newts of this species because any of us can easily buy quality captive bred young from a few different people now.
 
I think they are probably c.b. legal animals. The price is pretty high.
 
Could always ask. Again, I think it is very unusual he put up a photo of a C. orientalis instead of these.
 
I asked. They are about 3"long. I heard through the grapevine their were some available at the Daytona show for 125.00 ea. I'll be seeing a guy at the Mid Atlantic Reptile Show on Sept. 16 that got some at Daytona. Their are legitimate c.b. ones available from several sources. They are cute little buggers and remind me more of lizards than salamanders. The juvies aren't to keen on being in water.
 
Cool! I'm glad you looked into that Michael.

So how soon till someone here on the board will have more babies than they know what to do with ;)
 
they have pics of them on their web site. they look like juvies.
 
Is it the picture in this add the comments are based on? http://market.kingsnake.com/detail.php?cat=14&de=438410 and the dealer's website.
I am sorry but there is no way I can tell from this small picture (or are there more?) that this is a juvenile... The skin texture from the picture on kingsnake.com suggests this is an aquatic animal. By the way, they also list (from the pictures clearly adult) L. boscai and L. italicus. They could be of course captive bred (although the boscai certainly does not look like a healthy, well established animal) and they should be as they are strictly protected in Europe...
 
I saw another 120 for sale at a company in former USSR (I won't say where). They have 120 animals. Out of a population of a 1000. How can some one like salamanders and still buy these?
Horrible.
International law is so weak that once smuggled out of its country animals miraculously become legal.
 
Unfortunately there were a lot of these at last weekends Hamm show being sold by one retailer for 150 euros each. Quite sad really. Is nothing being done to prevent people taking them from their habitat?
 
Well it's Iran, they have got other things on their mind.
I think the European and North American governments should do something about this. This species is on the brink of extinction but they are still sold on these exhibitions.

Also Caudat.org could mention the situation of this species on the info site and strictly advice against purchasing wild caught animals. Probably a lot of people simply don't know how rare it really is.
 
Does anyone know what, if any , conservation efforts exist in Iran? We keep seeing the number of animals in the population as 1000.. .but that's based upon what? Who studies newts in Iran anyway? The only scientific papers I've ever read on this species were written by folks in EU or USA and they were not really about the ecology (I tend to read biogeography and systematics papers.. thus I may have missed the applicable papers). Is the habitat where they occur under major threat (I'd assume so)? Does the habitat still exist? I'm thinking that if somebody really is going to this place and getting 10-20% of the population (based upon the 120 seen at one show, and the 100 or so currently listed at Kingsnake, and a population size of 1000)...That's a very large dent in a population.

I guess I'm sort of always tossing around the thought that we know so little about anything in the wild. This leads me to two thoughts to the kaiseri question: A) maybe this species is more common that we thought and 120 animals is not 12% of the population or B) it really is as rare as we thought and likely already extirpated from its area of endemism making those in cages right now merely the ghosts of the population.

Ever the optimist,
greg
 
their is somebody in Iran working on conservation of this species. Their name escapes me at the moment. If we are to believe all of the figures it appears more have been exported in the past couple years than their actually are. I think it's tough to do population studies on secretive animals in remote areas. i don't want to see all of them ripped from the wild.
 
The 1000 individuals...that's the number given by the IUCN Red List Assessment team which included Ted Papenfuss (UC Berkeley), Sergius Kuzmin (Russian Academy of Sciences), and Nasrullah Rastegar-Pouyani from Razi University in Iran. Rastegar-Pouyani has published papers on Neurergus in the Zagros Mountains and Population Assessment Reports, etc. So basically, if anyone knows the real situation, he does. The habitat where they occur is near military installations but it is still threatened by drought and the use of chemicals by locals.

I would guess "B" from your multiple choice, although I wouldn't guess extirpated just yet. Give it 2 or 3 more years.
 
I would also guess B after reading what you said Nate, I would say maybe 1 to 2 years though. Its so terrible!
 
The Iranian authorities are aware of the situation. I have been in contact with researchers on Neurergus. I think the best way to protect them is placing them on CITES. But Iran has to write that proposal.
 
Right, I would bet that's not one of Iran's bigger priorities at the moment.
 
Perhaps someone could convince Ahmedinajad (SP?) that these newts' feces contain enriched uranium??
 
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