Stop WC imports campaign

Hi, i´ve been thinking a lot lately about the issue of WC animals being massively imported. One of the things i like the most of this site is it´s compromise to educate new(and experienced)hobbyists about this matter. I also see that the number of people that avoid WC animals is growing. The importance of captive breeding is also stressed here.
I repeat myself constantly trying to let people (from spanish forums) know about the situation and the disadvantages of WC animals. There´s also a few other hobbyists that share the preocupation.
However i don´t think it´s enough....people still buy WC because they are eassily available and i think, most importantly, because they don´t know better. We obviously can´t prevent everyone from buying in petshops but i believe we could try to do some special effort to inform.

Personally i think Caudata Culture is a respectable source of information for new keepers. For me at least it was the only trustworthy information i could find at first, and i can´t be thankful enough. I think one of the many things we could try could be creating an article for CC. I know the WC issue is refered to at least in one of the articles, but i think an article enterily dedicated to the matter would be extremely helpful in educating and informing hobbyists.

The situation with WC animals has always been an important cause of threat for wild populations, and in the current moment we are living in, and the state of amphibians throughout the world i think it´s time to try and do something about it. I see lots of ilegally captured animals for sale in various online sites, and petshops still make profit with imports. We may not be able to stop it, but we can try to educate and reduce the number of animals that suffer this fate.
I know this might sound a bit rich coming from someone who keeps a limited amount of WC animals, but what can i say, i didn´t know better.
We all know species that are in serious danger that are still ilegally captured, and sadly there´s always someone there to buy them. The cases of N.kaiseri and S.s.alfredschmidti are among the most notorious.

Anyway that´s my proposal, let´s try to do something even if it´s little. I really hope some of you take an interest on this.
Cheers.

I cannot agree more. Login on to find the regular amount of posts asking for help with recently acquired WC FBN on the Newt and Salamander Help subforum is dreadful.
I long ago promised to myself never to keep WC herps and the reason I like it here is because so many people are sharing a similar ethos.

I have to say that I agree in the most part that 'captive bred is the way ahead' but I feel we need to ensure that wild populations are protected in situ first. As a sustainable product, many animals entering the pet trade (I'm thinking mainly of tropical fishes) are a lifeline to communities living in parts of the world where alternative incomes can often be far more environmentally damaging than sustainable harvesting of wild animals naturally low in the food chain.

Take a hypothetical situation where you have a patch of rainforest from which you can sustainably collect a number of valuable animals as long as you work within a quota. If these animals are then barred from trade, it may be that you decide that your patch of rainforest would now make a great palm oil plantation and therefore it is logged and the habitat is gone forever.

I think we need to take a three step approach - protect the habitat first and foremost before improving the handling of wild caught animals and then lastly removing the need for wild caught specimens to supply trade. It may not be entirely healthy to rule out the option of limited collection to ensure genetic diversity and minimise the 'founder effect' otherwise inbreeding may give us animals incapable of reproducing or being selectively bred to a stage where they no longer resemble their wild ancestors.

Where species are under threat such as N. kaiseri etc then yes, special measures need to be taken.

Tappers said:

'captive bred is the way ahead'

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I never heard that before; I like it!

I was mainly talking about the massive importations. I agree a very limited amount of wild animals is needed for the well being of the genetic value of captive stock. However that limited necessity is far far away from the actual way imports are handled. WC animals should only (and ideally) be available for breeding programs, in hands of experience people.
Take for example the way C.orientalis is massively collected from the wild. It´s completely unnecessary!!!! If people were properly informed, everyone could buy captive bred animals of this species, however the lack of information and the wide availability of wild animals, means that most animals kept in captivity are WC.

Your point is very valid, there are other more important factors that affect amphibians nowadays, the biggest one being loss of habitats. However there´s not much we, as hobbyists, can do about that. But we can help change the WC importation issue, or at least try to minimize it.
I know it´s not going to be a definitive solution, but we should try to discourage as many people as we can from buying imports.

Also, some species can be sustainably collected, but others are not, and furtivism is not very selective.

The goal of my proposal is educating people, i´m not aiming to find the solutions to all problems amphibians are going through.
Again i agree that limited and careful collection is necessary (doing it legally, informing the authorities, and taking the highest care of those highly valuable animals), but sadly it´s not the way things work.

I also think there are certain "traditions" that should be changed. Tradicionally, some species have been recomended for new keepers for their low cost and wide availability. C.orientalis and P.labiatus are good examples of that. Luckily that´s slowly changing and most people nowadays wouldn´t recomend C.orientalis as a good starter species. More and more, people are recomending CB Triturus, for example as the perfect starter newts. I just think we should try to make an effort and promote such things more actively.

azhael said:

I was mainly talking about the massive importations. I agree a very limited amount of wild animals is needed for the well being of the genetic value of captive stock. However that limited necessity is far far away from the actual way imports are handled. WC animals should only (and ideally) be available for breeding programs, in hands of experience people.
Take for example the way C.orientalis is massively collected from the wild. It´s completely unnecessary!!!! If people were properly informed, everyone could buy captive bred animals of this species, however the lack of information and the wide availability of wild animals, means that most animals kept in captivity are WC.

Your point is very valid, there are other more important factors that affect amphibians nowadays, the biggest one being loss of habitats. However there´s not much we, as hobbyists, can do about that. But we can help change the WC importation issue, or at least try to minimize it.
I know it´s not going to be a definitive solution, but we should try to discourage as many people as we can from buying imports.

Also, some species can be sustainably collected, but others are not, and furtivism is not very selective.

The goal of my proposal is educating people, i´m not aiming to find the solutions to all problems amphibians are going through.
Again i agree that limited and careful collection is necessary (doing it legally, informing the authorities, and taking the highest care of those highly valuable animals), but sadly it´s not the way things work.

I also think there are certain "traditions" that should be changed. Tradicionally, some species have been recomended for new keepers for their low cost and wide availability. C.orientalis and P.labiatus are good examples of that. Luckily that´s slowly changing and most people nowadays wouldn´t recomend C.orientalis as a good starter species. More and more, people are recomending CB Triturus, for example as the perfect starter newts. I just think we should try to make an effort and promote such things more actively.

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I agree completely, perhaps we need a two tier system where wild caught animals are directed towards the people with the expertise to ensure they are a valued contribution to captive gene pools. The trouble is that most people are not aware prior to first purchase and inevitably they encounter caudates as an exotic branch of the fish keeping hobby and often receive advice from people ill-equipped to offer direction. Only when they have problems do they seek advice from those who know. I only tend to see C. orientalis in large numbers at pet stores (kept too warm, with parasite and crowding problems ) and never at 'serious' reptile and amphibian dealers. I work in the aquatics trade and have told staff that I advise that if your store is warm enough for the fish, then it's too hot for newts.

otterwoman said:

I never heard that before; I like it!

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Thanks otterwoman, it does roll off the tongue!

That´s the point, not only massive imports are bad for the species, they are bad for the hobbyist!!!! You may be getting cheap animals but you´re getting ill, shy, probably dying animals...that benefits no one!
That´s exactly why i think we should try to emphasize more the many disadvantages of acquiring WC animals, both for the species and the hobbyist sake.

The problem is exactly what you mentioned, people become aware of the downsides of imports after they have bought them, just like i did. If people were correctly informed, maybe their first newts will be WC, but the second ones will be CB. And that´s the thing, that´s why i sugest some kind of pro-captive breeding campaign. Once people are well informed, and ready to create their own opinions about this matter, i´m sure the number of WC animals bought by hobbyists will dramatically decrease. And once that happens, maybe some petshops will try to acquire CB animals due to popular demand. It´s a small step, but it may make a difference for certain species, and i defenitely think it´s worth it.

I think the people who we really need to reach are the exporters. Often they offer asian newts alongside tropical fishes.

I´m not sure that´s at all possible. As long as there is demand of WC animals, the exporters will keep doing their businness. I think it´s a simpler aproach to educate hobbyists. If demand is minimized, some day exporting animals simply won´t make a good profit and exporters will be forced to greatly reduce the number of animals or find other ways to keep their business.

azhael said:

I´m not sure that´s at all possible. As long as there is demand of WC animals, the exporters will keep doing their businness. I think it´s a simpler aproach to educate hobbyists. If demand is minimized, some day exporting animals simply won´t make a good profit and exporters will be forced to greatly reduce the number of animals or find other ways to keep their business.

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We've informed our suppliers that we will not be taking any, which seems a simpler way to do it. Our 80 + stores are therefore not responsible for them leaving their country of origin, which must be better than having unwanted wildcaught newts in inadequate conditions? If shops withdraw them before new customers purchase them then everyone wins.

I think that both hobbyists and petshops need to be targeted; many pet shops will not cease to buy in WC animals if there is a good consumer base ready to buy them. Another thing to do might be simply getting traders to provide basic caresheets.
For some of the more profits-orientated traders (e.g. chain superstores), it might be useful to highlight the fact that healthy, CB animals are probably better for making cash too, with fewer returns, losses in orders and in the shop.
Perhaps some sort of 'Captive bred' certificate, as a type of 'branding' to raise consciousness to the problem would be a good idea (a bit like free-range eggs).

Chris

Another quick thought is that many species (Bolitoglossa, Tylototriton taliangensis etc etc) are very difficult/impossible and/or very slow growing from juveniles to adulthood. The former problem is particularly bad for establishing CB commonly available stock, so perhaps a reduction in the range of species available cheaply in pet shops would help; persuade the stocking of only 'easy' species (both by educating potential buyers, and stockists)...

Most pet shops are in the business of moving animals quickly. They will kill them weather they are c.b. or w.c. That's part of the reason they don't make the distinction. I advocate captive breeding and conservation. I purchase w.c. as a last result. I have a tough time advocating more rules.
What I hear some hobbyists saying is "It isn't o.k. to sell w.c. animals unless they are something I want and they are being sold to me." Every c.b. line in the hobby came from w.c. somewhere. An argument can be made that a lot of population losses in the wild are due to habitat loss, pollution, and introduced species.

Good point Michael. I personally relate to that, because i made the mistake of purchasing a trio of P.glutinosus knowing they were WC(again, that´s the kind of mistake that´s related to lack of experience). However, i must admit when it comes to rarely bred animals the thing is slightly different, because as you say if you want CB you need WC.
Nevertheless it´s a mistake i´m sure i won´t be making again, at least not until i find myself capable of managing a big breeding program in which it might be necessary at some level.

Tappers, that´s brilliant, small steps like that make big differences, congratulations.

Froggy, i think that´s another important issue, and one i can also relate too. Many hobbyists tend to be impulsive, and a bit whimsical (i´m one of those), and it´s common to see beginners keeping or wanting species that are not eassy, or require experience. I really think that´s another point in which people need to be educated.

Apreciating wild animals as the highly valuable thing they are is something that usually comes with experience, that´s why i think it´s important we make an effort in trying to promote this kind of thinking among beginners.

Boycotting WC is great and all, but I don't see anything ever coming from it. What the general public wants in a salamander is something cheap, new/uncommon, and cheap. Captive bred animals don't fall under any of that criteria, for the most part; they're expensive and once captive bred, they tend to become more and more common.

Wild caught animals are profitable; you go out for a few hours or hire locals for a few pennies an animal, mark the price up, and then profit. It's a bit more complicated than that, but that's the basic gist of it. There's no risk, and no reason to really care about what happens to the animals or their habitat afterwards.

With captive bred animals, you've got to raise animals up for months; generally around six months average. This whole time, you've got to feed them (blackworms are $30-40 a pound and last 2 weeks, tops), change the water, separate them in case of cannibalism, prevent them from drowning, and so forth. On top of that, you've got lighting, care of parents, cooling, and so forth. Then, you still get deaths for various reasons, which still have cost you time and money. So there's a lot of overhead and a huge time investment.

On top of all this, the salamander market is pretty small. There are a finite number of buyers for the most part. Imagine every potential buyer and assign them a number of slots for species or animals that they can keep. There's only so many slots for animals, and most of these slots are going to be filled with the WC animals. So as a captive breeder, if you misjudge the demand for a species, you're stuck with a large number of animals for months where you're trying to offload them, and unless you raise their price (which makes them even harder to sell) you're not getting compensated for the time and cost of keeping them. Yes, there are ways to increase marketability and sales to minimize this, but no matter what you do, there's always going to be a limit to the slots you can reach.

Some species will never be good candidates for captive breding due to their difficulty in reproducing, or the low number of eggs they produce. Most Plethodontids will never be viable candidates; the majority don't lay many eggs, some morph out too small for the general public, some take over a year to morph and they're extremely difficult to breed to begin with. With all that trouble, how can you compete with a $10-20 WC animal?

Because of this, captive bred salamanders just aren't competitive with WC animals. When someone can pick up an adult firebelly newt for $3, or pay $10 and shipping for a tiny juvenile, they're going to go with the WC. Even with non-petstore species, they'd generally rather save a few dollars and get an adult that may or may not be horribly sick. If you charge a bit less, you don't get compensated for the time invested, and and even charging just a little more than WC, you're actually going to lose money.

I've tried to provide new species through raising WC eggs and breeding uncommonly bred species, but it's just hard for CB juveniles to compete against WC adults that are being sold for $10 less. The public ultimately wants cheap, mature animals. Captive breeding is great and commercial collecting is absolutely disastrous, but outside of a few, easily breedable species, we're just not ever going to see much happening so long as wild collecting is widespread and the public thinks of salamanders as disposable pets, or at the best is fine with playing health roulette with what they're buying.

Case in point; there's more going on in Europe with American species, due to the fact that American imports aren't very common. Captive breeding is ultimately the last resort, and outside of a few cases, we're just not going to see CB animals available when there are WCs of a similar species around.

I'm a bit pessimistic here, but I guess I'm just being realistic. I've been wanting to provide an alternative to WC amphibians for years, and I've been working pretty hard towards that, but the things I've seen since conception of my original plan and implementing it have been discouraging. I've got big hopes for this coming year, but my original dream of seeing a large-scale increase in captive breeding of native or frequently WC species spreading throughout the hobby has taken a bit of a beating.

Great post Peter, really hit the nail on the head. My biggest concern is people just plain out not knowing. I mean, generally speaking if you had two newts next to each other, could you tell that one was wild caught and the other not? If you take that on a much larger scale, especially not seeing an animal till it arrives via a distributor, how will a someone or a pet store truely know? There are so many what if's, but the bottom line is people are making money and ethics probably are on the back burner.

azhael said:

Personally i think Caudata Culture is a respectable source of information for new keepers. For me at least it was the only trustworthy information i could find at first, and i can´t be thankful enough. I think one of the many things we could try could be creating an article for CC. I know the WC issue is refered to at least in one of the articles, but i think an article enterily dedicated to the matter would be extremely helpful in educating and informing hobbyists.

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Thanks for the compliment. Would you be willing to write the article? Or compile it from the posts here? CC does not have any articles about where pet newts/sals come from, and it's certainly something more people should at least think about.

I'm thinking of moving this thread to General Discussion. It's not off-topic at all!

Jen, if you and other moderators, or John, think i can make that article i will more than gladly do it. However i believe this is a matter that should not be treated by just one person. I tend to have pretty strong opinions hehe so i think different points of view are very much needed. If someone would like to colaborate, it would be very much apreciated, if not i guess i could try to sumarize the different facts and opinions, although i´ll still need help with grammar you know xD.

Peter, you have explained a very realistic point of view. It´s absolutely true that nowadays, imports are simply to eassy to compete with. But that´s what needs to be changed and i don´t think it´s impossible.
It might be a very very small example, but i´ve recently seen a pretty deep change in people´s opinions in a small spanish forum. People are trully starting to realize that going to a petshop and buying a C.orientalis is not the solution, and more and more people are trying to find the way to acquire CB animals(or forget about C.orientalis and choose an eassier species). I myself have had the satisfaction of providing some of those people with CB juvies, and there are others. It´s a tiny insignificant step, but hey, there´s 10 Cynops that won´t be collected.
I think people are way to egoistic respecting animals. As you very well stated, we want cheap, we want uncommon, and we want it now. But that is sooooooo selfish......
It´s exactly that, why i think it´s necessary to educate. I want lots of different species, i dream about them hehe, and some of them are almost impossible to find CB. But personally i´ve come to a point in which i realize that kind of selfish desire is better left ignored. And i´ve come to that point thanks to this site and many inteligent people that waste 5 minutes of their lives trying to educate new minds like mine.

Even though it´s obvious the WC businness is going to go on forever, because there´s always going to be someone to buy those animals, i´m not as pessimistic... i believe small changes can happen, and those small changes are definitely worth our efforts.

I think people have changed a lot in the past year or two. You can see people being smart enough to avoid being whimsical, and compromising the health of some poor animals. And if we provided with more information, i´m absolutely sure the number of those people would increase significantly, at least among the various forums.
If you properly inform someone, and tell them that by buying a C.orientalis, or a P.chinensis from a petshop, they are not only promoting the death of hundreds of animals, but also they are risking a very rough time trying to deal with an ill animal that´s probably going to die due to your lack of experience and is going to break your heart......people will simply realize it´s not worth it. And if you tell them that a very good alternative is a CB T.dobrogicus, people will consider it, and some will do the right thing. Again this battle is about small steps and small victories in my opinion.

Another thing is the fact that common CB animals are not that expensive. Actually some species that a few years ago were almost considered a privilege, are now very eassily found, and at very low prices. There´s still the fact that some people want the rare species...but i also think that can be educated. About the time, money and effort that rising juveniles consumes, that´s probably the hardest point to fight. It´s very true that some species that might be extremely eassy to keep as adults, are difficult and challenging as juveniles. However, again, i think proper information can direct people into apropriate species.

I might be a bit optimistic (for once in my life), but i really think a small effort can make a small change, and that change is worth it.

Thank you all for participating, i love discussing this kind of issues, and i think it´s very important.

maybe if a wc fbn's life was a little more highy valued than £2.50 retail, then the importers and distributers would take more notice to thier actual requirements , likewise with other species imported with fish , all too often i see cold water newts like paddletails , in tropical tanks, climbing the tank walls to get away from the heat and quite often , fish , in the tank, this is because the distributers wrongly inform the pet shops of thier care , i know because ive pulled shops on this before and been shown the wholesale catalogue,...., it doesnt matter to a distributer if 1000 out of 100 000 fbns die in their possession as they cost so little... how many tortoises do you see just thrown out in the garden for british climates now that they're largely captive bred .. and very expensive!? ........
none , because people quite simply put a lot more effort into providing proper care for anything they pay a lot of money for.
i largely agree with tappers, wc is wrong , but to establish captive breeding , wc is obviously necessary , but with an ever increasing number of experienced, dedicated herp breeders , this can only get better for species in demand , if the markets are full with ethical c.b animals then the importers no longer have a market... im not sure how happy i am about my lovingly bred herps being sold in a shop to 10 year old kids who will probably kill them in a month though , even if it is just a little fbn:nono: