Also axolotls in the aquarium trade have been bred in captivity for many many years making them domesticated and not able to live in the wild.
I'd like to jump in this thread, but I thought I should first note this:
Axolotls are not truly domesticated. They, like other CB animals bred for visual characteristics, may meet the CBD standardized definition, which is: "Domesticated or cultivated species: means species in which the evolutionary process has been influenced by humans to meet their needs."
There are degrees of domestication. The CB breeding of animals for exotic and visual displays of ownership isn't the same as the traditional definition of domestication. They fall more under "cultivated species" than true domesticates. The true environmental and agricultural definition of domestication really means animals like dogs or cows that have been selectively bred for a long time (the history of the domestication of dogs actually spans 10,000 years) to provide a physical service or exchange to humans.
The history of domestication of wolves was not for companions - it was a mutually beneficial relationship between two very similar species of social hunters. Humans and wolves both hunted at the same times and in a similar way, and it became beneficial for wolves to have less fear and aggression towards humans, resulting in their ability to get leftovers and byproduct of human kills. Wolves began to be bred in captivity for their uses in hunting. Hunting breeds are the oldest breeds of dogs. This mutual relationship eventually evolved into a social one, where both the "dogs" and humans got a clear benefit from it. We originally bred for hunting skills and less aggressiveness, which in turn altered physical appearance (causing dogs to look more like puppies, as those that retained puppy like features were more lacking in aggression). Physical appearance changes was a byproduct of purposeful breeding for traits beneficial to living together with humans. We have evolved over the most recent thousands of years to actual share a hormonal bond with dogs - that is, both humans and dogs release serotonin during petting sessions, giving a very natural evolutionary response to the comfort of having a companion.
The same happened in livestock. We bred them to be fatter, to carry more food product, to have better and more wool for warmer clothing... In turn, these animals became domesticated in personality as well as appearance.
As you can see, these relationships of our oldest domesticate relationships are nothing like the breeding of exotic reptiles and amphibians. These are bred for health and beauty, often accompanied by a voracious appetite, and I would argue that it is nothing like the original domestication of companion animals and livestock. Axolotls are not domesticated, they are animals bred in captivity over a very small amount of time. This is a degree of captive breeding that is not addressed by formal definitions at the moment, which is a severe hole in categorization of animals in trade.
Aside from that, consider the effects that have happened in dogs once we began to ignore their use as a hunter, and looked more at their ability to show status in humanity. Dogs bred for appearance and certain coloration became very inbred, which, as you all know, has led to the hundreds of disease and disorders that dogs can get, as well as physical deformities that are now a mark of beauty. Stub noses, bug eyes, hip dysplasia, lack of hair, patchy hair, ear shapes that lead the death, eye colors that lead to blindness. This is the state of captive breeding animals for appearance. As stated earlier, this is clearly felt in ball pythons. The normal animals are conveniently culled by more breeders than I want to imagine, and the expensive nature of traits invites inbreeding and lack of care. There are leucistics that don't have bug eyes. There are spider BPs that don't have head wobbles. There are snow and lavender cornsnakes whose organs and spines are natural. It is lack of care in breeding, a fear of culling that allows these traits to continue and linger, as people care more about
greed (
which is the original topic of the thread) than the health of animals.
There are hedgehogs that don't carry WHS. There are mutts that keep debilitating recessives from continuing much farther down the line. There are healthy snakes, and other reptiles that don't have deformities. These are animals bred with care, by people who keep track of what they're doing.
Breeding is no longer an art that people are proud of -- you're more likely to be attacked for the fact that you breed than to be admired. This is the stigma of a very real fact - irresponsible breeders like that in the original post are wrong, and encourage bad health and horrible genetics in animals. Good genetics is healthy genetics.
As for the idea of breeding for appearance, such as color morphs in axolotls... I don't believe that is intrinsically wrong. If done responsibly, and bred back to wild types frequently, which is a practice frequently done with reptiles (i.e. the weak snow and white bearded dragons are bred back to normals because they're intrinsically a weaker animal, and ones bred back to normals produce stronger babies as opposed to one bred to another snow), I believe that we can create a healthy balance. Yes, we all want to display beautiful (and healthy) animals. It is a status symbol, or something that people take pride in. That's a fact. I enjoy having healthy animals. I enjoy people seeing that I have healthy animals. I take pride in the fact that I have two 14 inch wild types, and that my other herps are fat and happy. I want to produce animals in breeding that are also healthy, because selling a deformed animal or one that carries a lethal gene only encourages those who don't know what they're doing to breed irresponsibly. I believe the healthiness and hardiness in wild types may be due to better breeding practices and selective ownership alongside a slightly hardier constitution - a combination of nature and nurture.
I also would like to note that in my tap water issue from another thread, the animals that survived were my two 14 inch wild types and my 10 inch fat ambystoma andersoni, while those that died first were my leucistic, golden albino, and wild type gfp. Interesting.
So, I think it is greed for the most part, and stupidity that continues it. Breed for health and quality, don't pollute a species line with your own human arrogance. Healthy animals are beautiful animals, and we can see examples of beautiful healthy animals in color morphs as well as (and especially, I would say) in normals. If you're afraid to cull or won't accept the death of deformed animals to keep idiots from breeding them, you shouldn't be breeding, as you don't deserve that responsibility.
THM:
Breed responsibly.
Edit: I'm sorry, I didn't realize I had lost track of this thread for 3 weeks. I intended to post sooner. I apologize for bringing it back.
