Bombina Orientalis: Wild caught or Farm raised?

[JoshBA]

Are any of the Bombina Orientalis seen at pet stores are farm raised? I've read from one source that they're farm raised in Singapore, and I've seen the dull orange color that captive bred toads have on pet store animals. I know that most are wild caught, but I'm curious if large scale captive breeding is happening.

 

[Chinadog]

Its funny you should say that, i popped in to a local reptile/aquarium shop the other week for some bits and bobs and was told the exact same story when i commented on a tank full of small pachytriton they had in! I don't believe it's true for one second even though its a well run shop with staff that do seem to care about what they're doing! Maybe the wholesalers are telling the shops that's where they get them?

 

[Azhael]

I don´t believe a word they say anymore....even though it is certainly possible that B.orientalis could be raised in large quantities in outdoor farms, the very fact that they claim it is enough for me to desbelieve it. Too many blatant lies, too often...their reliability is -1000000. If their claims were true, every single asian species available worldwide is being farmed in Singapore. That kind of industry should be trackable.
From now on, pictures of the farms or it never happened.

 

[froggy]

I have heard that B. orientalis breed like crazy in aquaculture and rice-farming systems and are often collected from there. There may be a kernel of truth in the claims, in that the species is sort of accidentally farmed in modified habitats.

One of my local shops often has CB animals from small-scale UK breeders, but these are usually obvious due to colouration.

 

[Niels D]

I've also heard stories of newts doing incredibly well in rice fields. Saw some holiday pictures on the internet of a newt enthusiast with masses of newts he found in a single patch, but I can't remember who it was and what kind of newt he found. Maybe he's on caudata. A member of our newt and salamander association has also found a lot of newts in rice fields during a herping trip.

 

[froggy]

South Korea alone apparently exports something in the order of 34,000 B. orientalis per annum (a report found via Google) - I'm not sure if the huge numbers indicate wild collection or farming! Either way, it doesn't excuse the conditions under which many of these animals are transported!

 

[caleb]

This paper:
http://bio.research.ucsc.edu/people...ations/Schloegel et al 2009 Biol Cons AOP.pdf
says that an average of about 340,000 B. orientalis per year were imported to Los Angeles alone in the early 2000s.

Also about 306,000 Cynops orientalis, and 750,000 Hymenochirus curtipes, out of 2,000,000 total live amphibian imports. They state that 55% of all live imports were 'from captive populations' (presumably this may include 'farmed' animals).

Would be very interesting to see their raw data...

 

[sergé]

For the prices they are offered in the stores it is very unlickely that they are farm raised. And why should they: as long as they can much easier catch them in the wild and their government does not stop them?
For poison dart frogs the story is different, but there you can see that it is worth it as they are being protected and their prices are much higher.
Of course they want you to believe that they are farm raised as it appeals better to what the customer wants, but in the end, even for the poison dart frogs there is some dodgy business going on.

 

[Chinadog]

Yes, the dart frog breeding project is called wikiri i think? The blurb is that they manage the habitat and provide protection to the frogs then export controlled numbers for the pet trade. The price of the frogs offered can be hundreds of pounds each so that casts doubt on the 'farmed' toads and newts offered to the public for next to nothing. Maybe they are a byproduct of the local agriculture industry, but who knows, maybe the rice fields are replacing their natural environment and thats where populations are strongest nowadays? Like Azhael says unless we can see pictures of these farms then we should treat it as another lie to ease people's mind about buying WC animals. It's easy to find pictures of real amphibian farms like the ones breeding Rana catesbeiana on youtube etc so why the secrecy about pet trade animals!

 

[froggy]

I apologise for the missing '0' in the number I gave - the source is the same as the paper Caleb has cited.

I wonder what would replace B. and C. orientalis in pet shops if their collection was suddenly prohibited....!

C