Captive bred vs. wild caught

[abrahm]

Thanks, John, that confirms my suspicions about Pl. cinereus.

I am excited to hear that there has been success with Aneides lugubris and E. bislineata. I'll have to dig a little deeper in the Plethodontidae Forum.

 

[mark]

My Desmognathus court frequently and there are often spermatophores deposited on flat stones in the open. No eggs, but they are cooling at the moment so…fingers crossed for the spring. E. bislineata was regularly bred by keepers like Paris a few years back – not sure if she still has her colony. I think they are fairly prolific if kept in the right conditions.

I was chatting with Jesper over a beer recently on the very subject of European captive breeding success and his theory was that exotics have been established far longer in countries like Germany & Netherlands. Success may simply come down to the number of experienced keepers working in a well establish hobby. I tend to agree. I think there is probably more interest in US species in Europe than in the US itself.

(Message edited by aartse_tuyn on February 12, 2007)

 

[annmarie]

This is by far one of the best threads, ever.

Anyone familiar with an literature and first hand experience dealing with breeding of Siren intermedia. Has anyone even attempted? I see tons of these at "shows" and "swaps" and "for sale" but are obviously all WC and I am dying to find any information regarding behavior and breeding of them in both the wild and captivity. I have asked around work even, and no one has a definate answer as of yet. Anyone here attempted or know anyone attempting to breed Siren intermedia, or know sucesses/failures dealing with this specie?

 

[jennifer]

Good question, AnnMarie. At the time Ed wrote the Siren intermedia caresheet, there had not been any recorded captive breedings. If it ever happened, nobody ever documented it. In contrast, dwarf siren have been bred in captivity. But nobody that I know of does it on a regular basis, so it's unlikely you'll ever see any for sale.

With species like sirens, the distinction between WC and CB can get a bit blurry. For example, if I build a pond in my house and get siren offspring, are they CB? What if the pond is in the back yard? How is that different from offspring I might collect after stocking animals into a naturally-occuring pond in my yard?

 

[pin-pin]

<blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!><font size=1>Quoting Jennifer Macke on Taricha breeding ( in this thread):</font>

I've have never heard of anyone in the US succeeding at captive breeding Taricha<!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote>Tara and Rob (Canadian-I'm going to get in trouble for lumping them in with US) and Paris (US) come to mind. I've given away fertile eggs which have successfully been raised to adults.

I disagree that Tarichas are hard to breed. They are no more so than Cynops orientalis (which is sold by the thousands, yet rarely does the average pet owner observe successful "breeding," much less living past a year). In addition, as Michael pointed out, American breeders will avoid American species due to the heavy regulations surrounding it. In California, I can run over a hundred newts, but if I breed and raise a batch of Taricha, I can only give them away to another California resident (they can't leave the state border), I can only keep four of them total at any given time, and I cannot accept any money or trade for the animals. I'm sure people bend the rules and it is not strictly enforced, but who wants to run that risk? Police record for breeding newts?

In addition, it seems to be a supply and demand. Successful breeding of Taricha in Europe may also be the from the fact that they are considered "exotic" and fetch higher prices. In the U.S., why would people buy a cb Taricha for $50 + $20 shipping when they can impulse buy a wild-caught for $5 at the local petshop? I'm not saying it is right (in fact it is downright depressing), but having read through this forum and others throughout the years--it seems that this is the current situation. Species such as Triturus fetch prices to the point where captive breeding becomes a viable option. I know everyone here is above the money and such, but the cost of raising an animal is quite time and resource-demanding.

This detracts from the thread though. Any Taricha in the petshop in the US is indeed wild-caught.

(Message edited by apples on February 15, 2007)

 

[pin-pin]

A double post.

"The unfortunate side effect is... while we are providing information for keeping/breeding, I think we are also creating increased demand for salamanders..."

Think of the help section as helping people keep their animals alive longer so they don't keep going back to the petshop to buy more and more (and killing them.)

 

[jennifer]

Thanks for the correction and clarification, Pin-pin. That's good news to me! I still suspect that Taricha may be a bit less likely to breed in captivity compared to Cynops, but there's more hope for them than I had thought. I hope to get some CB ones someday.

 

[annmarie]

"For example, if I build a pond in my house and get siren offspring, are they CB?"

I would say they are farmed and such.

I have read the artcile about dwarf sirens breeding in the magazine. Good information. Though, I have never heard of anyone who breeds them regularly or even every now and then.(all i have seen have been harvested from florida)

 

[TJ]

Dawn, all those little Chinese fbn you see are not only wild-caught but they're mass-exported illegally. Not that the Chinese government is all that concerned with enforcement of its wildlife protection laws that look so nice on paper. Since they're not covered by CITES and they're sent out through third countries (or third entities like Hong Kong where the government evidently isn't concerned whence they came), they end up being imported legally into places like the U.S. and Europe.

Here in Japan, CB animals that can occasionally be found on the market include T. marmoratus and P. waltl, and of course CB axoltls are frequently for sale. I'm guessing that imports are likely to fall now that chytrid fungus has come to these shores and the authorities have become alarmed it may spread to the wild if imports are not regulated.

 

[dawn]

Well, if this thread doesn't inspire people to try more captive breeding, I don't know what will.
In fact, I put my fat female Notos, that have been being amplexed by the males since December (they're slowing down with that) into a container FULL of vegetation. Maybe they will lay some eggs? I was thinking to leave them in there for two weeks, then remove the females back into the community tank. If all that amplexing has been successful, and if they lay eggs in all the vegetation, who knows...in 4 to 6 weeks...

 

[john]

I definitely think there needs to be more work done by folks like us in captive breeding our native caudates, where such things are allowed of course. I also think we need to work firstly on species that will be collector friendly since we definitely must think of the expense in terms of time and monetary resources we must put into it.

"With species like sirens, the distinction between WC and CB can get a bit blurry. For example, if I build a pond in my house and get siren offspring, are they CB? What if the pond is in the back yard? How is that different from offspring I might collect after stocking animals into a naturally-occuring pond in my yard?"

In my opinion...no, creating an artificial pond outdoors is not captive breeding. This is because we are dealing with amphibians and not fish who are not free to come and go from the pond. I believe I once found a "breeder" of tiger sals online who was doing just this. He had a large artificial pond and wild specimens would use it for breeding. He would then collect and rear the larvae.