Collection for personal use...

[raphael]

Just curious to know people's opinions on collecting animals in the wild for personal use. I was thinking about it and I realized if everyone took a couple of animals that a lot of populations would be damaged, but at the same time a captive bred stock has to start somewhere.
thanks for your input.

 

[jackie]

Animals are spectacular. Their will to survive far exceeds ours. It kind of makes me sad to see beautiful animals being taken out of their natural habitat, being pulled from their little families, from their little homes. Given a lot of people spend a lot of money on goregeous tanks and whatnot, for whatever animal they may have, to create a good home. No home is as good as the animal's natural habitat.

Having an animal in captivity allows us to admire its beauty, its miraculous ways of reproduction, and its mannerisms in general. Granted, this proves to be favorable for research and knowledge.

On the other hand, can we really think that these creatures will be truly happy ripped right out of their homes, and plopped into some foreign tank solely for human pleasure?

 

[nate]

OK, I'll be the bad guy here. Salamanders don't have "little families". In fact, they're very likely to eat their own children should they come across them and need some food. There is no social salamander or newt in the sense that parrots or prarie dogs are social. They are solitary predators.

As a biologist studying salamanders, I've come to some conclusions about this issue from monitoring populations from which I and other researchers have collected from since the late 70s. Taking a couple animals does not cause much (if any) damage to most populations of salamanders if it is done responsibly. Like in the case of Ambystomids, many thousands of eggs are laid and numbers quickly recover for a few individuals taken from the year before. Most salamander populations are stable enough that taking a few individuals each year does not impact the viability of the total population. Obviously, taking as many adults as one can catch (like pet dealers) can quickly decimate a population.

So take only a few salamanders, and try to take larvae, juveniles, or young adults instead of reproductively active adults to minimize the impact. I personally am 100% opposed to selling wild animals, the worst thing we can do for them is attach a price tag.

 

[david]

Ripped away from their "little families" (Mom and Dad often eat their young)? Taken away from their "little homes" (their little homes are subject to drying up and freezing)? The beautiful habitats that people provide them can never be as good as the animals natural habitat (ever heard of predators)? By this type of logic cats and dogs should all be free (I got a ferrel kitten from my brother's barn and if I hadn't taken him he probably be dead like all of his brothers and sisters, he has to live on ground chicken breast because that's all his sensitive stomach can handle). If it wasn't for captive breeding of axolotls the species would be close to extinct. The way natural habitat for amphibians is dissappearing, captive breeding may be the only hope for many species. Most individuals don't have the power to significantly change the environement, but responcible ones who are interested can start breeding programs to insure many species will exist in the future. And even species that aren't threatened would benefit from captive breeding. That way people in the pet trade won't have to go out and pull these creatures from their "little families and their little homes" to make a buck.

 

[yago]

Pure naturalist visions are beauty but not synchronic to reality. Caudates are directly affected by:
-Lose of natural habitats
-Fragmentation of habitats (roads…)
-Change in lifestyles in human beings
-Intensive agriculture/lose of natural methods
-Urban growth
-Tourism and recreation
-Human impact in rivers and forests
-Pollution
-Climate change
-Acid rain
-Hunting, recolleccion..
-Illness
-Species introduction such as fishes…
-UVA-UB radiations due to ozone reduction.
-and a long so on.
Just in Spain there is a study from AHE (Asociacion Herpetologica Española) and CODA (Coordinadora de Organizaciones de defensa animal) that have collaborated with PMVC (Proyecto sobre la mortalidad de Vertebrados en las Carreteras de la Peninsula Iberica) that highlight the devastating impact on the so called ‘puntos negros’ (black dots: meaning the location with massive death of animals) of the amphibians in the Spanish roads with more than 10.000 deaths per year. Those realities cannot be ignored and a better understanding of those species, their contribution in the ecosystem, the medical potential of some species with their capabilities of organ regeneration, antifreeze proprieties, chore spine recuperation and a long so on cannot be ignored. Availability is a core point for their understanding, our social compromise and their survival. Therefore, there is an urgent need for breeders specialized in caudates and their captive breeding. For such people, centres, institutions…, I reckon it is permissible to get low number of individuals WC as breeding pools that can provide legal captive breed caudates to biologist, herpetologist, scientists, enthusiasts, and so on. Specially for those species that are not or rarely breed by anyone. The aim should be:
-a sustainable source of captive bred animals.
-facilitate their study and knowledge.
-Eradicate the black market and non controlled caudates.
-Guarantee the survival of declining populations or almost extinct.
-and a long so on.
Fortunately laws are getting tougher as populations and species are declining, therefore there is an urgent need for legal captive breed species. I consider that WC should be avoided for pure personal use unless there is reasonable motive behind such as studies, captive breeding projects and so on.
I would like to share opinions with others

 

[david]

Aw Nate, you beat me to the post. I wanted to be the bad guy.

 

[edward]

Posted on Tuesday, 18 March, 2003 - 13:32:

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Their will to survive far exceeds ours.

How do you come to this conclusion?

On the other hand, can we really think that these creatures will be truly happy

How are you defining happiness?

With the exception of several species that can only be readily collected through habitat destruction or have very limited ranges (like green salamanders in PA) the occasional take of several animals from a population has little to no effect on the survial of that population. If the person was really concerned about the population then collection of larval salamnders or newly hatched juveniles would leave the breeding populations in place with probably no effect on the recruitment (as long as there was not wholesale collection from the population).
Ed

 

[jackie]

Hey wow, I just totally got the butt on this one. Knew this would be controversial, thus why I got into it.

I cant agree more with the statement made by Nate - "I personally am 100% opposed to selling wild animals, the worst thing we can do for them is attach a price tag."

"The beautiful habitats that people provide them can never be as good as the animals natural habitat (ever heard of predators)?"

For sure, isnt that the cycle of life as we all know it, though?

As for all the roads, houses, pollution, UVA, UVB, etc., harming the breeding population, I concur with this. What I'm trying to say here is how much I hate the homan race, I guess . We ruin everything for everyone/everything else. I am entirely for collecting caudates to aid in a declining population within the community. Science and research has been a big help in saving many endangered populations, which, in my eyes, is a great thing.

And how am *I* defining happiness? I am defining it by having an animal in its natural habitat.

"By this type of logic cats and dogs should all be free" No. That's comparing apples to oranges, we have domesticated these animals over hundreds of thousands of years, thats not even a reasonable debate issue

 

[jackie]

homan - human

 

[edward]

Emotion: A state of arousal, referred to as fear, anger, pleasure, joy, etc., associated with specific cognitive processes and characterized by specific behavioral and physiological symptoms.Definition from Hurnik et al., 1995.

Here is a basic definition of emotion relating to animals. Based on the definition listed above how can you assume that a species is happier in situe when the behaviors remain the same and the physiological markers (such as serotonins) are either no different or the same in animals in proper set-ups? (This definition is usually applied to higher animals and not reptiles but serotonin levels can still be used as indicators of stress or its abscence in herps).
Ed

 

[aaron]

I'm just wondering if UVA and UVB are a problem for sals. Don't sals spend most of their time underground, underwater, or under logs and such? It would be very limited time under the sun's damaging rays.

~Aaron

 

[yago]

The main effects of UVA-UB are for egg development which is a serious problem.

 

[(unregistered]

Very good your answer Yago,see the last number of querqus magazine.
Best wishes,Rüdiger.

 

[aaron]

Oh, I didn't know UVB could penetrate water. Thanks for the information.

~Aaron