So i came back home yesterday after finishing my exams, i set all the aquariums and terrariums at my parent´s house, and decide to go out see some friends and relax a bit after a horrible day of cleaning, packing and moving things. I call this friend and she says "come home i´ve got a present for you"...so i go and....O_O three fire salamanders! She says she bought them in a petshop in Barcelona. So here´s the problem...they are most likely wild caught...and i don´t want them if they are. As far as i know it´s a forbidden species here in spain....as all the other national caudates. I´m sure it´s not legal to sell them in shops even if they are captive bred. There are no papers...not even a bill (some animals here are sold either with the cites, or with a bill that precises their origin).
I´m taking for granted they are wild caught because they were cheap (45euros the three of them). Also i´m almost sure they are fastuosas...so wild caught individuals from north spain was my first thought.
But there are a couple of things that make me doubt. They are very docile, they will let you handle them no problem. Also they ate frozen bloodworms right out of the tweezers. One even tried to bite the tweezers. That doesn´t sound like the behaviour you would expect in wild caught animals . Also they seem to be very hardy, my friend kept them in deficient conditions for nearly two weeks, and for what she told me they were kept in a very inapropiate set up in the shop. But still they ate for her(crickets). I would expect wild caught animals to suffer from a lot of stress, illneses or even die in such conditions. You would expect them to be thin or even starving...not fat and taking frozen bloodworms from the very first day(it took me a couple of months to get my marms to eating frozen bloodworms...but these salamanders will even eat the ones that fall on the moss). All my other caudates are captive bred and i can tell they aren´t half as docile as these ones. All my caudates eat great (specially the dobros) but these guys beat them all.
I thought that maybe they are long term captives...but two of them are pretty young (the third one is an adult), so i just dont know...
If they are wild caught i definitely don´t want them. But then i don´t know what to do with them...releasing them somewhere doesn´t sound clever. Also if they are captive bred, i would love keeping them cause they are very beautiful animals, but i got no papers of them so i could get in trouble if i keep them. There´s a pretty high fine for keeping this species illegally.
Any advice of what to do with them...??? My friend just didn´t know about the laws...being sold in a shop she took for granted they were perfectly legal, and as she knows i love the species she thought it would be a great present...
Oh...haven´t had time to get some pics, i´ll try today...definitely nice looking critters n_n
I´m taking for granted they are wild caught because they were cheap (45euros the three of them). Also i´m almost sure they are fastuosas...so wild caught individuals from north spain was my first thought.
But there are a couple of things that make me doubt. They are very docile, they will let you handle them no problem. Also they ate frozen bloodworms right out of the tweezers. One even tried to bite the tweezers. That doesn´t sound like the behaviour you would expect in wild caught animals . Also they seem to be very hardy, my friend kept them in deficient conditions for nearly two weeks, and for what she told me they were kept in a very inapropiate set up in the shop. But still they ate for her(crickets). I would expect wild caught animals to suffer from a lot of stress, illneses or even die in such conditions. You would expect them to be thin or even starving...not fat and taking frozen bloodworms from the very first day(it took me a couple of months to get my marms to eating frozen bloodworms...but these salamanders will even eat the ones that fall on the moss). All my other caudates are captive bred and i can tell they aren´t half as docile as these ones. All my caudates eat great (specially the dobros) but these guys beat them all.
I thought that maybe they are long term captives...but two of them are pretty young (the third one is an adult), so i just dont know...
If they are wild caught i definitely don´t want them. But then i don´t know what to do with them...releasing them somewhere doesn´t sound clever. Also if they are captive bred, i would love keeping them cause they are very beautiful animals, but i got no papers of them so i could get in trouble if i keep them. There´s a pretty high fine for keeping this species illegally.
Any advice of what to do with them...??? My friend just didn´t know about the laws...being sold in a shop she took for granted they were perfectly legal, and as she knows i love the species she thought it would be a great present...
Oh...haven´t had time to get some pics, i´ll try today...definitely nice looking critters n_n