Article: Captive breeding seen as lifeline for amphibians

[william]

<blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!><font size=1>Mike Benard wrote on Wednesday, 14 September, 2005 - 04:27 :</font>

"To me it seems like I see captive bred animals more frequently in pet shops than I did 10 years ago."<!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote>

how can you tell that they are cb? i have a sneaky suspision that petshop owners are realising that cb animals are more sought after and so they just label wc animals as cb. i've seen it happen here before, so i don't see why it shouldn't across the pond.

 

[mike]

That's a good question, I have run into people trying to pass off what were almost certainly WC as CB animals. But for the animals I was talking about they were some of the commonly bred herp species, they were in good condition, all juveniles, and many were the color mutants, like albinos, that people like that you don't see many of in the wild.

 

[william]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4244554.stm

on the bbc website, just reiterates what everyone has already said

 

[TJ]

Well, the conference is over now and resulted in the approval of an Amphibian Conservation Action Plan.

For the press release, see:
http://www.iucn.org/en/news/archive/2005/09/amphibians.pdf

I still can't find the actual plan, but here is what the press release says regarding captive breeding and chytridiomycosis:

<font color="0000ff">As a short-term response to prevent extinctions, the establishment of captive assurance colonies for the 200 or so most threatened species appears to be a promising option,�h said Simon Stuart, senior director of the IUCN/Biodiversity Assessment Unit and leader of the GAA research. ``The good news is that the fungal disease can be eliminated from captive colonies.�h Captive breeding has been used successfully to conserve other species, such as the Hawaiian goose and Mallorcan midwife toad. The action plan proposes a major expansion of such programs in countries where species are the most threatened by the disease. The plan also calls for research into the control and elimination of the fungal disease in the wild, as well as greater habitat protection, to maintain or re-establish viable wild amphibian populations in the future. </font>

(Message edited by TJ on September 21, 2005)

 

[david]

Thanks for the info Tim. Sounds like a good philosophy for a plan. I'm sure there's plenty of interested people on this site willing to do their share if the powers that be ever decide that serious hobbyist can play a part. Lots of Zoos are probably too busy and their money's too tight to do this one their own.

 

[jeff]

I wish that the goverment would set aside money to help out privite breeders, but then again I realize that the US government will only step in when it's probably too late. Here is my question, How can you be assured that a newt bought here, for example washington right on the WC, is captive bred or WC? Sometimes tank conditions and the fact that morons put frogs in with newts, can leave missing digits and various wounds, and I worry about introducing a new newt into my setup beacuse I don't know where it came from and so forth.

 

[jennifer]

Jeff, you mean newts in pet shops? In the US, they are 100% WC, and I'd be shocked if you were ever able to get any accurate information on where they came from.

 

[william]

in answer to our prayers:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4298050.stm