Ethics and Wild Collection

[john]

The laws here in Maryland are very clear as to collection for sale or trade: wild caught specimens of Maryland native species CANNOT be offered for sale or trade. The laws concerning eggs and larvae are MUCH less clear. My interpretation is that collection of eggs and successful rearing renders the specimens as "captively produced" which could be sold or traded, with an applicable permit of course. I intend to get some clarification on this.

 

[edward]

With Notopthalmus the subspecies can make a big difference in captive breeding success. When we had N. v. louisianensis, they would breed every year like clock work with very little cycling however N. v. viridescens is a lot harder to breed. I would still like to get a good group together for breeding.

Overall, native caudates are just becoming popular and are still only occasionally available. When they are available, there is no locality data, often you can only get one sex, and they are in poor condition.

Ed

 

[paris]

it took me a few years after i stabilized my colonies of animals i collected myself, but i have repeatedly bred arboreal sals and 2 lines, i think one of the main drawbacks to CB programs in the US is lack of access, and those who live in the areas may not really care-since there isnt big money in sals sales (they are seen as kids pets and not very macho), ambystomids are difficult to breed even though they are kept a lot, plethadons and anedies just dont have enough people keeping them to have a successful captive breeding rate, our newts have better luck at CB, i myself bred broken stripes in the past but then lost the whole colony and currently dont keep them -so breeding isnt an option for me. with tarichas they have been bred in the past successfully. i had a bulk of 2 lines bread last year, but mostly left them to the mercy of the adults since there is very little interest in them in the hobby. i think one of the limits is just giving a darn enough to try, and like Ed says, w/o locality data its possibly not worth attempting breeding-esp as they might turn out to be something else later or even infertile hybrids.....

 

[sergé]

Back to the ethics. Unless we are not able to prove we are worthy of keeping salamanders (and we can prove this by breeding) then we should not be keeping them. There are species which can be bred within the xth generation (like Axolotls) without any problems.
I have until so far never have seen any proof for inbreeding problems in newts. Needing new blood is more a feeling than that there is real proof. Far more often it is bad feeding, or bad circumstances why animals will fail to grow or not breed properly.
And since internet...it should be fairly easy to make contact with people and exchange ways of keeping.
But..I must agree that if you don't know the exact locality, you can easily mix up species (because in the past they weren't species and now they are..). This has happened with Triturus species in Europe. So collecting animals in the wild has some advantage. And I think that most of you (like me) would only tkae a few animals, juveniles or eggs from nature if we would go to collect some. The trade however, will collect all there is to collect. Sadly if talking about laws, there seems to be no middle way for private people like us. I think a good system would be to forbid all commercial trade in WC and only allow CB to be traded. To get CB you will have to get in contact with experienced breeders and those experienced breeders (which should have some kind of qualifications) should than be allowed to get a permit to collect WC for new blood or for species which have died out in the hobby. They may however only sell a F2 generation (else they will collect WC that will breed the same year). Of course there is a danger when money gets involved but I think if animals get bred by specialist you will get healthy animals with less damage to wild populations.

But...I am just dreaming, this world is just interested in making money, so traders go for it, not in newts and salamanders. But I still hope that people like you can make a difference.

Sad to see that even in species that are rarely in captivity there is little interest. The same is going on in Europe. Most European species are protected, and keeping is only allowed with papers that prove that they are CB, but there a species which are more trendy than others, and because of that they can die out in captivity. And if we loose them there is no legal way to get them back in captivity because collection permits are only given out for scientific research (and keeping and breeding by hobbyists is not scientific enough...yet).

 

[edward]

Hi Serge,
This a fine mechanism for species that are established to some extent in hands of enthusiasts but the vast majority of North American species are not in established (or even kept) as of yet so there is no population to draw upon (except in a very few species).
Unless/until this happens there will be by default be some level of collection from the wild. What I would suggest is that people use a common species that has the same or similar life style to gain experience before collection a less common species.

Ed

 

[john]

Well, i really don't see how one would ever make money breeding salamanders. I just view it as a labor of love, an odd hobby. I also find it hard to believe that people can make enough money selling WC animals to make it worth their time. But I guess some people are just very short sighted.

Even on this forum, I don't find many people who are keeping species like Desmognathus Fuscus. This is one that I have a lot of interest in working with as they seem very resilient in captivity. I'm also trying to work with E. Bislineata which have been successfully bred in captivity. As Ed says, I think working with a fairly simple species like E. Bis will help me with D. Fuscus.

Back to the topic of egg collection. We found 2 nesting D. Fuscus females this weekend. One had fairly advanced eggs while the second looked like she had only just laid hers. I collected about 10-15 eggs (about 25%) from the more advanced clutch and placed them in damp substrate very similar to that in which the female had laid them. Upon getting them home, I observed that all motion of the babies inside had ceased. The following day, I observed deterioration of the eggs walls. I believe the heat they experienced during the transit from streamside to vehicle killed them. I hope to get back to the site this week and check on the remaining eggs to make sure I didn't damage them. The lesson learned: I'm not going to collect plethodontid eggs. They are far too fragile and most species lay too few to make collection reliable.

 

[david]

Who successfully bred notophthalmus viridescens this season? I did, but it was an accident and they did most of the work

. I just gave the animals good conditions, not expecting them to breed. They rewarded my effort. All of ethics questions, just seem to come down to intent. I agree if you want to keep wild caught animals, you should try to breed them and establish colonies, so others with interest for the species can enjoy them without depleteing the overall wild population. I don't hold it against a person who just want to keep a species for personal observation purposes (let's admit it, they can be fascinating to watch). But then they should be responcible enough to do the best they can at caring for the them (I also believe some people are so bad at handling personal responcibilities that they should not be allowed to keep cats or dogs or reproduce themselves, just not fair to the animal). So far my efforts at breeding has mostly been with Triturus related species, because they interested me the most at the time. Over the last couple of years I've been able to provide CB animals ( marmoratus, montandoni, cristatus, verrucosus and others) to other hobbyist here in the U.S. that will establish more colonies, which means there will less demand for wild caught imports. After enough colonies are established and the animals become more common, the market for wild caughts will implode. Who's going to pay $60.00 a piece for WC marmoratus when CB animals are common and cost a third of the price. Their parents were wild caught animals and now the captive borns are producing true captive breed. In the next couple of years, I'll hopefully have breedable colonies of 3 or 4 species that are native to the U.S. and to start these colonies, the original stock will be wild caughts. Hopefully it'll turn out to be the same deal as my European and Asian newts turned out to be, so basically my philosophy is wild caught animals handled responcibly can be beneficial to both animals and people.

 

[richard]

My friend bred n.v.v. too this season, and he gave me some. He got his adults from a local pet store. They have them from time to time and I think I remember them saying that the same person brings them all in. I picked up one that was all lonely and thin and he's recovered quite nicely. His hips were poking through his skin when I got him, but now he's pretty fat, although the wee ones from my friend are a little better off looking standing next to their big uncle. My friend's bred easily too... in fact one of the ones he gave me is one he found living with the adults. Apparently it found enough to eat somehow until it was big enough to eat the bloodworms with the adults. So hopefully I can get mine to breed too, since they seem to be from the same stock. Dave, thanks for those marmoratus, they're little porkers. I'm hoping to breed those as well and give them to a few of my friends. I've seen eastern newts at two different pet stores in the last six months or so. I think you're right about CB becoming more popular, especially since WC often don't survive the transition I think (my buddy tried to buy some crocodile newts and revive them but unfortunately they died). I really have no idea weather or not the easterns were WC or CB, but you can find them at pet stores in Washington, and they do seem to do ok if you buy them before they roast in the pet store. Plus, they were young looking whereas the crocodile newts were huge and looked very mature. There should definitely be laws against selling WC animals. We guessed 95% of those crocodile newts wouldn't make it... As opposed to the CB ones which almost all make it when you get them.