Would you cinsider buying a newt from a petstore rescuing?

[tiffany]

i think that(petstore people) they don't know much about them and they would be better off with people like us

 

[jeff]

This is true but they will keep buying them and selling them regardless of how many you attempt to save.

 

[edward]

It depends on the reason you are buying the newt. There are occasionally species that are not available elsewhere or the odd animal that shows up that allows you to complete a breeding group. The decrease in wc animals sold won't decrease until there are sufficient cb animals to take up some of the demand.

Ed

 

[al]

That makes more sense Ed. I'm not good at ID some of the less common Asian sp. Do you recommend a text that has good pics and descriptions of Asian Newts?
I'm looking to expand my collection of books, but do not know where to look.

 

[edward]

Hi Al,
There is a lot of change going on with the Asian species but if you are willing to start with some older books then Studies on Chinese Salamanders is a good place to start. I think Tim and Erik Keyster would have better suggestions...

Ed

(Message edited by Ed on December 13, 2005)

 

[ali]

I kind of considering it a rescue, Tiffany. I mean, if I stopped buying petstore newts, that wouldn't significantly do much damage to the trade. If everyone got together and said, "okay! no more buying petstore newts! Let's end this!"

Then I'd probably join in. I can tell you one thing, I'd cry my eyes out every time I went and saw the poor, diseased creatures, dying...knowing that I could at least try...I could at least try to make them more comfortable....*sniff*...*ahhhh*

Okay, but anyway. I really feel like the people on here have made me so much more knowledgable. If this site didn't exist, I don't think I would have been comfortable enough to become a newt owner. There isn't that much information anywhere else. So I consider mine rescues. I rescue them from that store, and I rescue them from the other people that will buy them if I don't.

I suppose it's a rescue if you think you're rescuing it. I wouldn't "rescue" a newt if I didn't have a nice home for him. But when I do decide I need a newt... then I like to think I'm rescuing it from something.

 

[mark]

I think you should avoid buying caudates from pet shops unless, as Ed suggests, it’s a specimen you can’t find elsewhere and you have a good reason to buy.

I’ve just returned from a trip to New York and I must admit that the pet shops I visited all had horrific enclosures for their amphibians. I saw one 12” tank (with 2 inches of water, a gravel bank and powerhead filter firing a jet of water in to the air!?) containing 4 bombina, 1 large whites tree frog, 2 salamandra, 2 cynops orientalis and an enormous asian bull frog of some description. They were all huddled on the gravel bank in fear of their “water feature” and it’s fair to say that all the caudates I saw looked half dead already.

And I thought UK pet shops were bad…

 

[ian]

How about another question? I have this in my mind a long time.

Do you consider breeding Cynops orientalis is bring this baby animals to doom?
Consider that no one what cynops orientalis that much. Consider that once you breed several dozens of them, you will have to give them up to possibly some people not as knowledgeble. Many of them will die. I feel bad and sad looking and caring for my baby morphs everyday.

 

[jeff]

Well don't give them up to just anyone, use the fourum to find those who wants some, or trusted freinds.

 

[tiffany]

i feel the same way Ali. that i could try and make them feel more comfortable because petstores as already stated, do not take proper care.

 

[ali]

I'm certainly one with mixed feelings. I certainly wish many places would stop selling newts and amphibians and lots of other things, for that matter! But it's hard to let those little guys sit there and suffer for the greater purpose of the store not selling so many.

And I know some dumb little kid will come along and convince their mother to buy it, where they will torture it, and handle it and....*WAHHHHHH!*

But anyway, this could be applied to many petstores in general, not just in concern with amphibians. Many stores treat all of their animals terribly. I must say that the pet trade is certainly not a wonderful thing. I wouldn't buy a newt "just to save it" but when I am looking for one, I certainly feel like I have saved it.

 

[edward]

snip "Do you consider breeding Cynops orientalis is bring this baby animals to doom?
Consider that no one what cynops orientalis that much. Consider that once you breed several dozens of them, you will have to give them up to possibly some people not as knowledgeble. Many of them will die. I feel bad and sad looking and caring for my baby morphs everyday."


Here is another way to look at this,
Even if you give them or sell them to someone who does not take care of them in the long run, then there will be that many fewer sold via a pet store that were taken from the wild.....

Ed

 

[ali]

Hmm. An interesting take on that, Ed. If I understand, what you mean is that the newts recieved this way, even if they aren't taken care of in the long run, will be captive bred rather than taken from the wild. This is also an educational tool, I suppose. I don't think I would breed newts and keep too many eggs unless I was pretty confident that I could find good homes for at least a good many of them. I think I would post on here and say, I have these eggs if anyone wants them. Otherwise I would want to dispose before they hatch.

An interesting thought.

 

[erik]

i beleive if you have enough room and the newts wont spread disease i beleive its a great idea

 

[david]

Until recently, it's really the only way to acquire pet newts. I'm a casual hobbyist and have a strange urge to buy a newt every time I see a beautiful specimen of a type I've never owned before, though this has only happened on a few occasions. They were years ago, and long before I really knew much about the pet trade.

I have a Cynops pyrroghaster that I'd received as a Christmas gift when I was 11, and that was before I even began to suspect that pet stores knew nothing about newts, but she's still alive and well.

I once bought a beautiful Tylototriton shanjig at a pet store on the spot about 10 years ago (I still have this one and he appears to be doing fine) simply because of the thrill factor of never having seen one of those guys up close. He (or she--I'm still not certain) was in a semi-aquatic setup, which I quickly learned was inappropriate for that species, and I was told it was the first day it arrived.

The second time it occurred was when I purchased my Pachytriton from a pet store about 7 years ago. At the time, I didn't know anything about this genus and thought it was some sort of mislabeled plethodontid salamander. The slimy skin and shape of the body are what threw me off, as well as the fact that the label said this was a "Taricha" newt, which I knew was incorrect.

I love my newts and I'm glad they're all doing fine, at least as far as I can tell. Come to think of it, I've owned newts for most my life. The first one I think I had since I was 5, and since then there have only been two brief periods, each lasting no more than five or six months, during which there have been no newts in the household. The newts I owned before the age of 11 didn't last too long, and that was before I knew that handling newts was scarcely more appropriate than handling fish.

Now I feel sort of guilty about the newts I do own, since I've only recently learned about the decline of amphibians in the wild, and that they are almost certainly wild-caught specimens. It's inspired me to want to search for a place where I can 'lend' (or donate) my newts to professional breeders, to undo the possible damage I've done by purchasing them.

 

[edward]

snip "I once bought a beautiful Tylototriton shanjig at a pet store on the spot about 10 years ago (I still have this one and he appears to be doing fine) simply because of the thrill factor of never having seen one of those guys up close. He (or she--I'm still not certain) was in a semi-aquatic setup, which I quickly learned was inappropriate for that species, and I was told it was the first day it arrived"

It depends on what you mean by semi-aquatic setup. I keep shanjing and have bred them in semiaquatic setups that have a fair sized shallow pool....

Ed

 

[david]

Well, I guess that's good for breeding, but by "semi-aquatic" I mean four or five inches of water and some surfacing rocks that barely comprise more than a fifth of the area in the tank (most of these guys were crowded on the rocks, but I've seen far worse). This would be something a bit more suitable for say, a Cynops or Triturus newt.



(Message edited by amphiuma on April 20, 2006)

 

[jennifer]

snip "Now I feel sort of guilty about the newts I do own, since I've only recently learned about the decline of amphibians in the wild, and that they are almost certainly wild-caught specimens. It's inspired me to want to search for a place where I can 'lend' (or donate) my newts to professional breeders, to undo the possible damage I've done by purchasing them."

You are an incredibly insightful and selfless person to think this particular thought. I've heard so many people say "Please send me your newts for my breeding program". You are the first person to suggest the opposite! Don't fall for casual claims of "breeding programs". Happily, captive bred newts are beginning to become more available.

 

[anna]

Here in australia, NSW, the sale of any reptile and most amphibians in a pet store is illegal and so is catching them from the wild. You have to get them from a registered breeder and get a permit from parks and wildlife to keep them. I really think that if people are able to connect and share and breed the various species of amphibians through sites such as this, then mabey they could be saved from having to participate in the 'pet trade'. Mabey even to the point where they should be banned from sale in pet shops. Its not as convenient but im sure the poor animals would appreciate only being handled by those that know what they r doing. I think that any one who keeps an animal should do what they can to support captive breeding programs to keep the wild ones wild and ensure the hobby has less fatalities.

 

[pin-pin]

Hi David,

Kudos on your desire to help out!

As for breeding, you take the chance that your animal will die during shipping/acclimatization. The fact that you have bought a small number of animals over the course of a long period of time (as opposed to say, 20 in a tank overload massacre on a yearly basis) will not make that great of an impact on the trade.

Now that you are aware of the wild-caught situation, you can stop purchasing them completely and acquire captive-bred animals from forums like this. It's a slower process with fewer selections, but is worth the time. I like to chime in that although it's taken me over 3 years to acquire captive-bred juveniles, I've never had any problems with sudden death or disease that the wild-caught animals come with.

It's not stressed enough, habitat loss is doing an equivalent (if not more) damage to the amphibians in the wild. While less easy to notice, there are often very good conservation programs which would benefit from your desire to ease your conscious.