“help! My pink toe!”

[Asgiliath]

I’ve only been here for a short while but I’ve noticed that almost every other day there’s a post about someone struggling with their avic husbandry and improper housing.

My question is, why is this delicate species so available to beginners? Why are they the species that anyone can get a hold of at their local Petco? Makes no sense to me....

 

[MintyWood826]

They're made to seem so delicate because of outdated information (ie high humidity and low ventilation) that leads to their deaths. This bad information is given out by care sheets, pet stores, and the internet. While they are more sensitive to mistakes than some other species, they are still doable for beginners following good advice (dry arboreal enclosures with clutter, anchor points and a water dish).

They are so easy for beginners to get a hold of simply because they are common.

 

[Asgiliath]

They're made to seem so delicate because of outdated information (ie high humidity and low ventilation) that leads to their deaths. This bad information is given out by care sheets, pet stores, and the internet. While they are more sensitive to mistakes than some other species, they are still doable for beginners following good advice (dry arboreal enclosures with clutter, anchor points and a water dish).

They are so easy for beginners to get a hold of simply because they are common.

That definitely makes sense.

 

[lazarus]

My question is, why is this delicate species so available to beginners? Why are they the species that anyone can get a hold of at their local Petco?

Because they are easy to find and catch in the wild. All Avics sold in pet shops are wild caught.

 

[Vanessa]

There seems to be an increase in Avicularia avicularia being sold at Petco/Petsmart and other big chain stores. People have mentioned that their local chain store has ' just started' selling them.
Impulse purchases done with no research, in addition to being guided by petshop employees who know absolutely nothing and only care about you buying stuff, is a literal death sentence for them. If you think there are a lot of problem posts here - it is an exponentially higher number of people who don't find online resources. I have recently seen a flood of poor setups and Avicularia on the fast track to being dead on Instagram as well.

 

[cold blood]

how good a tarantula is for beginners has absolutely no bearing on availability. H. minax is constantly available all over the place so are obt's so are H Macs, etc.

Pet stores get what they can, period. And avics are always available. They are so abundant in many of the areas they live that they are constantly being caught and imported. My understanding is that it's one of the very few species, A. avic mt#1 that is, in which collection and importation pose no or very little risk to wild populations.

 

[Asgiliath]

how good a tarantula is for beginners has absolutely no bearing on availability. H. minax is constantly available all over the place so are obt's so are H Macs, etc.

Pet stores get what they can, period. And avics are always available. They are so abundant in many of the areas they live that they are constantly being caught and imported. My understanding is that it's one of the very few species, A. avic mt#1 that is, in which collection and importation pose no or very little risk to wild populations.

yeah, that was my main point of confusion — no relationship between availability and beginner species/experience level — I guess there’s no real “reason” to it — I could have used my own brain to process this lmao

 

[14pokies]

Improper husbandry because a lack of research gives this Genus a terrible reputation.. Dry enclosure with good ventilation,access to water, anchor points for webbing and they thrive..

It's really that simple

 

[Ungoliant]

My question is, why is this delicate species so available to beginners? Why are they the species that anyone can get a hold of at their local Petco? Makes no sense to me....

The reasons we see so many "help my dying Avic" threads:

• Brand new keepers often get their first tarantula from a pet store, most of which only carry Grammostola rosea/porteri or Avicularia avicularia. (In other words, new keepers are likely to end up with an Avic.)
• These are often impulse purchases with no research done in advance.
• When a brand new keeper comes home with an Avic, he's probably gotten care advice from the pet store or an Internet care sheet, both of which are usually bad. (I've yet to see an Avic properly set up in a pet store.)
• Many care sheets emphasize trying to keep humidity within an arbitrary range. This misleads new keepers into restricting ventilation in order to raise humidity. Moist, stuffy enclosures kill Avics. (In contrast, the new keeper who chose one of the recommended NW terrestrials as his starter tarantula is unlikely to encounter care sheets that would mislead him into creating a moist, stuffy death trap, and these species are more tolerant of other kinds of newbie mistakes.)

 

[Vanisher]

They are beginner friendly, but need to care for in another way than say a G rosea! If a beginner is allowed to drive a care, the same beginner should be able to figure out how to care for a Avicularia!. Now, this isnt rocket science we are talking about here! Set up terrarium for an arboreal, lots of ventilation, moist sub if it is sling and dry with acational oweflow of waterdish when adult and feed the animal now and then!

 

[viper69]

The most SIGNIFICANT reason they die is because people are so incredibly S T U P I D.

They look up information on the good ole' internet, finding care sheets and YouCrap videos and accept such info as true, the same from a pet store.

They should be contacting breeders of tarantulas and asking them questions, not relying on quadruple hand info.