ATS Manuels

[Gail]

Hi all. Don't know who else here has any of the ATS publications but I got the care guides for 80 species, the medical manual, the marshall manual and the breene manual I today. They are all really nice little books with a lot of concise information. The only thing that I can say I dislike is that in the care manual they chose not to list what the typical temperment of each species is. They instead took the stance that you should know each of your spiders and their individual temperments. They refer to the publications that do list species as aggressive or docile this way - " This is totally subjective guessing and serves no purpose nor contains meaning." They go on to say that just about any species can be handled if you know what you're doing (paraphrased).
I have to disagree with their decision to do it like this because I think that it would be good to know the generally expected temperment of a species. What's your opinions?

Gail

 

[MrT]

Well I guess a person can really get to know their T. when its got its fangs dug into your hand. Its does seem they would at least give a clue as to its temperment. Most species do have a history, as captives. Whats Up ATS?

Ern

 

[Wade]

I think Breene likes to err on the side of caution when writing. Consider how often on these forums we read posts from people who don't understand why their G. rosea, which everyone recomended as a docile spider, acts aggressively (or defensively, depending on which word you prefer ). I don't think he wants anyone holding the ATS to be held responsible if someone gets nailed.

By the same token, they don't want to tell people NOT to handle a particular species either. I've personally seen Breene handle Poecilotheria and Pterinochilus, so it would be a bit hypocritical for him to tell everyone else not to!

In the years I've been in the ATS, I've noticed that that Breene is very, very cautious about the way he words things, and will avoid stating anything as a fact unless it can be verified. Anything that falls under the category of anecdotal information, as almost all info about the temperments of T's does, must be identified as such. They were covering 80+ species in that book, the additional verbage would have added a lot of exta pages. Since it's supposed to be the CONCISE CARE guide, perhaps they felt that issues involving temperment were outside their perameters.

That said, I kinda wish it was there also. If I were writing it, I probably would have tried to give some sort of indicator, worded in a non-authoratative way, such as: "many keepers feel this species is generally docile, but as always there are exceptions" or "This species has a reputation for being fast and aggresive and is popular among advanced keepers". Still, though, there's plenty of other places we can find out this stuff. It's probably better to discuss it with keepers experienced with a given species, rather than depend on one or two sentances in a book, anyway.

I had heard awhile ago that Fitzgerald Publishing was supposed to be working on a hardcover edition of that book that would feature color photos of all the species covered. I wonder what happened with that?

Wade

 

[Botar]

Originally posted by Wade
Still, though, there's plenty of other places we can find out this stuff. It's probably better to discuss it with keepers experienced with a given species, rather than depend on one or two sentances in a book, anyway.

Wade

... and that is the beauty of this place!!

Botar