Catching Wild Tarantulas

[josh_cloud]

I would keep some of the offspring and put them in the hobby. It would keep prices down on the species and help the hobby. With so many slings in an egg sack, I think the majority of what you take to put in the hobby would be the ones that would not make it in the wild. Say you get 300 slings in an egg sack where in the wild, 20 would make it to maturity. If you kept 100 and circulated them in the hobby, odds are that out of the 200 left in the wild, 20 would still make to maturity.

right you are.

 

[cacoseraph]

A NOTE ABOUT RELEASING BACK INTO THE WILD:


no hobbyist keeping exotic species in their collection should ever EVER release something back into the wild. the hobby knows almost NOTHING about invertebrate/arachnid diseases.... only that sometimes pieces of peoples collections die for no readily apparent reason. we don't know how to diagnose anything... so their can be no prognosis without diagnosis. we don't know how to treat anything. heck, we don't even know all the diseases our pets can get... OR WHAT SPECIES THEY CAN TRANSFER TO


i am in the (long, slow, and laborious) process of writing an article that will give some good info (though likely not exactly answer) some of the questions/problems listed above.

Code Monkey and other VERY knowledgeable hobbyists and bug workers have all agreed with me (or seperately expressed exceedingly similar sentiments).


IF you had completely seperate facilities for your restoration work and had protocols in place to hopefully detect and contain pathogens then you would have my fullest support and i would help you feed stuff on the weekends. failing that... please wait to read my article before you release anything to the wild. i promise i will have it done in a year or less.

 

[Steveyruss]

I swear if I had T's running around my backyard REGARDLESS of species I would collect them and breed them if the species was being run out of the area. But I however WOULD NOT sell them but instead release ALL offspring back into the wild after a few months of raising them to ensure independent survival.

I know I know... alot of you would just respond to this like, "not capturing them and leaving them in nature would allow them to breed fine without your assistance". But hey, If you live near a piece of land being lost to a housing development, golf course or an office complex... you as a tarantula lover should feel obligated to do something about ensuring the survival of tarantulas in your area.

Every little bit helps.

I agree with this guy here, I can't see any ethical issue with breeding wild species and releasing some because so many people hate spiders, rather than leaving them to their own device -like many argue here- they go on killing frenzies just knowing that they are in their backyard! In populated areas the biggest threat to spiders is people! People will generally help a stray cat but they'll nearly always squash a spider!

 

[halfwaynowhere]

isn't it better in the long run to catch a few, and breed them, and introduce them to the hobby, than to just let them live in the wild where they will eventually be forced out of their habitats by urban development? I mean, isn't it better for a species to exist only in captivity, than to not exist at all?
I'm not saying that they should all be caught and kept in captivity, and I feel that we should do everything we can to protect their natural habitats. But with the way things seem to work these days, its almost inevitable that at least some species will die out in the wild.

 

[scottyk]

A NOTE ABOUT RELEASING BACK INTO THE WILD:


no hobbyist keeping exotic species in their collection should ever EVER release something back into the wild. the hobby knows almost NOTHING about invertebrate/arachnid diseases.... only that sometimes pieces of peoples collections die for no readily apparent reason. we don't know how to diagnose anything... so their can be no prognosis without diagnosis. we don't know how to treat anything. heck, we don't even know all the diseases our pets can get... OR WHAT SPECIES THEY CAN TRANSFER TO

This point can be further illustrated by researching some of the problems facing The California Desert Tortoise.

A well intentioned push for captive breeding and the return of former pets to the wild either introduced or caused the spread of a severe respiratory infection. The result was a loss of not only the reintroduced specimins, but a the death of most wild tortoises in the release areas. It is now illegal to collect them "and" to release captives...

A North American Tarantula in a home collection could easily be exposed to parasites or pathogens from any number of exotic spiders and insects that it would never encounter in the wild. Without full understanding of what those could be and what possible incubation times are involved, there is a real risk involved in such practices..

 

[cacoseraph]

very good to know! thanks for the info scotty!

 

[josh_cloud]

i stand corrected......therefore i'll keep all i catch and be happy. problen solved.

 

[Thrasher]

Well there are no Ts in Oregon where I live. I wouldn't mind catching a pair and start breeding them, that would help me get better at breeding Ts. But I wouldn't have them for very long before releasing them back to the wild. Yes, people hate spiders, and they realllllly hate them around my living area, they tell their kids its okay to collect ladybugz but kill whatever spiders come near them. ITS TRUE, I heard it with my own ears. But again, my parents used to tell me that.

 

[cacoseraph]

Well there are no Ts in Oregon where I live. I wouldn't mind catching a pair and start breeding them, that would help me get better at breeding Ts. But I wouldn't have them for very long before releasing them back to the wild. Yes, people hate spiders, and they realllllly hate them around my living area, they tell their kids its okay to collect ladybugz but kill whatever spiders come near them. ITS TRUE, I heard it with my own ears. But again, my parents used to tell me that.

please read the previous ten posts. you should not release stuff back into nature.

 

[halfwaynowhere]

I don't know what the laws are like everywhere, but i do know that in california, once an animal has been kept in captivity, it is illegal to release it back into the wild. I'm not sure how far this extends, if its a state or federal law, and if it even covers Ts. I found this out several years ago from some herp guy when i was talking about some lizards that I had caught and was keeping as pets.

 

[cacoseraph]

I don't know what the laws are like everywhere, but i do know that in california, once an animal has been kept in captivity, it is illegal to release it back into the wild. I'm not sure how far this extends, if its a state or federal law, and if it even covers Ts. I found this out several years ago from some herp guy when i was talking about some lizards that I had caught and was keeping as pets.

unfortunately most law does not count spiders as "animals". CA Fish and Game certainly does not. that is an excellent law though. in my copious free time i would like to research it. heh.

 

[aliceinwl]

I'd like to second what others have said against release. Just scroll through a few pages of posts and you'll see posts about nematodes, dyskinetic syndrome, etc. No one nows exactly how the tarantulas contract these diseases and what kind of vectors may be involved. For example, if crickets could be a vector for some of the nematode infections, one could inadvertently introduce a new pathogen into the wild population by releasing a tarantula that had been fed domestic crickets.

The taxonomy of the Aphonopelma spp. in North America is also not well understood. One could easily and inadvertently create mutts through captive breeding. Release of these mutts coud compromise the genetic integrity of wild populations, especially if released into areas where populations are already low / under pressure.

Once in captivity, they and their offspring should stay there. And, supplying captive offspring may indirectly help by alleviating pressure on wild popuations, by people desiring pets.

Alice