Police raid homes to seize illegal animals

[Hamburglar]

I saw this story on my homepage this morning and thought I would share it. I guess it proves that some localities take owning illegal animals seriously. I hope the link works for everyone...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080806/ap_on_sc/frogs_seized

 

[357wheelgunner]

Lol, they want to:

"get any and all prohibited frogs off the streets"

What dumbasses. There are tons of illegal immigrants in Reno, doing millions of dollars in damage to the local, state, and federal government (who do you think pays when they go to the hospitol to give birth, treat the flu, etc.?) and the local authorities don't do anything about that, but they're worried about frogs in some collector's basement.

WTF?

 

[arachnocat]

These frogs are illegal here in California too. I can kind of understand though, they get almost as big as bullfrogs and have the same appetite and reproduce really quickly. Also, that fungus they carry can be pretty bad for native frogs.
Still, I was in Nevada last weekend. They have pet stores selling monkeys, sugar gliders, hedgehogs and all kinds of exotic animals yet these frogs are illegal.

 

[GartenSpinnen]

I never realized how bad monkeys can be. There was a special on TV on them as pets, saying that the injury rate with owning them is like 100%. And its amazing what some of the smaller species of monkeys can do to a an adult, let alone a child. I think they should be outlawed as pets. Most people just get them for the shock value, get super attached to them, then have to get rid of them after they rip there kids or spouse to shreds. I dont know how many monkey sanctuaries are in the US just because of people having to get rid of there pet monkeys because they turn on them.

As far as amphibians and reptiles, i mean, it all comes down to responsible ownership. But the problem lies in the fact that there is so many irresponsible people (look at Florida...) that you end up with pythons loose, reproducing, eating peoples cats... and frog fungus .

Cheers

 

[Mushroom Spore]

What dumbasses. There are tons of illegal immigrants in Reno, doing millions of dollars in damage to the local, state, and federal government (who do you think pays when they go to the hospitol to give birth, treat the flu, etc.?) and the local authorities don't do anything about that, but they're worried about frogs in some collector's basement.

WTF?

I too am enraged that the Nevada Department of Wildlife is not doing something about those pesky immigrants.

Anyway, I love clawed frogs but unfortunately they are one of those animal species that is quite happy to thrive whenever an irresponsible owner gets bored and dumps it in the local creek. And certainly if this fungus is as bad as it sounds...I dunno, is there some way to treat the frogs for it? Even if it doesn't hurt them, there's surely a way to cure it in captive specimens so they can't pass it on. :?

If this frog's fungus has caused extinctions, certainly that's pretty serious.

 

[Tarantula_man94]

Who want 119 frogs first of all? and illegal frogs? what is soo bad bout frogs???

 

[syndicate]

i like this lil tidbit of knowledge lol
The African clawed frog was used in hospitals in the 1940s and 1950s as a way to detect pregnancy in women. It produces eggs when injected with the urine of a pregnant woman.

 

[Mushroom Spore]

illegal frogs? what is soo bad bout frogs???

Did you read the article? People dumping this species of frog when they get tired of it has resulted in whole ecosystems being trashed. There's been multiple species extinctions "from Australia to Costa Rica" solely because clawed frogs carry a type of communicable fungus. And that's not taking into account that they get fairly large and eat everything that fits in their mouths.

 

[JohnEDove]

I too am enraged that the Nevada Department of Wildlife is not doing something about those pesky immigrants.

Anyway, I love clawed frogs but unfortunately they are one of those animal species that is quite happy to thrive whenever an irresponsible owner gets bored and dumps it in the local creek. And certainly if this fungus is as bad as it sounds...I dunno, is there some way to treat the frogs for it? Even if it doesn't hurt them, there's surely a way to cure it in captive specimens so they can't pass it on. :?

If this frog's fungus has caused extinctions, certainly that's pretty serious.

I think it was about 10 years ago I was reading about this in Froglog, and while an infected non immune frog could be saved from chytridiomycete fungus the fungus itself could not be killed.
I can't remember the species of frog they were testing it on for sure but I think it was PDFs.

 

[LeilaNami]

The Petco I worked at sold albino ones....then people start calling when they ate all the fish

 

[JohnEDove]

Found the article if anyone cares, it was in issue #46 August 2001. So I can't judge time anymore.
http://www.open.ac.uk/daptf/froglog/FROGLOG-46-1.html

 

[JDeRosa]

I heard some guy in Miami had his T's confiscated.

 

[eelnoob]

Hmmmm thought these frogs were aquatics, how can they carry fungus spores than if they are? I know fungus/spores like moist places but underwater?

Even captive frogs(pacmans, pyxies, WTFs, etc) can get the fungus. I believe one of my pyxies even had it awhile ago as it just lost it's appetite and tenacity. It was back to it's normal self after treating it with Lamisil.


BTW I like this line from the article. "On the Caribbean island of Dominica, the fungus has almost wiped out the mountain chicken, a frog species considered an island delicacy.":?

 

[Taceas]

Monkeys can be owned successfully by responsible enough people, sadly the irresponsible far outnumber the responsible. I personally have never seen monkeys for sale as pets anywhere around here thankfully, not that I would be interested anyway. If I want something like that to take care of I could just get pregnant and wait 9 months.

As for the frogs, I understand their logic behind the seizure, but again aren't there FAR more important things to be considering these days? Besides, where are there enough wet places that are warm enough all year for these frogs to get a wild population of breeding adults going in Nevada?

 

[colicabcadam]

makes me laugh, even if those frogs escaped, they woldn't do much damage.

now look at the governments stupid mistake, they created the killer bee, which kill people and other animals faily often

 

[Hedorah99]

makes me laugh, even if those frogs escaped, they woldn't do much damage.

now look at the governments stupid mistake, they created the killer bee, which kill people and other animals faily often

Our government didn't create "killer bees". They were an inadvertent hybrid created when African Honey Bees were brought to Brazil to help in agriculture. They hybridized with imported European Honey Bees and now here they are.

And you can go check some canal systems in Florida. The African Clawed frogs are doing just fine.

 

[Tim Benzedrine]

There have been some in-roads made towards the treatment of the chytrid fungus within the hobby. However, it is impractical to implement in the wild. eelnoob mentioned using the treatment in his post above.

I'm copying this post from another forum with credit but without express permission due to the fact that I am not a member of the boards I am drawing it from. However, given that the proponent of the treatment, one Steven Busch, is primarily interested in helping to eliminate this nasty problem, I'm pretty sure he would not mind. As a breeder of frogs, it is in his best interest, as well as the frogs, that the threat is dealt with. Here is what he has to say to a member whose frog was showing odd symptoms:

I should state we are not Veterinarians.

The symptoms you describe are symptoms of Chytrid fungus. We have very recent information that this is MUCH MORE PREVALENT in the pet trade than believed.

A treatment has been developed by Jay Bowerman that shows great promise, has eliminated chytrid without toxic effects, so far, in his testing of 3 species of frogs. We wish to thank herpetologist Chris Rombough for the valuable information he has provided and his efforts to combat this disease.

The treatment he is using is Lamisil AT spray pump. It costs about $10 at stores that carry foot fungus treatment medicines and is not over the counter product. It is the liquid version. Mix 10 squirts (about 1 ML) in 200 ml (3/4 cups plus 1 1/2 tablespoons) of water that is safe for frogs i.e. no chlorine. Soak for 5 minutes for 10 days. Keep on paper towels changed after each treatment. Your habitat soil needs to be changed and destroyed as the fungus lives in the damp soil.

Naturally, this treatment is given in good faith and is technically still in the testing stages, I think. However, many people have been using the treatment and have noticed improvements in their frogs, appaearance and behavioural wise.

African Clawed frogs are what are believed to have commenced the spread of chytrid, with some devastating results. Cite
It is one case, as much as it may pain us to admit it, that the folks who are against importation of foreign species may have had it right. Someone somewhere got careless, possibly a laboratory, and unaware of the threat the frogs carried, let the genie out of the bottle. So it's a little naive to think that animals released into the wild cause only have impact if they become invasive. In cases like this, ONE frog could be all it takes. It wouldn't even really need to establish itself.

I do not even dispose of anything from my frog's habitats without boiling and disinfecting it .From what I have read, Horned (Pac-Man) frogs are believed to br silent carriers, sort of amphibian "Typhoid Marys", so before I toss out water that my horned frog has soaked in, I add boiling water and leave it sit for 15 minutes or so. I also boil it's coco-fibre substrate and reuse it. (I joke that I'm so poor I have to recycle dirt).


Sorry about straying so far from the topic, but it's kind of an important matter, I think.

 

[JohnEDove]

Tim Benzedrine,
Thanks for sharing that info. I used to try to keep up to date on this type of research but have gotten lazy the past few years.
Now if only Mr. Bowerman can get this into scientific study, prove it out and develop a method to treat non captive animals.

 

[bigdog999]

As tacaes stated, monkeys can be kept successfully by responsible peeps. My family owned a squirrel monkey for seven years in the 70-80s. My dad only got bit once and that was a complete mistake on the monkey.

 

[Galapoheros]

http://www.issg.org/database/species/ecology.asp?fr=1&si=123
I've been reading a little about it today. It sounds like a serious high priority precautionary measure right now. It sounds like there are still a lot of unanswered questions concerning this fungus, they aren't even 100% sure it came out of Africa. It was just recently described in 1998. They still aren't 100% sure how the fungus kills amphibians according to what I read, not that it matters, it's just odd to me that they haven't figured that out yet. They speculate that the fungus has caused a global decline in the frog population since the 1960's. It bugs me a little that they don't state the date of the first discovered case. Sounds pretty legit to me. It's the first time I've heard about it so I've got some naive thoughts. Is it possible that this fungus could be all over the world dormant in places, mutating like the common cold and having outbreaks now and then(?) Might it kill some within a species and not others, like the flu? It could be wild in the US and if so, for 1000s of years. Not likely but possible? I read it likes cooler temps, bet it's not in Texas, hehe. I also noticed that they said the fungus was found in a poison dart frog at the National Zoological Park in Washington D.C. I don't doubt for a second of course that the fungus exists but if I play around with it a little and think paranoid, could this be a fungus that is more common than they say it is? They speculate that it's caused a global decline in the frog population since the 1960s, but maybe it's caused a global decline in the frog population off and on for 100s of 1000s of years all over the world. But I understand it doesn't look like that so they feel they need to take action. And they mention other amphibians have been found to have the fungus like the blue poison dart frog at the zoo. To me this is how they prepare you for the next chipping away of your right to keep animals/pets. Are we going to hear, "We've discovered that all amphibians can carry this fungus, keeping all amphibians is illegal from now on..."? People use scare tactics, many times with good intentions. Some give in to lying because they don't think the truth is scary enough. Take the gov and drugs for example. When I was a kid, to discourage his kids from using drugs, our dad brought home absolutely legitimate gov documented papers that said if a woman smokes marijuana while she is pregnant, there would be a chance greater than 30% that the child would end up deformed and that marijuana mutates genes. I also saw an interview with a gov official concerning gov ads that discourage people getting involved in using a particular drug. The gov employee finally got angry and admitted the gov lied about and fabricated dangers and the risks of using the drug because the truth isn't enough sometimes, that the lying had prevented 1000s of kids from getting in trouble... and he might be right. But what if this tactic is used with an unreasonable intention? I don't know but it kind of has the same ring of the topic discussed in this thread http://www.arachnoboards.com/ab/showthread.php?t=131306 and maybe it is going to be used as an excuse to take other rights away. It's frustrating and interesting at the same time to watch where all this stuff is going. Getting crazy dooooods!!!