T. selidonia don’t have any species specific rules that apply just to them. All regulation for them applies across the board to every Brailian endemic species (P. sazimai, G. pulchra, D. diamantinensis, etc) and most people never stopped selling those, so i don’t know why they haven't been more available... My guess is that everybody was just scared somwthing would happen, and then once somebody mustered up the courage to sell and nothing happened, everybody else jumped on the gravy train.
quite a few people on facebook are selling them. I don’t think i have seen them listed on Arachnoboards thoughz
They are starting to crop up, even at some major vendors. You kinda need an inside track though sometimes.
Since T. seladonia was the reason for the Brazilian endemic ban/situation, I guess that I figured people would be more cautious. A newly described species in the hobby way too soon is just obvious smuggling. I guess I don't understand why people want to own it, considering how it entered the hobby.
You think T. Seladonia is the only species that entered the hobby this way?
No of course not, but it is the recent one with lots of hype and press, and is THE reason that we can't import geniculata and parahybana anymore.You think T. Seladonia is the only species that entered the hobby this way?
There is absolutely NO REASON we would ever need to import these species (and MANY others).
I want to agree with you, I do... And in an ideal world you'd be inarguably right. But the way I see people carelessly breed, especially breeding animals from the same source/breeder or even breeding sac mates (?!), I wouldn't be surprised at all if we start seeing problems in our captive stock from poor breeding practices over time. This hobby is still relatively new, even if forty or fifty years old, and having avoided problems so far doesn't guarantee a lack of problems... Time and repetition compounds genetic issues over generations, practices like inbreeding and linebreeding will bite us sooner or later. Limited gene pools can be dicey. As the hobby grows, the problem grows. IMO, we need to be very careful when choosing who to breed to whom, doubly so with species we know we're unlikely to be able to refresh with new genes from wild-caught stock because of collection bans (like poecies) or import bans (like pulchra or especially seladonia), thricely so with species of which we already have too few individuals (like seladonia) and thus very limited genetic variety. And also definitely never ever breed sac mates!
Im not talking about an ideal world, im talking the real world.
Yes, I see your point that we have plenty of those Ts (Lasiodora, in your example, so I'll use that one too) for everyone to pretty much have as many as they want. So why import what is already plentiful, you ask. As pets, yes, I totally see your point. But breeding is different... a large captive population is not necessarily a genetically diverse population. The individuals of any captive population can basically only be as genetically diverse as however many wild-caught individuals were bred into the captive population. As an extreme example, all of the magillion LPs we have in the hobby today could have (theoretically) all descended from just two wild-caught specimens, given enough generations, thereby making the genetic diversity of their captive population about nil. That's what exponentialism is.
In the real world, adults sell better than spiderlings so I bet Lasiodora adults are still taken from the wild. Besides, people are forking over the import fees for WC Avicularia avicularia, Aphonopelma seemanni (and its look-alike), T. albopilosum, and so on. Who knows how many of those spiderlings of abundant species we have in the USA are actually imported from Europe or where Europe is getting the adults to produce the spiderlings. It's hard to tell from a price list what's imported and what is captive bred and born in the USA. Unless it is an American first, then the breeders and/ or sellers are going to brag about it.
Yeah, this probably isnt the first time i have shown my naivety on the import/smuggling subject. Great point with imported avics.
If youbare already paying a few hundred in import fees and a couple grand in shipping on other species, you might as well add some others too if the price is right. I don’y think people are doing thr import FOR the “worthless” species, just adding some to the import (for very minimal cost)