Smuggler Busted...

[Arachnophobphile]

These media stories of people getting caught smuggling tarantulas always raises the point that what is legal isn't necessarily ethical, and what is ethical isn't necessarily legal. Collecting American tarantulas by the thousands, or hundreds of thousands, then exporting them internationally or selling domestically with all of the appropriate permits is legal, but there is no way that is ethical. Collecting and smuggling a few tarantulas for the purposes of a captive breeding program- and selling the offspring of such an effort- would be very illegal according to federal law of the United States, but it is ethical so long as one firsts understands the population and biology of the target species.

With that I wholly agree

I never heard of anyone collecting a few tarantulas from their habitat for a breeding program and releasing the offspring back into their natural habitat. From a conservationist standpoint that would be awesome. I do not know what legal barriers exist in doing such.

From an ethical point as long as it's known 100% by the person breeding they have the same T's and known morph types then by all means please do. If a habitat has been completely destroyed then that would have it's barriers.

Smuggling can be dealt with the same way Africa deals with poaching. If other countries enacted that I suspect smuggling would definitely lower quite a bit. Just like poachers in Africa they still risk their life to keep poaching.

 

[Kada]

Not just in bags but bags with one paper side for air strapped to the inside of a girdle strapped to his body, no getting that off in a hurry if one did sting him or escape. As I said desperate. To risk what he did for money he probably wouldnt of even been given, ( I mean whats he going to do tell the law? ) he must be in a very poor situation. Its sad stuff all round.

My bet is he would have made quite good money. the saddest part out here is people Pay top dollar. often don't take care of them well, then try to puppy mill them to cb. Korea, China, Japan, Taiwan etc are actually fairly good at getting things to a CB point. From everything I've seen, absolutely terrible in the ethics/morals category and often have more money than compassion so will just spend more to try again.

The only plus side is these guys often do figure out a way to breed rare stuff, they have a lot of resources to experiment. If only psychopaths werent so prevalent out this side of the world. it's really puppy mill mentality more often than not

 

[Charliemum]

My bet is he would have made quite good money. the saddest part out here is people Pay top dollar. often don't take care of them well, then try to puppy mill them to cb. Korea, China, Japan, Taiwan etc are actually fairly good at getting things to a CB point. From everything I've seen, absolutely terrible in the ethics/morals category and often have more money than compassion so will just spend more to try again.

The only plus side is these guys often do figure out a way to breed rare stuff, they have a lot of resources to experiment. If only psychopaths werent so prevalent out this side of the world. it's really puppy mill mentality more often than not

He wouldn't of made much compared to the person who wanted the t's and either way it's disgusting.
I wish countries would pull together and start facilities that make the need to smuggle superfluous. Kinda like the Brachypelma one in Mexico sell half the stock put the others bk to boost wild populations and cut the need to pinch the t's because they are readily available. A dream obviously but hopefully one day we will be smart enough to do that.

 

[Kada]

Yup, we do need that. But that requires people paying for it and governments actually cracking down on animals through ports. They do a fairly poor job, be it unintentional or not.

There are good examples from the pet frog industry of captive breeders in the country of origin and selling the CB offspring legally. It's great to see. But if we are being honest, the pet frog industry has a far larger reach of people that actually care and put I time and money. Although many of us care, it's just not in the same level...I don't expect the invert industry to be quite as ethical. But i would think aquatics, beetle, butterfly and similar very popular and very large big money sects of the invert industry would be first to set good examples.

We can hope. otherwise the best thing someone can do is use our money to purchase ethical specimens. that's at least something everyone can do

Meanwhile smugglers will keep going cause they can make 10s of thousands usd per trip pretty easily. sad reality

 

[Ultum4Spiderz]

35 adult Ts, 285 juvies and slings, and 110 centipedes and bullet ants...
..on one person's body..

Just... how?

How could all of that even fit on one person without them looking like the the stay puft marshmallow man?
What kind of person thinks no one is going to notice that?
How did he sit or walk without being stung, pinched, or bit?
How is he not dead?

Dude is crazy..

I don’t know how it’s possible to carry so many specimens at once . Insanity …

 

[Tbone192]

I firmly believe that the process for acquiring permits to move these animals should be made more readily available. Or at the very least, expedited in some way, this way people don't have to starve as much and we still get genetic variation in the hobby. Very complex issue though, with many caveats. Each country has its own regulations and permit guidelines so I guess nothing will be changing for some time yet. Always purchase your pets from reputable sources!

 

[Matt Man]

this one heading to Asia from Peru. https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/20/americas/smuggler-tarantulas-peru-intl-scli/index.html

 

[Mustafa67]

this one heading to Asia from Peru. https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/20/americas/smuggler-tarantulas-peru-intl-scli/index.html

How is it physically possible?

 

[Matt Man]

How is it physically possible?

lots of small vials wrapped around his mid section so it seems

 

[Kada]

How this guy doesn't know about x-rays and being patted down going through customs is what surprises me. In 3 countries no less. although wrong, I can at least understand the logic of greed. But his just seems frankly like someone had a few things going on, mentally.

 

[Gevo]

Here's another story from Canada that I also find mystifying, though in this case it's because the tarantulas were of a species that's entirely legal to import and isn't high demand or price: https://edmonton.ctvnews.ca/oh-my-g...achnids-rescued-at-edmonton-airport-1.6518382

 

[Charliemum]

Here's another story from Canada that I also find mystifying, though in this case it's because the tarantulas were of a species that's entirely legal to import and isn't high demand or price: https://edmonton.ctvnews.ca/oh-my-g...achnids-rescued-at-edmonton-airport-1.6518382

In a toy plane, just wow makes it even worse if the shipper could have just sent the right way n didn't even need permits to send!
This need fixed.

 

[Matt Man]

With that I wholly agree

I never heard of anyone collecting a few tarantulas from their habitat for a breeding program and releasing the offspring back into their natural habitat. From a conservationist standpoint that would be awesome. I do not know what legal barriers exist in doing such.

From an ethical point as long as it's known 100% by the person breeding they have the same T's and known morph types then by all means please do. If a habitat has been completely destroyed then that would have it's barriers.

Smuggling can be dealt with the same way Africa deals with poaching. If other countries enacted that I suspect smuggling would definitely lower quite a bit. Just like poachers in Africa they still risk their life to keep poaching.

I know multiple people who have started CB lines of species from original WC lines and of those I know, I know of at least 3, who bring back about 20% of each WC Parental Sacs and release them exactly where the parents were found. These are mostly in Texas
and mostly hentzi and anax.
Since this is only my hobby I just don't have the time to go collect, but of the people I know, no one is taking thousands of animals from anywhere. A good haul would be a dozen, and it is a ton of work, they aren't as easy to find as one would imagine, and I live in an
area with good amounts of inverts. But I do agree that some Europeans are probably coming over to collect because Aphonopelma are exotic over there. Certain species you can pull big dollars for a Sac.