some results from a trip to california

[josh_r]

see, now you are assuming that people arent collecting the hell out of our natives andrew. when you come out here this summer, i will take you to spots that used to be loaded with T's but now you are very lucky to find one. not just a couple spots, but LOTS of spots. i have seen it first hand my friend, it is happening. its not just easy access places either. there are areas where you can hike for quite a ways and still find nothing. like i said before andrew, im not telling you to swear to secrecy. but maybe be less specific unless itis someone you can trust. we know NOTHING about this species and how common it is. yes, we were finding them on road cuts and that is what we were limited to and they werent on every road cut. we cannot hunt to land as it is all private property. if everyone is hitting those road cuts, what will be left on the road cuts?? nothing. it would take years for populations to move back onto the road cuts. yes, we should have a nice gene pool to work with, but that doesnt mean everyone and their dog has to go dig one up. we should be getting a few people working with them and from there, distribute CB and breed them. that is how it is done. with most dart frogs or monitor lizards and even lots of tarantulas, they were introduced into the hobby from a few individuals and bred over the years to establish them and distribute them to other serious hobbyists. like i said, nothing wrong with telling people, but there are certain people who just shouldnt know these things.

i can show you flagstaff orange spots, behlei spots, new river rust spots, paloma spots, chaclodes spots, pajarito dwarf spots, cochisei spots that were loaded with spiders years ago but now there are VERY few..... one thing these places all have in common, every friggin rock has been flipped or the ground has been dug up. ask texas blonde about moderatum in texas, she will give you the same story.

but then, it may not matter, people may not become as fascinated about the calisoga genus as we are. they may not every be a desired species.

and as far as this secrecy thing goes, you know better than that. i told you! i tell others that i trust. i will tell anyone who shows that they are a serious hobbyist that appreciates and respects our natives and their habitat. i have shared LOTS of information with you and many others. but i spent the time to get to know you and trust you. all i ask is you do the same with people you come across. if someone is serious and likes the spiders enough, they will spend the time necessary to find it. we dont need to hold anybodys hand. alot of people just wait around for someone to give them exact locality info and they wreak havoc on the place.

-josh

 

[josh_r]

oh, and as far as microhabitat and diversity goes, arizona has every bit as much microhabitat as california does... and more diversity than california does.

and you say you suspect its the dbag herpers that are screwing things up.... so why make it easier for them to screw more up by posting this info??? that makes it too easy. if something is too easy for someone, they will never respect it and care for it. if they actually have to work their butts off and put in the time and effort, they will respect it alot more when they finally find what they are looking for. it has nothing to do with secrecy or controlling anything. it has to do with morals and respect toward the animals.

 

[cacoseraph]

honestly, i don't think youare thinking about things logically

where are these hundreds of spiders going? who is buying them? what dealer is selling them? having someone go out and collect 20 of a species, even 100 of a species is not going to ruin a species. if it does... the species was on the way out anyways and the only chance it has is in captivity. your intentions are quite honorable and i agree with them in theory... but you are not being logical. you had an idea and let it get away with you.

really if you know and dealers that are wholesale processing native species to their detriment.. why not expose them? why not *do* something about it? surely this would be an excellent forum (heh) to do something about it.


and by herper, i mean people after snakes, lizards, and amphibs. for every person after bugs i suspect there are somewhere between 50 and 100 ppl interested and hunting herps and amphibs. look at the respective hobbies. look at the amount of lit and research done on each. there are probably 100 people, at least, who keep herphibs for every 1 person who keeps some kinda live spider

as for being less specific... i have reduced someone's search (assuming the are totally search engine incompetant) down to roughly... oh... 2000 square miles? that is not much of a head start. i mean, granted, they could have started looking in africa or something... but really, an insanely easily accessable county record for a species is not that big of a deal


i do not see how posting about spiders on a bug board is going to make things easier for herpers to ruin spiders or whatever


i really do agree with your basic tenets but i don't think you are thinking things through all the way

we can continue this on PM cuz if you DO know of a single example of someone poaching the hell out of an invert species i would actually like to do something about it


i think you misunderstood what i meant about diversity and microhab. i mean that CA has thousands upon thousands of square mile of tasty microhabs that are perfect for all kinds of awesome bugs. AZ has a lot of desert with some amazing but fairly small areas of tasty microhab. that makes it easier for something to get poached out

 

[cacoseraph]

also, i fully grant that A. moderatum is probably one of the most sought after native US theraphosidae there is.

but... i mean... i just don't think you guys are looking at things properly. ok... do you know where areas where there were hundreds of INHABITED burrows? do you know for sure they were inhabitted or did you see hundreds of holes and find six spiders and make a bad inference? i mean... honestly... where are the spiders going? there are just not that many sold. i supposed that all the sales could be strictly under the radar... but i just don't see there being that burgeoning of a bug underground, at all

the type of ppl that would buy species off a poacher are probably going to be the same that brag the hell out of what they got... and there just aren't that many pics of ppl's moderatums out there

to really be able to say it is bug ppl that are ruining things and that a high degree of secrecy is necesary you would have to demonstrate a HUGE market for the species and then demonstrate that the bugs are in fact being poached to feed that market. i dont' see the huge market and i dont' see bugs being ruthless poached to feed that market.

 

[josh_r]

i am thinking locically andrew because these spiders arent found on every square foot of land.... you can actually go MILES without even seeing a one! they are locally common... meaning, they may only be common within a square mile or half a mile and there is nothing until you find the next population which could be miles and miles away. im not feeding you crap dude. calisoga are different in that they inhabit just about every acre of land in their range, but i am not talking solely about calisoga. im saying as a general rule, we should be careful who we give this information to. think about it, if someone goes out and collects 40 or 50 females, imagine what the number of offspring that will never be born because they never get bred in captivity. lots of them actually die because the sellers cant sell them for what they want. i know this happens on a regular basis because ive seen it happen and i know people that do this. but there is no law against it so how are you going to stop them?? the opinions of you and i dont matter to the people who want the spiders bad enough or dealers that want more stock. ther are lots of guy, especially the east coast, that DO buy big lots of these wild caught spiders. once again, i know from experience. ive whitnessed this happen on more than one occasion and it is still happening.

and im not saying counties. yes that is going too far. but exact localities and exactly how to find them or where populations are, i think that should not be given so easily. let people have the fun of finding them on their own.

see, i think you are just seeing what is going on around you and not what is going on in the big picture. i have been finding tarantulas all over the southwest and have seen these things happen 1st hand. i think we need to educate people first on the importance of preserving and CB our natives before we let them lose to deplete a population. that is why i love posting pics of them and getting people interested in them. i say screw the P. metallica. its getting bred plenty. lets get the cool little dwarf spiders and the plain brown spiders going! they are not cool because of their colors, but because of their habits and characteristics. on top of that, they are native to our region. people dont respect them because they are expendable. they dont have to pay for them. they can just go dig one up or have someone else go dig them up for nothing. you wont see people treat a P. metallica like they treat our natives.

 

[cacoseraph]

knowing of individuals that buy up WC spiders does not mean anything, grand scheme

to hurt a reasonable species THOUSANDS of individuals have to be removed. or hundreds every year, for years on end. yes, mygs are K selected. yes, they take quite a bit of time to repopulate.... but there just is not a market to do that

honestly, in a sense i wish there was. but half a dozen dudes buying up WC spiders is not going to make much of a difference to any reasonable species.
a dealer would have to be buying up hundreds of spiders year in and year out and that just doesn't happen for anything but weed species like A. hentzi or whatever.


i don't doubt that you know sellers that have had a dozen, or a hundred spiders die for them... but really and truly, unless a species is on the way out already... that does matter. and i don't think that happens nearly as much as you are making it out to. in the us you can NOT have the same situation as you do in other countries. in other countries you can find thousands of native humans that are willing to go catch whatever species you want for pennies to a buch a piece... in the US the price of gas alone prevents that



also, i think we are not debating exactly opposite sides of the same issue anymore. i was like, ~offended that you and john came down on me for "giving" the county away and you have said that you don't think that needs to be kept secret anymore =P


also, i encourage ppl to find their own populations to harvest because it increases the knowledge of the local population ranges to gain access to scabies' localities repository you have to provide a new locality to us

 

[josh_r]

let me break it down for you

with more collecting = less adults.
with less adults = less breeding.
less breeding = less offspring.
less offspring = less spiders actually reach adulthood because of predation and collection. and with the length of time it takes our natives to mature, its a long time before these populations can recover.

these things already get hit hard enough by predation and fungi and destruction of habitat. lets not make it worse for them.

-josh

 

[josh_r]

you posted the county... it all starts there. before you know it, your going to have the exact road cut posted somewheres you say you are making maps with exact locality on them. i say fine, just dont post that stuff. dont post general localities either. let others have the fun of doing their own research.

and yes, the situation is as bad as i make it out to be in MANY areas. i have many other people who will vouch for this. this is not worth arguing about anymore. you believe what you want and i will continue believing what i say because ive seen it. you havnt.

-josh

 

[John Apple]

i say screw the P. metallica. its getting bred plenty. lets get the cool little dwarf spiders and the plain brown spiders going! they are not cool because of their colors, but because of their habits and characteristics. on top of that, they are native to our region. people dont respect them because they are expendable. they dont have to pay for them. they can just go dig one up or have someone else go dig them up for nothing. you wont see people treat a P. metallica like they treat our natives.

Agreed there wholeheartedly. There is a lot to offer here in the U.S.A.
I plan on breeding all I have here and then cut them loose at a rediculously low price as I am sure you do Josh. The interest will be there my friend. I mean cmon the sculptured carapace of aphonopelma as a genus is simply amazing from the small lil paloma to the larger heh heh- megastriatus, sorry could not help myself. The mirrored carapace and silky appearance of calisoga makes ya wanna comb your hair in the reflection. People that say crap like that with some conviction are the ones who are into the sheer love of this totally neet hobby. Yeah I know I know It's all cool.
Now as to collecting, I can remember telling a few folks about the location of a colony of L variolus and some argiope aurantia [banded leg variety which is bigger and more robust than the normal black and brown legged variety] and a nice sizeable colony of A affinis. went back to them after about 2 years to check and take some pics...well guess what ? they are gone, eradicated, kaput, I mean cmon disease ? naww
I just feel a location should never be given out, for me that was a hard lesson learned.

 

[John Apple]

to hurt a reasonable species THOUSANDS of individuals have to be removed. or hundreds every year, for years on end. yes, mygs are K selected. yes, they take quite a bit of time to repopulate.... but there just is not a market to do thatQUOTE]
Disagree here for the simple reason that it takes one individual to catch a hundred spiders in the spring, now imagine the offspring of those hundred adults [possibly tens of thousands] that will not get the chance to keep the carrying capacity of a local going strong.
Selective collecting of a very few spiders will prevent this from happening

 

[josh_r]

i learned the same hard lesson john. sucks when someone abuses the information given to them.

 

[Tescos]

sucks when someone abuses the information given to them

yes it does that!

 

[cacoseraph]

josh and i had a nice little talk

he reminded me that the US is not the only market for US species and that some dealers are exporting species WC in decent numbers. that kinda sucks. it is a shame when greed outweighs concientiousness. it is very amusing to me that i already didn't like the dealers mentioned

that does go a long way to provided a mechanism for long term intensive collection

but i still stand by the fact that any reasonable species can not be hurt but even a small number of people workgn to collect every single specimen they come across. oh, i have no doubt that local island populations can be stunted into a century of recovering and possibly even hurt to thep point of non-recovery. but saying a species as a whole can be hurt is just... silly. also, please understand that in no way am i saying wiping out an island population is not a bad thing... it really sucks. i just think you need to be more careful how you phrase things, otherwise you sound like an all to dismissable zealot!


but honestly... expecting me to believe that something as high dispersal as orb weavers can be over collected in a year or two? no way! again... where are these hundreds or thousands of spiders going? maybe they are collected for the deadstock trade, of which i have no idea about... but as for collecting for the live stock hobby... i just can't believe it. in all likely hood someone did large scale chemical control of some pestiferous species that the spiders happend to prey on or something like that



and as for the argument that collecting a hundred individuals means all their babies will never be. true... but so what? you know what an organisms highest competition is? another individual of the same organism. yes, those hundred spiders will never have progeny in the wild... but the housands of other individuals still around just had a lot of real estate freed up and competition reduced.


also, really and truly... do you honestly expect me to think that someone is going to be able to scour EVERY indivual at a given locality? even 1% is... hard to believe. i suppose there are some species that can only live under rocks in a box canyon floor where that *might* be possible... but still, i have a hard time believing that.

i really do think you guys are mixing up signs of herpers hunting with natural rise and fall in populations (in fact, when populations get to big they often crash... this happens with deer and stuff. then the gov't gets involved and makes culling programs to prevent crashes. in a very small way it is possible that collecting could actually make species as a whole stronger)


also, the return on time investment will get worse and worse as a location gets more and more collected. where you could originally nab over one bug of interest an hour initially it will take you three or four hours to get the same bug after you snag all the easy ones. i also suspect that there are like gene combos that control the specific microhabitat preference and as easy to catch spiders are over collected the preference for the easy to catch microhabitats is selected against. that is a very vague and fuzzy theory though

 

[John Apple]

wow...well at least we agree to disagree

 

[josh_r]

tarantulas are not a high dispersal species. you use orb weavers as a comparison to an animal that takes 5+ years to mature and lives a total of up to 30 years potential. orb weavers live a couple years at best and mature very quickly.

 

[John Apple]

Orb weavers up here are in local habitats and if all the adults are caught for whatever reason or hit with pesticides, then in that local recovery is very slim. I also doubt that if every other bug bee and grasshopper is around then pesticides were not used or used properly.
Personally I know of a slew of people that collect these

 

[arrowhd]

Do these guys have a little "made in the usa" stamped on them somewhere? Very nice photos. Best of luck with captive breeding.

 

[josh_r]

they do have a little 'made in the USA' on them. you have to squeese their abdomen while shoving your finger between their chelicerae to see it tho.

 

[pato_chacoana]

The sad truth is that WE are ALL contributing to the extiction of tarantulas. Can be by collecting them from the wild, which as Josh says, it does affect popuplations either we want it or not ; or by consuming agro-industries (agriculture is the over 90% main reason for destroying the world's forests), contaminating, etc......The so called progress that humanity is achieving is destroying wildlife and it will continue and will get worse in time as world population growths.
So we cannot get away just to feel good about ourselfs by saying that we don't collect or don't by WC or we recycle things, we don't have cars with V8 motors, etc. We are all involved.
We'll have to consider ourselfs lucky to at least have the oportunity to get into wild rainforests or places untouched by the human hand, tomorrow there won't be any around.
Well, thinking about this is depressing :8o , let's get drunk!

Pato-

 

[barabootom]

Collecting a few wild tarantulas won't harm the environment, but all of us are contributing to the death of the planet. Every country needs to set aside large areas of protected land and the world needs a big dose of birth control. I think the wealth of knowledge on this site demonstrates that most people here love nature. The best way to protect wildlife is too protect the habitat, then the collecting of most species is harmless. The real problem is the shrinking and disappearance of wild areas. My son had to volunteer some time for his biology class for extra credit recently. The bio teacher took the kids down to a local river walk and they cut all the small trees and brush (some invasive species also, I'll admit.) to make the view to the water look nice. Then the kids took paint brushes and painted all the stumps with roundup. I would rather have that strip of wild area stay wild. Why is everyone, even biology teachers, so intent on killing plants? Why use roundup at all, but especially why use it next to a river? We all have to wake up to reality and make some changes in our lives so nature has a chance or someday we'll only be able to look at everything in photos because it won't exist anymore.