Take action or give up your Pokies!

[Cheo Samad]

That may be true. However, I contend that the domestic pet trade has little effect on the survival of these species of Poecilotheria in the wild, because the current demand is met by captive breeding. Banning these animals from the domestic pet trade, however, could very well have the effect of creating demand for these animals to be smuggled out of their native habitats.

An even greater point. There is absolutely no upside to this. It's like whiping out the market satisfying the demand so when they create a black market they can say 'I told you so.'

 

[Comatose]

Thanks to everyone for ramping up the commenting here! Keep sharing it and making it clear how serious this issue is!

The only spiders that are "lost" to the hobby are the extincted ones. The rest are those that, for a lot of different reasons, aren't allowed by single nation/s laws, like Atrax robustus, a perfect example of that.

Thing is, as I've said, when it comes to protected arachnids (read genus Brachypelma) in the U.S, as far as I know, keepers doesn't have this:

View attachment 228657 View attachment 228658

* the hidden parts (for privacy) are mine and breeder personal details. See, how it's easy? If tomorrow genus Poecilotheria, or part of that genus, will be at risk or fall into CITES or something, here in Italy breeders will do just exactly when it comes to genus Brachypelma. Here I read a lot about Brachypelma... "hobby form, WC..." etc yet I have to see a U.S keeper with a personal CITES for those genus.

I just want to be clear here. What we're talking about is not CITES. CITES is a treaty that applies only to the international trade of species listed on it. For Brachypelma, that means that captive bred animals are fine in the US, and importers and exporters simply need permits as you've outlined.

This rule would not add Poecilotheria to CITES. It would list them under the Endangered Species Act, a law in the United States. In it, specimens held at the time of the law would be grandfathered, but the keeping, breeding, buying, selling, trading, importing, exporting, or even transporting of additional specimens, even demonstrably captive bred ones, would require a permit. That permit is apparently not issued for the purposes of keeping "pets".

Maybe if this passed people would just start referring to them all as hybrids, because technically hybrids are exempt. The problem is that the language specifically states that the person with the specimen in question must prove that it is, in fact, a hybrid. I've seen many upon many threads about Poecilotheria hybrids, and my understanding is they look unique. I sincerely doubt many people are going to risk their businesses, money and perhaps freedom based on armchair lawyers telling them they can just claim "this obvious P. ornata is actually a hybrid."

Sorry if this is just repeating what you said... there's just a ton of misinformation out there... honestly my first reaction was "well this probably won't affect the hobby". Just want to make sure that myth is busted, lol.

 

[Chris LXXIX]

I just want to be clear here. What we're talking about is not CITES. CITES is a treaty that applies only to the international trade of species listed on it. For Brachypelma, that means that captive bred animals are fine in the US, and importers and exporters simply need permits as you've outlined.

I was talking about the (genus) Brachypelma keepers. Why the U.S keepers doesn't need to have the personal CITES permit to begin with, a paper signed by authorities (that followed the entire breeding) that proves that their Theraphosidae (in this case) is, therefore, a CB and not WC? With the name/surname/etc of the breeder and theirs? That's bizarre, if you ask me. Things here doesn't work that way, and it's good.

This rule would not add Poecilotheria to CITES. It would list them under the Endangered Species Act, a law in the United States. In it, specimens held at the time of the law would be grandfathered, but the keeping, breeding, buying, selling, trading, importing, exporting, or even transporting of additional specimens, even demonstrably captive bred ones, would require a permit. That permit is apparently not issued for the purposes of keeping "pets".

Ok, I understand. This is a U.S only issue. But a "mess" is a mess, at the end, no? And since that mess, in Sri Lanka, apparently, will continue, we can't exclude that one day, at a worldide level, certain 'Pokies' could fall into CITES. O no? :-s

 

[DrowsyLids]

I posted my comment on the website but it's not showing up.. I'll wait a little while but if it doesn't appear then I guess I'll type another one!

 

[Philth]

I posted my comment on the website but it's not showing up.. I'll wait a little while but if it doesn't appear then I guess I'll type another one!

It took a few hours for mine to show up.

Later, Tom

 

[ChrisTy]

Left a comment today on this issue. I hope it helps. I am confused by a part of this though and am hoping someone might be able to clarify this point for me.
https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2016-30059/p-37
Poecilotheria species are commonly bred in captivity by amateur hobbyists as well as vendors, and are available as captive-bred young in the pet trade in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere (see Trade). However, while rearing and keeping of captive individuals by hobbyists and vendors has provided information on life history of these species, these captive individuals hold limited conservation value to the species in the wild. Individuals in the pet trade descend from wild individuals from unknown locations, have undocumented lineages, come from limited stock (e.g., see Gabriel 2012, p. 18) and are bred without knowledge or consideration of their genetics. They also likely include an unknown number of hybrid individuals resulting from intentional crosses, or unintentional crosses resulting from confusion and difficulty in species taxonomy and identification (Gabriel 2011a, pp. 25-26; Gabriel et al. 2005, p. 4; Gabriel 2003, pp. 89-90). Further, many are likely several generations removed from wild ancestors and thus may be inbred or maladapted to conditions in the wild. In short, captive individuals held or sold as pets do not adhere to the IUCN guidelines for reintroductions and other conservation translocations (IUCN 2013, entire). Further, we are not aware of any captive-breeding programs for Poecilotheria that adhere to IUCN guidelines. Because (1) the purpose of our status assessments is to determine the status of the species in the wild, and (2) captive individuals in the hobby or pet trade have low value for conservation programs or for reintroduction purposes, we place little weight on the status of captive individuals in our assessment of the status of the five petitioned Poecilotheria species endemic to Sri Lanka."

This sounds to me that there is no interest in regulating the CB stock. If they can make the argument that the individuals found in the hobby are no good to reintroduction or conservation, due to whatever reason they want to point to, doesn't that in turn mean that there is no interest in regulating the CB species as well?

 

[Walker253]

I posted my comment on the website but it's not showing up.. I'll wait a little while but if it doesn't appear then I guess I'll type another one!

Mine took about 24 hours to post

 

[chanda]

This sounds to me that there is no interest in regulating the CB stock. If they can make the argument that the individuals found in the hobby are no good to reintroduction or conservation, due to whatever reason they want to point to, doesn't that in turn mean that there is no interest in regulating the CB species as well?

As I understand it, the regulation of captive stock is more of an enforcement issue than anything else. They may not care about the captive-bred spiders as potential breeding stock to reinforce the wild population and may even acknowledge that the captive spiders already in the U.S. have absolutely no detrimental impact on the wild population, but it is a lot easier to flat out say "you can't buy or sell these species" without having to concern themselves with the lineage of the spiders in question.

The current state of the hobby in the U.S. is such that the majority of hobbyists - including a lot of the breeders and dealers - have little or no documentation for their spiders, with the exception of import permits for legally obtained wild-caught specimens (or captive-bred imports from Europe) or personal breeding records that they use to maintain the genetic diversity of their stock. As it stands now, I can just pop onto Craigslist or hit the classifieds or a pet shop or reptile expo and buy or sell any spider that I want to, and the only papers changing hands are those with the faces of dead presidents printed on them.

That makes it a lot easier to buy and sell spiders, but it makes it a lot harder for the Fish and Wildlife officials to determine whether any given spider was legally obtained or not. It would pretty much require them to maintain some sort of registry where people would have to register their pets, all successful breedings, and their offspring, in order to verify whether a given spider came from captive stock that pre-dated those species being granted Endangered Species status. Breeders might also have to obtain permits to breed and/or sell/trade their own spiders. Official documentation would then have to be transferred every time a spider was bought, sold, traded, or sent out on a breeding loan. The bureaucratic hassle and expense that would be required to set up and maintain such a registry would probably be prohibitive - which is why a general ban on buying/selling those species is easier.

 

[BobBarley]

Left a comment today on this issue. I hope it helps. I am confused by a part of this though and am hoping someone might be able to clarify this point for me.
https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2016-30059/p-37
Poecilotheria species are commonly bred in captivity by amateur hobbyists as well as vendors, and are available as captive-bred young in the pet trade in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere (see Trade). However, while rearing and keeping of captive individuals by hobbyists and vendors has provided information on life history of these species, these captive individuals hold limited conservation value to the species in the wild. Individuals in the pet trade descend from wild individuals from unknown locations, have undocumented lineages, come from limited stock (e.g., see Gabriel 2012, p. 18) and are bred without knowledge or consideration of their genetics. They also likely include an unknown number of hybrid individuals resulting from intentional crosses, or unintentional crosses resulting from confusion and difficulty in species taxonomy and identification (Gabriel 2011a, pp. 25-26; Gabriel et al. 2005, p. 4; Gabriel 2003, pp. 89-90). Further, many are likely several generations removed from wild ancestors and thus may be inbred or maladapted to conditions in the wild. In short, captive individuals held or sold as pets do not adhere to the IUCN guidelines for reintroductions and other conservation translocations (IUCN 2013, entire). Further, we are not aware of any captive-breeding programs for Poecilotheria that adhere to IUCN guidelines. Because (1) the purpose of our status assessments is to determine the status of the species in the wild, and (2) captive individuals in the hobby or pet trade have low value for conservation programs or for reintroduction purposes, we place little weight on the status of captive individuals in our assessment of the status of the five petitioned Poecilotheria species endemic to Sri Lanka."

This sounds to me that there is no interest in regulating the CB stock. If they can make the argument that the individuals found in the hobby are no good to reintroduction or conservation, due to whatever reason they want to point to, doesn't that in turn mean that there is no interest in regulating the CB species as well?

This may help in your understanding... http://arachnoboards.com/threads/attention-pokie-keepers.289598/page-3 Especially check it out starting post #45.

 

[ChrisTy]

Thank you for your input guys. I got stuck into the one way of thinking for a min and wasn't looking at that side of the story as well. I was seeing this as them saying that it would be too much of a hassle to regulate but that can be a two way street. It would seem to me though that their way of going about this is a mess no matter which way it is looked at.

 

[BobBarley]

Thank you for your input guys. I got stuck into the one way of thinking for a min and wasn't looking at that side of the story as well. I was seeing this as them saying that it would be too much of a hassle to regulate but that can be a two way street. It would seem to me though that their way of going about this is a mess no matter which way it is looked at.

Right. Though, I do 100% agree this species needs to be protected, it needs to be protected in its locale! Not banned in a closed system (USA Poecilotheria hobby) that has no way of affecting wild populations.

 

[ChrisTy]

I absolutely agree with conservation and protection, but i agree with it being done in the proper manner that actually accomplishes the goal in mind.

 

[DrowsyLids]

My comment is posted! I hope this proposition does not go into effect as I am a true fan of poecs and p vittata is next on my wish list!

 

[mistertim]

I absolutely agree with conservation and protection, but i agree with it being done in the proper manner that actually accomplishes the goal in mind.

Agreed. But that would take, like, work and stuff.

 

[Comatose]

27 days to go and still only 38 comments. If you're reading this and haven't commented, please go comment now. It takes literally 5 minutes!

 

[Cheo Samad]

Any updates on this? Really hoping this doesn't pass.

 

[Philth]

Any updates on this? Really hoping this doesn't pass.

There's 17 days left on the comment period, then it will probably be some time before we find out what happens.

 

[Walker253]

Bump this to the top! Come on people, there are 12 days left to make a comment. If you have done this, thank you. If not, come on now. Formulate a thought and write it down. Speak now and stand up for your rights or stay silent and let someone else take them away.

We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. - Elie Wiesel (1928-2016)