Typhochlaena seladonia legality

[organgrinder79]

I’d like to chime in here I own multiple Brazilian species and they where obtained from breeders in the states and to be completely honest Ts don’t just sprout from the ground at some point and time they where harvested and introduced into the hobby I feel there is a lot of keepers breeders etc in this hobby that have done a pretty good job stopping the illegal harvesting and selling of endangered species

 

[Marlana]

Yes if what I'm reading about Brazil in this thread is true, ie all Ts are illegal to export.

It leaves me scratching my head every time I post a picture of seladonia I get people accusing me of breaking the law and being in possession of illegal animals. But when I post Y.diversipes…nothing. No body cares with any other species. It’s absurd. Either we care as a hobby or we don’t, which is it? Also people don’t seem concerned with Birupes simoroxigorum. Even really respected keepers who have said they would never own a seladonia because of the Lacey act, own B.simoroxigorum. I just can’t…

 

[Arachnid Addicted]

So, when all this Lacey Act of 1900 blew up (back in 2017, if I remember correctly) I got really intrigued and curious. I messaged some US colleagues and read some articles about it and, basically, this is what I understood.

Note: I'm not american so, If I got this wrong, sorry, and please correct me.

The Lacey Act of 1900 is a law that protects any wildlife (animals or plants) that is illegaly traded. Which includes fauna and flora of any country where exportations are illegal.

In other words, this wasn't supposed to apply only to Brazil, let alone, T. seladonia. As stated in here before, this was supposed to apply to all brazilian species, not only seladonia, not only tarantulas or arachnids, but to other groups of animals too. This was also supposed to apply for chilean, peruvian, colombian, even indian, srilankan, philippines, australian and many other closed countries too.

Then, why people and US authorities only mention T. seladonia on this subject?

Again, from what I understood, brazilian environmental authorities "reached up" US authorities to demand an explanation on why T. seladonia, specifically, were being exported to US, and why they were being traded in the country, since US has the Lacey Act.
As the subject of the question was T. seladonia, this was the species that has been tagged as illegal in US, but matter of fact, much more animals from many other countries should be in the list.

Apparently, the only brazilian tarantupa species that legally entered the US, was L. parahybana, never understood how, though.

 

[organgrinder79]

So, when all this Lacey Act of 1900 blew up (back in 2017, if I remember correctly) I got really intrigued and curious. I messaged some US colleagues and read some articles about it and, basically, this is what I understood.

Note: I'm not american so, If I got this wrong, sorry, and please corrected me.
So you are completely right but this Lacey act needs to be interpreted correctly it state the export of any flora or fauna which was obtained illl
The Lacey Act of 1900 is a law that protects any wildlife (animals or plants) that is illegaly traded. Which includes fauna and flora of any country where exportations are illegal.

In other words, this wasn't supposed to apply only to Brazil, let alone, T. seladonia. As stated in here before, this was supposed to apply to all brazilian species, not only seladonia, not only tarantulas or arachnids, but to other groups of animals too. This was also supposed to apply for chilean, peruvian, colombian, even indian, srilankan, philippines, australian and many other closed countries too.

Then, why people and US authorities only mention T. seladonia on this subject?

Again, from what I understood, brazilian environmental authorities "reached up" US authorities to demand an explanation on why T. seladonia, specifically, were being exported to US, and why they were being traded in the country, since US has the Lacey Act.
As the subject of the question was T. seladonia, this was the species that has been tagged as illegal in US, but matter of fact, much more animals from many other countries should be in the list.

Apparently, the only brazilian tarantupa species that legally entered the US, was L. parahybana, never understood how, though.

This needs to be interpreted differently the Lacey act states the export of flora or fauna obtained illegally and this act was put into motion in 1991 so that being said anything that was brought in especially Ts has perished and if the act is working then any species that is currently available is CB so there has been no illegal export in the perfect world for some time now so that being said you’ve kind got a catch 22 some of these species wouldn’t exist if they weren’t CB due to deforestation overpopulation and bottom line greed and just for those wondering where 1991 comes into play the Lacey act was a stepping stone for the alien species act in 1992 and most had forgotten about the Lacey act until 2008 where it was introduced again

 

[Frogdaddy]

So, when all this Lacey Act of 1900 blew up (back in 2017, if I remember correctly) I got really intrigued and curious. I messaged some US colleagues and read some articles about it and, basically, this is what I understood.

Note: I'm not american so, If I got this wrong, sorry, and please correct me.

The Lacey Act of 1900 is a law that protects any wildlife (animals or plants) that is illegaly traded. Which includes fauna and flora of any country where exportations are illegal.

In other words, this wasn't supposed to apply only to Brazil, let alone, T. seladonia. As stated in here before, this was supposed to apply to all brazilian species, not only seladonia, not only tarantulas or arachnids, but to other groups of animals too. This was also supposed to apply for chilean, peruvian, colombian, even indian, srilankan, philippines, australian and many other closed countries too.

Then, why people and US authorities only mention T. seladonia on this subject?

Again, from what I understood, brazilian environmental authorities "reached up" US authorities to demand an explanation on why T. seladonia, specifically, were being exported to US, and why they were being traded in the country, since US has the Lacey Act.
As the subject of the question was T. seladonia, this was the species that has been tagged as illegal in US, but matter of fact, much more animals from many other countries should be in the list.

Apparently, the only brazilian tarantupa species that legally entered the US, was L. parahybana, never understood how, though.

Correct, it does apply to all animals. There is a very famous dart frog, Dendrobates tinctorius tumucumaque.
It is endemic to Tumucumaque national reserve in Brazil. Google the frog, you will be amazed. Since this frog lives in a national park it has never been collected, never been legally exported.

This past winter and spring, photos of these frogs in captivity, in private collections were posted on Facebook. This frog is here in the states. Totally illegal. Yes they are captive bred specimens. Where did they come from?
Well surprise surprise some Europeans smuggled them out of Brazil, bred them and exported the babies. Just like they do with our tarantulas.
It seems USF&W is very lazy when it actually comes to enforcement. I remembet several years ago when they gave Adolphobates galactonotus red a pass even though it is also an illegal frog from Brazil.

 

[8 legged]

Without wanting to be an ass, hard to believe that Brazil knows the difference between legal and illegal!

 

[Wolfram1]

As far as i know only one species was ever exported from brazil legally, that beeing Lasiodora parahybana. If i am wrong about that pls correct me.

As for the issue of poaching and conserving of species. I do believe the hobby supports poachers by putting high price points on tarantulas. This issue seems to be bigger in the US though.

I have wondered for a while if breeding them and just selling the slings at a cost that just barely covers our expenses would cripple the illegal pet trade and put poachers out of work?
i would really like to know if that is something that has been considered already? It would come with other problems however...


as far as the law is concerned i have to agree that it seems unfair to target hobbyists, after all exporters and sellers schould be responsible for ensuring the legality of their buisness

keeping tarantulas at all is like a moral dilemma, is it destroying or saving the species? a question one has to answer for themselves and back it up with actions... at least thats how i see it

 

[viper69]

Correct, it does apply to all animals. There is a very famous dart frog, Dendrobates tinctorius tumucumaque.
It is endemic to Tumucumaque national reserve in Brazil. Google the frog, you will be amazed. Since this frog lives in a national park it has never been collected, never been legally exported.

This past winter and spring, photos of these frogs in captivity, in private collections were posted on Facebook. This frog is here in the states. Totally illegal. Yes they are captive bred specimens. Where did they come from?
Well surprise surprise some Europeans smuggled them out of Brazil, bred them and exported the babies. Just like they do with our tarantulas.
It seems USF&W is very lazy when it actually comes to enforcement. I remembet several years ago when they gave Adolphobates galactonotus red a pass even though it is also an illegal frog from Brazil.

Europeans did this... NO SURPRISE given their incredibly lax laws compared to ours.

Everyone knows if you want it, go to the show in Hamm.

Interesting colors- they seem like watercolor painted in some ways, not the distinct sharp lines you often see in PDF

They seem quite large for PDF, are they?

tinctorius "Tumucumaque"

www.dendroboard.com

 

[jenniferinny]

Thought this was relevant: https://www.floridatoday.com/story/news/2019/05/16/spiders-confiscated-zoo/3680196002/

Basically, someone was importing a couple hundred A. genic and LP slings and they got confiscated.

A better article is here, but you have to sign in. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/...er-home-for-confiscated-trafficked-tarantulas
What's interesting is that in that second article, they acknowledge that both species are really common in captivity- the issue is that a lot of wildlife is sent to Europe first then sent to the US to try to circumvent Lacey.

It's interesting, because they acknowledge that those species are everywhere in the pet trade and still used the opportunity to confiscate a really common tarantula. But, they aren't confiscating the ones in pet stores and so on, generally more so at borders.

I mean, it still makes sense to me, because someone could be pulling egg sacs out of the wild, sending them to Poland for example and then importing them into the US to circumvent.

I've been pretty hesitant to buy adult tarantulas from dealers because I don't want to support unnecessary trade in wild caught tarantulas. I feel like taking 10 pairs out of the wild and sending them to experienced breeders is pretty harmless and plenty of genetic diversity, after that, everybody else just has to wait for captive bred.

While a bunch of people have seemingly legal import papers on Brazilian tarantulas, Brazil states they never allowed the export of any of their plants or animals. Any of them. So, yeah, all of them are illegal.

This is fairly easy to solve at borders, if they confiscate enough illegal stuff, it quits being profitable. The problem is that there's a ton of people with a ton of tarantulas, many of which are captive bred at this point, and FWS has to figure out what the heck they're going to do about it. More than likely, they are going to make no statement one way or the other so that they can just randomly confiscate for zoos and so on. But, yeah, if T. seladonia is illegal, than so are all the rest of the Brazilian tarantulas.

They won't all be fitting into zoo programs either- so if FWS ever decides that's it, you all can line up to hand off your spiders for destruction if you want. Additionally, any other country that has exported a ton of tarantulas can just decide they didn't legally do that either and then all those species are gone.

I'm very happy to comply with laws that do good. I live in Florida and won't keep dubia roaches- I care deeply about the environment and wouldn't want to accidentally introduce a species. The tarantulas in Florida weren't introduced by pet keepers, they were introduced by the citrus trade. Most of the nonnative species were not introduced by pet keepers, but by agriculture. There are a few exceptions, but, the mass majority of invasives were introduced by large agribusiness. We're just convenient scapegoats.

 

[Smotzer]

I'm very happy to comply with laws that do good.

We all should be is my point! Glad you feel the same

the issue is that a lot of wildlife is sent to Europe first then sent to the US to try to circumvent Lacey.

Exactly and that is called fencing stolen goods, and it is fencing smuggled lives. Because...

I've been pretty hesitant to buy adult tarantulas from dealers because I don't want to support unnecessary trade in wild caught tarantulas.

I feel the same and the sad fact is that adults often times come over from Europe, and are not all legally procured. Some parts of Europe are pretty damn notorious for smuggling goods and animals.

I think its rediculous that we all dont recognize what we are supporting all of this all the time, I feel like the hobby as a whole turns a blind eye to enrugluated collecting out of the wild, which usually takes the form of smuggling and fencing through other countries.

 

[jenniferinny]

We all should be is my point! Glad you feel the same

Exactly and that is called fencing stolen goods, and it is fencing smuggled lives. Because...

I feel the same and the sad fact is that adults often times come over from Europe, and are not all legally procured. Some parts of Europe are pretty damn notorious for smuggling goods and animals.

I think its rediculous that we all dont recognize what we are supporting all of this all the time, I feel like the hobby as a whole turns a blind eye to enrugluated collecting out of the wild, which usually takes the form of smuggling and fencing through other countries.

I do want to make one other point- I have been to many, many zoos in the US and there is truly no real captive breeding tarantula program. Smuggling sucks, but habitat loss is the big killer and honestly most of the population doesn't give a crap about species of tarantula going extinct.
When I look at the alternatives, many of these species will just be gone in 30 years in their wild habitat because of habitat loss, not the pet trade. Zoos have what? A few common species? My local zoo has 4 tarantulas. They had more, but, they keep killing them with their dumb housing.

I'm reluctant to leave it to the experts either- because they seem to be doing nothing and generally just not giving a crap. FWS will just wholesale smote them.. lol It's like, "hey guys, these tarantulas are losing their habitat, so we'd like to round up all the captive bred ones and kill those to save the wild ones, but, don't worry, nothing is being done to protect the wild ones because someone wants to build a condo building there and also Nestle needs palm kernel oil."

 

[Smotzer]

I'm reluctant to leave it to the experts either- because they seem to be doing nothing and generally just not giving a crap. FWS will just wholesale smote them.. lol It's like, "hey guys, these tarantulas are losing their habitat, so we'd like to round up all the captive bred ones and kill those to save the wild ones, but, don't worry, nothing is being done to protect the wild ones because someone wants to build a condo building there and also Nestle needs palm kernel oil."

To be honest I am also on this side, but there are always official channels to go through to help achieve the same results, and smuggling and fencing is not the right way. Ultimately it would come down to likely a few hobbyists making a coalition to help this issue of saving species and setting up true breeding programs, and getting data. I personally think about it quite frequently about wanting to do something. Conservation for flora and fauna has never been homo sapiens forte or passion, destruction of habitat, gain, material possesions, and greed are much stronger, but that doesnt mean that everyone should just give up and accept the status quo.

 

[Frogdaddy]

Europeans did this... NO SURPRISE given their incredibly lax laws compared to ours.

Everyone knows if you want it, go to the show in Hamm.

Interesting colors- they seem like watercolor painted in some ways, not the distinct sharp lines you often see in PDF

They seem quite large for PDF, are they?

tinctorius "Tumucumaque"

www.dendroboard.com

Pretty average for D. tinctorius. They are on the med to large size. Not as big as P. terribilis or P. bicolor, but bigger than D. auratus.

 

[Spoodfood]

As far as i know only one species was ever exported from brazil legally, that beeing Lasiodora parahybana. If i am wrong about that pls correct me.

As for the issue of poaching and conserving of species. I do believe the hobby supports poachers by putting high price points on tarantulas. This issue seems to be bigger in the US though.

I have wondered for a while if breeding them and just selling the slings at a cost that just barely covers our expenses would cripple the illegal pet trade and put poachers out of work?
i would really like to know if that is something that has been considered already? It would come with other problems however...


as far as the law is concerned i have to agree that it seems unfair to target hobbyists, after all exporters and sellers schould be responsible for ensuring the legality of their buisness

keeping tarantulas at all is like a moral dilemma, is it destroying or saving the species? a question one has to answer for themselves and back it up with actions... at least thats how i see it

I definitely feel like the fact that these species are selling for so much due to the legality issue, is actually working out in smugglers favor. If these Ts were legal to captive breed and sell for similar pricing as other Ts, there would be much less issue with smuggling them.

If a smuggler knows certain species are illegal, very hard to come by, and sell for $500-$1000 a pop, that’s going to motivate them more. High risk, very high reward.

If the U.S. started some form of breeding program (making captive bred legal of course) for these species, there would be no problem with people wanting to bring them, and less greedy vendors buying them from smugglers to flip around for even more profit. Problem mostly solved.

That’s not to say they would stop smuggling them completely, but it definitely would make it less worth it.

 

[Wolfram1]

Yes exactly, i wish we could turn this hobby into a community that collectively supports each other, makes sure none of the species are lost and maybe even collect relevant data on the species but i have been around long enough by now to know a few bad apples can spoil it for everyone.

What it comes back to is blatant lies, greed and carelessness, if we could eliminate those from the hobby everyone would be better off. As it stands all you can really do is find a few people you trust and try to make the best of it.

To be honest I am also on this side, but there are always official channels to go through to help achieve the same results, and smuggling and fencing is not the right way. Ultimately it would come down to likely a few hobbyists making a coalition to help this issue of saving species and setting up true breeding programs, and getting data. I personally think about it quite frequently about wanting to do something. Conservation for flora and fauna has never been homo sapiens forte or passion, destruction of habitat, gain, material possesions, and greed are much stronger, but that doesnt mean that everyone should just give up and accept the status quo.

i think about it a lot too, but its hard to find a starting point especially since the origin of my own spiders in "murky" as they have gone through illegal collection, sellers, breeders, etc.

how to build a foundation for proper scientific conservation if not even that is clear?

 

[8 legged]

Europeans did this... NO SURPRISE given their incredibly lax laws compared to ours.

Everyone knows if you want it, go to the show in Hamm.

Correctly!

 

[AphonopelmaTX]

I do want to make one other point- I have been to many, many zoos in the US and there is truly no real captive breeding tarantula program. Smuggling sucks, but habitat loss is the big killer and honestly most of the population doesn't give a crap about species of tarantula going extinct.
When I look at the alternatives, many of these species will just be gone in 30 years in their wild habitat because of habitat loss, not the pet trade. Zoos have what? A few common species? My local zoo has 4 tarantulas. They had more, but, they keep killing them with their dumb housing.

I'm reluctant to leave it to the experts either- because they seem to be doing nothing and generally just not giving a crap. FWS will just wholesale smote them.. lol It's like, "hey guys, these tarantulas are losing their habitat, so we'd like to round up all the captive bred ones and kill those to save the wild ones, but, don't worry, nothing is being done to protect the wild ones because someone wants to build a condo building there and also Nestle needs palm kernel oil."

Sometimes, the experts actually do take action. Back in 2012-2014 a major freeway project was halted, and later redesigned at a much higher cost, in San Antonio, Texas because of a rare spider.

Rare spider found in Texas shuts down $15M construction project

A rare spider discovered at a construction site in San Antonio has shut down a $15 million project as federal and state officials consider ways to continue without disrupting the arachnid’s natural habitat.

www.foxnews.com

Highway project halted by spider can move forward

Underpass to connect Texas 151 and Loop 1604 was halted two years ago after an endangered...

www.expressnews.com

 

[viper69]

Sometimes, the experts actually do take action. Back in 2012-2014 a major freeway project was halted, and later redesigned at a much higher cost, in San Antonio, Texas because of a rare spider.

Rare spider found in Texas shuts down $15M construction project

A rare spider discovered at a construction site in San Antonio has shut down a $15 million project as federal and state officials consider ways to continue without disrupting the arachnid’s natural habitat.

www.foxnews.com

Highway project halted by spider can move forward

Underpass to connect Texas 151 and Loop 1604 was halted two years ago after an endangered...

www.expressnews.com

I didn’t know FoxNoise put out stories about nature, let alone stories with truth. Shocking- cool story.

 

[viper69]

Pretty average for D. tinctorius. They are on the med to large size. Not as big as P. terribilis or P. bicolor, but bigger than D. auratus.

Thanks! The person I saw must have small hands then.

They are quite interesting looking.

Thought this was relevant: https://www.floridatoday.com/story/news/2019/05/16/spiders-confiscated-zoo/3680196002/

Basically, someone was importing a couple hundred A. genic and LP slings and they got confiscated.

A better article is here, but you have to sign in. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/...er-home-for-confiscated-trafficked-tarantulas
What's interesting is that in that second article, they acknowledge that both species are really common in captivity- the issue is that a lot of wildlife is sent to Europe first then sent to the US to try to circumvent Lacey.

It's interesting, because they acknowledge that those species are everywhere in the pet trade and still used the opportunity to confiscate a really common tarantula. But, they aren't confiscating the ones in pet stores and so on, generally more so at borders.

I mean, it still makes sense to me, because someone could be pulling egg sacs out of the wild, sending them to Poland for example and then importing them into the US to circumvent.

I've been pretty hesitant to buy adult tarantulas from dealers because I don't want to support unnecessary trade in wild caught tarantulas. I feel like taking 10 pairs out of the wild and sending them to experienced breeders is pretty harmless and plenty of genetic diversity, after that, everybody else just has to wait for captive bred.

While a bunch of people have seemingly legal import papers on Brazilian tarantulas, Brazil states they never allowed the export of any of their plants or animals. Any of them. So, yeah, all of them are illegal.

This is fairly easy to solve at borders, if they confiscate enough illegal stuff, it quits being profitable. The problem is that there's a ton of people with a ton of tarantulas, many of which are captive bred at this point, and FWS has to figure out what the heck they're going to do about it. More than likely, they are going to make no statement one way or the other so that they can just randomly confiscate for zoos and so on. But, yeah, if T. seladonia is illegal, than so are all the rest of the Brazilian tarantulas.

They won't all be fitting into zoo programs either- so if FWS ever decides that's it, you all can line up to hand off your spiders for destruction if you want. Additionally, any other country that has exported a ton of tarantulas can just decide they didn't legally do that either and then all those species are gone.

I'm very happy to comply with laws that do good. I live in Florida and won't keep dubia roaches- I care deeply about the environment and wouldn't want to accidentally introduce a species. The tarantulas in Florida weren't introduced by pet keepers, they were introduced by the citrus trade. Most of the nonnative species were not introduced by pet keepers, but by agriculture. There are a few exceptions, but, the mass majority of invasives were introduced by large agribusiness. We're just convenient scapegoats.

Curious, how do you know the vagans in FL were from the citrus biz?

I saw a small population living in a river bank

 

[viper69]

D