UK regulations, CITES, etc.

[SpiderDan92]

I am kind of freaking out at the moment. You see I was all set to enter the hobby, but now I am really unsure about CITES and other laws pertaining to the purchase and ownership of Tarantulas in the UK.
So my question is this, will I need any specific documentation from the supplier, and if so what, in order to keep my spider?

 

[matthias]

CITES only applies for selling across international borders, and currently only to some Brachipelmas. You should keep your receipts if you are buying anything from that genus.

As to local laws I have no clue. check with the BTS maybe?

 

[BrynWilliams]

There are surprisingly few laws pertaining to t ownership in the UK. The only laws that generally come into play with bugs in general are any covered by the Dwa act and local laws regarding infestation and species which threaten local populations . Ts aren't under either of these so you should be fine.

 

[Mez]

No.
Any CITIES animals will come with their paperwork if they need them.
No local laws about Ts, you can even legally post these guys via royal mail!

 

[SpiderDan92]

Thank you for your help
Just out of curiosity do either of you have B. Albopilosum in your collection, and if so do you have any documents for them?

 

[Fran]

No.
Any CITIES animals will come with their paperwork if they need them.
No local laws about Ts, you can even legally post these guys via royal mail!

Correct.
The first time I purchased Brachypelma smithi from a local T store (Spain )(specialized in arachnids) , they came with the CITES paper. I could actually scan it here if you like , since I have it.

 

[mcluskyisms]

Y'all off RFUK yeah? ;P

 

[SpiderDan92]

Thanks Fran. That would be really helpful
It is great to find so many supportive people in this hobby, thank you one and all
RFUK?

 

[Mez]

It's a large forum where a lot of people there think they know everything..

 

[Fran]

Any CITIES animals...

Its CITES ( Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species )

http://www.cites.org/eng/disc/what.shtml

 

[Poxicator]

If you are purchasing Brachypelma from within Europe you do not need CITES papers or other legal papers to import. However you would need to consider CITES if you were to purchase from the captive bred suppliers in the US or specifically Mexico.
To my mind that would put a cost (and timescale) on the purchase which isn't necessary as Europe has a large captive bred stock of Brachypelma, as well as many other genus.
Check out your local exotic shops, online shops (eg. TheSpiderShop, BugzUK, Virginina Cheeseman etc) or the classified section of the numerous UK forums (RFUK, Arachnophiles, T-store, British Tarantula Society).

 

[SpiderDan92]

Thank you for all your help everyone

 

[BrynWilliams]

you can even legally post these guys via royal mail!

I dont think this is strictly true, people do post a whole range of insects and arachnids in the royal mail postal service, but i think strictly you're supposed to declare what's in the boxes. It costs more to do this.

Thus posting through the royal mail is possible and commonly done, however, it's not strictly by the book.