Wild Caught VS Captive Bred

[Zoltan]

I'm a firm believer in leaving the slings together for a time in order to help a little with the natural selection process by cannibalization. I do understand that breeders will not do this because it cuts into their profits.

I know some breeders in my country that do this with species that have a large number of offsprings and are very commonly available for very low prices, such as Acanthoscurria geniculata or Lasiodora parahybana.

 

[Carrot]

I'm a firm believer in leaving the slings together for a time in order to help a little with the natural selection process by cannibalization. I do understand that breeders will not do this because it cuts into their profits.

How is keeping a bunch of baby spiders in captivity enclosed in a container so that they have to eat each other natural? Perhaps the dealers are not greedy, but want to give each spiderling a chance at life and see how they fare. If a spiderling is weak or has something wrong with it, it will die even if housed seperately.

Also, letting them kill each other doesn't mean that the spiderlings who survive are necessarily stronger/more fit than the ones who got eaten. They may just simply be luckier.

 

[Xian]

How is keeping a bunch of baby spiders in captivity enclosed in a container so that they have to eat each other natural? Perhaps the dealers are not greedy, but want to give each spiderling a chance at life and see how they fare. If a spiderling is weak or has something wrong with it, it will die even if housed seperately.

Also, letting them kill each other doesn't mean that the spiderlings who survive are necessarily stronger/more fit than the ones who got eaten. They may just simply be luckier.

I didn't say it was natural, there's nothing natural about keeping spiders in containers.
Yes, maybe some of them will be lucky, but the weak ones sure won't.
I was not implying greed, just less profits.
That spider may die by itself, but maybe after someone has paid money for it and become attached to it.

 

[Exo]

I prefer CB Ts mostly due to the fact that I can get them as slings and watch them grow. Plus, I'm not contributing to the rape of the natural world, which is always a nice bonus.

 

[Bill S]

I see no problem with importing and exporting. The problem is who those animals go too.

One of the problems in commercial importing and exporting is that, to make it economically viable, quantities of tarantulas are shipped. That means populations are often impacted. And some commercial importers/exporters accept a percentage of mortality in the process - some of the animals die during the various stages of collecting, shipping and passing through the hands of middlemen.

There are some very responsible importers, and presumably responsible exporters out there as well. But for the small number of tarantulas that get tranported by these responsible people, hundreds more get shipped by less responsible people who only see the market potential for the animals.

I agree that it would be nice if the imports could be directed to those people who would build captive breeding populations - but how would you regulate this? The majority of good breeders today were amateurs who got good at tarantula husbandry. There aren't any "industry standards" or official qualifications to designate expert tarantula breeders.

 

[Richard McJimsey]

Just because the person says it's CB, doesn't mean it's actually captive bred.
I know for a fact that a few sellers on this board have fibbed about things being CB, although it should be pretty obvious when you think about it.

 

[pouchedrat]

captive breeding and the occasional new introduction to the captive gene pool. If there's a rare species being bred in captivity and there's only a couple... there probably should be some introduction of unrelated stock down the road.

I do support WC for the sake of captive breeding... but it's a touchy subject.