Release T's Into Wild??

[deadmanscamera]

Not that I would... so please don't worry! I love my T's!

I was thinking the other day about "What If's"... The "What If that came across my mind was, "What would happen if I released a certain species of Tarantula back into their respective and native wild habitat to which they belong" (like, Gooty Sapphires come from that endangered little humid forest in the town of Gooty, India; Greenbottle Blue's be living in harsh dry ares of Venezuela ((and other countries)), etc., etc.,)

Since we humans take and remove certain species of Tarantula from their habitat for their benefit, preservation purposes (i.e. the Gooty Sapphire is listed as Critically Endangered), and scientific purposes, and recreational purposes for hobbyists. Whether or not the Tarantulas adapt to a domesticated life, and assuming, more or less, some do thru human-influenced mating and reproduction and giving birth to a new a generation of Tarantula slings, one might assume a Tarantula can become domesticated over time especially if born into "captivity". (Captivity might be a too strong of word... how about just..."born into domestication".

Which brings me to the point. What would happen if someone released a 1st generation wild Tarantula back into their respective habitat; and/or What would happen if a "domesticated Tarantula" was released back into their respective habitat? Could they thrive? Would they perish? I bought my Greenbottle Blue from a pet store with a reputable reptile area. I would assume the company I bought it from purchased that Tarantula from a breeder. Which means maybe my GBB is "domesticated". In my early years of collecting Arachnids, I found a Giant House Spider in my garage once. Housed it in a beautiful glass container and fed it flies from the garage and also store bought crickets. It build an amazing funnel-web and thrived in its terrarium. After about 6-8 months I released it back into a dark corner of the garage exactly where I found it. Do you think it thrived or perished?

What are your thoughts, insights, or experience regarding this topic? I'd love to hear more!!

 

[Tortoise Tom]

It takes many many generations for an animal species to become domesticated. Hundreds or thousands of years in many cases, and even then the wild instincts persist. I make my living off of understanding these instincts and how to manipulate them in my favor. Just because an animal is born in captivity, does not make it domesticated. Even 100th generation animals are not domesticated. My hissing roaches can attest to this. I started with 3 adults from the San Diego reptile show in 1992. No other blood except those original three founders. Who knows what generation they are on, but I can assure you, they are not remotely domesticated. Their behavior is no different than their wild caught parents was 26 years ago.

As far as releasing them back into the wild in their native habitat areas, the attrition rate would most likely be similar to any other animal, in this case spider, of the same species that hatched in the same area. Most spiderlings, like the young of most species don't survive to adulthood. Using an example that I've studied more extensively, I've read that somewhere around 300-1000 baby tortoises die for each one that survives to maturity. I'd imagine baby tarantulas have a similar or higher rate. Many many vertebrates and inverts eat little spiderlings along with any other bug or insect they can catch. Releasing adults into a suitable habitat would likely result in more of them surviving, assuming they found suitable shelter. Like the alligators in Louisiana, release a baby into the swamp and dozens of predators will be in line to gobble it up. Release a 4 foot juvenile into the swamp and its chances of surviving are very high.

Also, releasing captive born animals back into the wild is a very delicate process that is full of potential hazards and problems. Many animals pick up new and novel diseases in captivity, often from other continents. Releasing these foreign disease organisms into the wild is an environmental catastrophe waiting to happen. It nearly drove the CA desert tortoise to extinction. It can be done, but its a long, tedious process with lots of regulatory and veterinary hoops to jump through before it can happen. Further, as in the case of the Burmese star tortoise, if the problem that drove them to extinction in the first place, namely humans and their shenanigans, isn't dealt with and corrected, any newly introduced animals will meet the same fate as the extinct ones.

 

[deadmanscamera]

It takes many many generations for an animal species to become domesticated. Hundreds or thousands of years in many cases, and even then the wild instincts persist. I make my living off of understanding these instincts and how to manipulate them in my favor. Just because an animal is born in captivity, does not make it domesticated. Even 100th generation animals are not domesticated. My hissing roaches can attest to this. I started with 3 adults from the San Diego reptile show in 1992. No other blood except those original three founders. Who knows what generation they are on, but I can assure you, they are not remotely domesticated. Their behavior is no different than their wild caught parents was 26 years ago.

As far as releasing them back into the wild in their native habitat areas, the attrition rate would most likely be similar to any other animal, in this case spider, of the same species that hatched in the same area. Most spiderlings, like the young of most species don't survive to adulthood. Using an example that I've studied more extensively, I've read that somewhere around 300-1000 baby tortoises die for each one that survives to maturity. I'd imagine baby tarantulas have a similar or higher rate. Many many vertebrates and inverts eat little spiderlings along with any other bug or insect they can catch. Releasing adults into a suitable habitat would likely result in more of them surviving, assuming they found suitable shelter. Like the alligators in Louisiana, release a baby into the swamp and dozens of predators will be in line to gobble it up. Release a 4 foot juvenile into the swamp and its chances of surviving are very high.

Also, releasing captive born animals back into the wild is a very delicate process that is full of potential hazards and problems. Many animals pick up new and novel diseases in captivity, often from other continents. Releasing these foreign disease organisms into the wild is an environmental catastrophe waiting to happen. It nearly drove the CA desert tortoise to extinction. It can be done, but its a long, tedious process with lots of regulatory and veterinary hoops to jump through before it can happen. Further, as in the case of the Burmese star tortoise, if the problem that drove them to extinction in the first place, namely humans and their shenanigans, isn't dealt with and corrected, any newly introduced animals will meet the same fate as the extinct ones.

Wow...
Extensive. Informative. Satisfying.

Thanks!!!!!

 

[Metalman2004]

It takes many many generations for an animal species to become domesticated. Hundreds or thousands of years in many cases, and even then the wild instincts persist. I make my living off of understanding these instincts and how to manipulate them in my favor. Just because an animal is born in captivity, does not make it domesticated. Even 100th generation animals are not domesticated. My hissing roaches can attest to this. I started with 3 adults from the San Diego reptile show in 1992. No other blood except those original three founders. Who knows what generation they are on, but I can assure you, they are not remotely domesticated. Their behavior is no different than their wild caught parents was 26 years ago.

As far as releasing them back into the wild in their native habitat areas, the attrition rate would most likely be similar to any other animal, in this case spider, of the same species that hatched in the same area. Most spiderlings, like the young of most species don't survive to adulthood. Using an example that I've studied more extensively, I've read that somewhere around 300-1000 baby tortoises die for each one that survives to maturity. I'd imagine baby tarantulas have a similar or higher rate. Many many vertebrates and inverts eat little spiderlings along with any other bug or insect they can catch. Releasing adults into a suitable habitat would likely result in more of them surviving, assuming they found suitable shelter. Like the alligators in Louisiana, release a baby into the swamp and dozens of predators will be in line to gobble it up. Release a 4 foot juvenile into the swamp and its chances of surviving are very high.

Also, releasing captive born animals back into the wild is a very delicate process that is full of potential hazards and problems. Many animals pick up new and novel diseases in captivity, often from other continents. Releasing these foreign disease organisms into the wild is an environmental catastrophe waiting to happen. It nearly drove the CA desert tortoise to extinction. It can be done, but its a long, tedious process with lots of regulatory and veterinary hoops to jump through before it can happen. Further, as in the case of the Burmese star tortoise, if the problem that drove them to extinction in the first place, namely humans and their shenanigans, isn't dealt with and corrected, any newly introduced animals will meet the same fate as the extinct ones.

That pretty much covers it!

 

[Dave Jay]

Great insights @Tortoise Tom!
I think because of the lower mortality rate of captive bred slings weaker spiders or spiders with undesirable traits survive to breed, passing on genes to future generations that would in nature be mostly culled from the population. For instance a sling with a slow feeding response would likely not survive to become a breeding adult in nature and pass on whatever genes are involved to a new generation but in captivity they can, and so can their offspring and so on and so on. This would be compounded with each captive bred generation, natures basic "only the strong survive" rule has been broken, in captivity the weak also survive and breed.

That is an overstatement of course, in captivity we still do not expect a 100% survival rate but the percentage of survival is higher until we take into account deaths through poor husbandry. Here is where the tables turn, individuals not tolerant of poor captive conditions are culled from the captive population and mostly don't survive to breed.
I've kept fish for nearly 40 years so I have seen this in action, fish that were only for dedicated experts years ago require no special care now because the individuals not tolerant of captive conditions that do not closely match the conditions found in nature mostly did not survive to breed in captivity. However the wild caught fish of those species are still difficult to maintain. This is easily seen in various South American Cichlid species, Discus being the obvious example, they'll survive and breed in hard alkaline tapwater now, soft acidic blackwater is only required for wild caught specimens.

To sum up, I think that given enough time and generations captive bred populations can differ from wild populations, the genes culled from each population are different and the genetic makeup required for the best chance of reproduction in each population is different.
Therefore I think in some cases if you released say 300 captive bred slings into an area where 300 wild bred slings had been removed from the mortality rate among the captive bred slings in the wild would be higher than it would have been among the wild slings. It could also be that the mortality rate of the wild slings kept in captivity would be higher than if they were left in the wild.

All hypothetical of course and I don't think Tarantula Keeping as a hobby is old enough or widespread enough for the drift in populations to be pronounced enough to have had much effect as yet, but it must happen eventually imo.

 

[Tortoise Tom]

Great insights @Tortoise Tom!
I think because of the lower mortality rate of captive bred slings weaker spiders or spiders with undesirable traits survive to breed, passing on genes to future generations that would in nature be mostly culled from the population. For instance a sling with a slow feeding response would likely not survive to become a breeding adult in nature and pass on whatever genes are involved to a new generation but in captivity they can, and so can their offspring and so on and so on. This would be compounded with each captive bred generation, natures basic "only the strong survive" rule has been broken, in captivity the weak also survive and breed.

That is an overstatement of course, in captivity we still do not expect a 100% survival rate but the percentage of survival is higher until we take into account deaths through poor husbandry. Here is where the tables turn, individuals not tolerant of poor captive conditions are culled from the captive population and mostly don't survive to breed.
I've kept fish for nearly 40 years so I have seen this in action, fish that were only for dedicated experts years ago require no special care now because the individuals not tolerant of captive conditions that do not closely match the conditions found in nature mostly did not survive to breed in captivity. However the wild caught fish of those species are still difficult to maintain. This is easily seen in various South American Cichlid species, Discus being the obvious example, they'll survive and breed in hard alkaline tapwater now, soft acidic blackwater is only required for wild caught specimens.

To sum up, I think that given enough time and generations captive bred populations can differ from wild populations, the genes culled from each population are different and the genetic makeup required for the best chance of reproduction in each population is different.
Therefore I think in some cases if you released say 300 captive bred slings into an area where 300 wild bred slings had been removed from the mortality rate among the captive bred slings in the wild would be higher than it would have been among the wild slings. It could also be that the mortality rate of the wild slings kept in captivity would be higher than if they were left in the wild.

All hypothetical of course and I don't think Tarantula Keeping as a hobby is old enough or widespread enough for the drift in populations to be pronounced enough to have had much effect as yet, but it must happen eventually imo.

As you began using the fish example, I immediately started thinking "discus". That was funny.

About your premise regarding the slower feeding response, just for the sake of conversation on the subject, one could argue the opposite. If a spiderling has a slower feeding response and remains cautious and hidden more of the time, he/she would have less exposure to predators than the spiderling that just runs out and grabs the first thing that moves with no regard for its safety.

All speculation, of course. This discussion comes up frequently in all animal circles. Then we can get into the premise of simulating wild conditions where many animals barely hang on, vs. us trying to simulate the what we believe to be the most optimal wild conditions, where captive bred animals thrive.

 

[Dave Jay]

As you began using the fish example, I immediately started thinking "discus". That was funny.

About your premise regarding the slower feeding response, just for the sake of conversation on the subject, one could argue the opposite. If a spiderling has a slower feeding response and remains cautious and hidden more of the time, he/she would have less exposure to predators than the spiderling that just runs out and grabs the first thing that moves with no regard for its safety.

All speculation, of course. This discussion comes up frequently in all animal circles. Then we can get into the premise of simulating wild conditions where many animals barely hang on, vs. us trying to simulate the what we believe to be the most optimal wild conditions, where captive bred animals thrive.

Yes, slow feeding response was something that just came to mind, it may be a bad example. More relevant might be something like inefficient absorption of nutrients due to a congenital deformity, or any number of unseen and unnoticed congenital deformities that would not noticeably effect a specimen in captivity. They might be outweighed by a higher tolerance to extremes in humidity or other factors resulting from poor husbandry.
As you say, all speculation unless someone were to do some very in-depth experiments and analysis.

 

[Arachnoclown]

It's a great thought, and I wish that was the answer. I think it would be more important to educate the people living in those areas selling them in the black market. I'm sure poverty in those areas is to blame. The hobbiest are not the ones draining those areas of the tarantulas. Releasing Ts back out in the wild isn't going to achieve anything if the people there are selling them right back to us.

 

[Whitelightning777]

They are living robots. Releasing tarantulas into, say, a new wild park is far simpler then putting tigers back into the wild.

The interesting and problematic situations happen when they might be invasive species.

Suppose someone decided that the Everglades really needed several dozen P Metallica slings? OBTs?

That's where it gets real, & quickly.

 

[deadmanscamera]

That pretty much covers it!

As you began using the fish example, I immediately started thinking "discus". That was funny.

About your premise regarding the slower feeding response, just for the sake of conversation on the subject, one could argue the opposite. If a spiderling has a slower feeding response and remains cautious and hidden more of the time, he/she would have less exposure to predators than the spiderling that just runs out and grabs the first thing that moves with no regard for its safety.

All speculation, of course. This discussion comes up frequently in all animal circles. Then we can get into the premise of simulating wild conditions where many animals barely hang on, vs. us trying to simulate the what we believe to be the most optimal wild conditions, where captive bred animals thrive.

Yes, slow feeding response was something that just came to mind, it may be a bad example. More relevant might be something like inefficient absorption of nutrients due to a congenital deformity, or any number of unseen and unnoticed congenital deformities that would not noticeably effect a specimen in captivity. They might be outweighed by a higher tolerance to extremes in humidity or other factors resulting from poor husbandry.
As you say, all speculation unless someone were to do some very in-depth experiments and analysis.

It's a great thought, and I wish that was the answer. I think it would be more important to educate the people living in those areas selling them in the black market. I'm sure poverty in those areas is to blame. The hobbiest are not the ones draining those areas of the tarantulas. Releasing Ts back out in the wild isn't going to achieve anything if the people there are selling them right back to us.

They are living robots. Releasing tarantulas into, say, a new wild park is far simpler then putting tigers back into the wild.

The interesting and problematic situations happen when they might be invasive species.

Suppose someone decided that the Everglades really needed several dozen P Metallica slings? OBTs?

That's where it gets real, & quickly.

This is a great convo, my dudes!

 

[deadmanscamera]

Check this one out!!!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasive_species

 

[Dave Jay]

This is a great convo, my dudes!

Damn! I saw the alert and thought you were gonna break my balls!
We're only on these sites because of the blank stares from our loved ones and kids.
Otherwise we're just weirdos that keep bugs and we all know that's not true!!!

 

[MassExodus]

Interesting thread. Funny thing, I just caught another mm anax to breed with my wild caught females. Im only keeping a few out of the sac(s) and releasing the rest in my back field, in premade burrows and natural cover around mesquite bushes. Here's the male I took off the door to the plaza, sorry for the quality, crap camera.

 

[Tortoise Tom]

Otherwise we're just weirdos that keep bugs and we all know that's not true!!!

Animals, including "bugs" and other creepy crawlers have been my profession for a long time. I've been associating with "animal people" for several decades now. That being the case, I can say with authority and certainty: Animal people are all weird! All of us man. We all march to the beat of a little bit different drum.

Personally, I embrace it. Love it. My daughter is known as "The Chicken Girl" because she knows so much about chickens and caring for them. That's a fun conversation when standing amongst a bunch of "normal" parents with "normal" kids. And then she starts talking about how we take the hawk out and kill cute and fuzzy bunnies, or our numerous breeding colonies of roaches and tortoises. Now she'll be talking all about how her P. mutica darted out of its underground lair and snatched up that dubia… Yeah. We get some straaaaaaaaaaaannngggge looks from people sometimes. I don't mind. My daughter has been telling people about Blaptica dubia since the age of 1.5. I had to explain to the pediatrician what that was at her 18 month well baby check up.

 

[deadmanscamera]

Animals, including "bugs" and other creepy crawlers have been my profession for a long time. I've been associating with "animal people" for several decades now. That being the case, I can say with authority and certainty: Animal people are all weird! All of us man. We all march to the beat of a little bit different drum.

Personally, I embrace it. Love it. My daughter is known as "The Chicken Girl" because she knows so much about chickens and caring for them. That's a fun conversation when standing amongst a bunch of "normal" parents with "normal" kids. And then she starts talking about how we take the hawk out and kill cute and fuzzy bunnies, or our numerous breeding colonies of roaches and tortoises. Now she'll be talking all about how her P. mutica darted out of its underground lair and snatched up that dubia… Yeah. We get some straaaaaaaaaaaannngggge looks from people sometimes. I don't mind. My daughter has been telling people about Blaptica dubia since the age of 1.5. I had to explain to the pediatrician what that was at her 18 month well baby check up.

Hahahahah!
Expose the kiddos to the these hobbies when they're young and they'll be experts right after graduating high school! Who knows where that'll lead? A professional career?