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Worries about wild caught specimens

Gizalba

Well-Known Member
3 Year Member
Messages
417
Location
England
Hi,

I don’t want to start any drama here. I do own 2 wild caught specimens (WC) as early on I rather stupidly thought ‘WC’ was an initial for an area of the USA that they were bred in, re my Aphonopelma chalcodes and huntsman spider.

However I feel so bad about having these spiders and worry about these guys the most. On the other hand, I adore Nymphadora (my A. chalcodes) especially, so it is hard to think about whether I regret getting her. Although I wouldn’t have got her if I had realised - I know now that A. chalcodes take up to 10 years to get to adulthood, so any adults on sale are suspect. But I would rather have bought a sling if the only alternative was WC (or saved up and paid hundreds of pounds for one someone trustworthy had grown to adulthood themselves, if I really wanted one). I am finally seeing some A. chalcodes slings for sale in the UK which is a good sign.

I get the impression that in the USA wild caught specimens are frowned upon much more than in the UK?

So my main concern here is whether we in the UK should be taking this more seriously. The spider shop (TSS) in the UK I think is one of the biggest retailers and I have bought more from there than anywhere else (mostly captive bred slings ). They are fantastic in some ways don’t get me wrong (really healthy spiders, very well packaged, lots of equipment choice) , and they are actually clear about which spiders are wild caught, which most shops in the UK don’t seem to be. Most don’t tend to say either way (Creatures from the north and spiderplanet being exceptions – they do seem to be captive bred). However when browsing the spider shop which I do regularly, a lot of the time the majority of their adults on sale and some of the juveniles are wild caught. When it comes to the true spiders, it seems that most of them are wild caught. This has upset me most recently when I saw the WC camel spiders for sale, as I hear they don’t live long in captivity (I would love one if they ever get in captive bred slings and we crack the husbandry). In this case especially, until we figure out how to care for them properly and how to breed them, I think it’s cruel to keep catching them to sell to the public. Of course I know some research needs to be done by catching some so that we can achieve this, but that should be left to select few professionals and breeders in my opinion.

Back to the tarantulas:

I know the hobby is built on WC specimens, and for new species coming into the hobby I don’t have a problem with a few WCs being for sale aimed at breeders. Then we can hopefully eventually get to the point where that species doesn’t have to be wild caught for us to have one as a pet. Then we can possibly even save some endangered species that sadly won’t survive much longer in the wild where humans have ruined their habitats. But the amount of WCs I see for sale, I feel like a lot of them are already well-bred in captivity and there is no need to keep getting them from the wild.

I did see on a video that TSS work with the locals in the communities where the tarantulas are native to give them a good price for the tarantulas in their wildlife, with a license so as not to take too many and endanger them. So legally and even in respect to the eco-system, that’s not the issue here. What is the issue is the effect on the individual tarantulas. I know we can argue that they will probably have a longer life-span with us, have decent meals and less chance of becoming prey. But it still feels cruel to me to trap them and take them from their home where they have learned to take care of themselves and are used to e.g. being in fresh air, among real plants, certain weather variations, space to run around (in the case of my huntsman, not the tarantulas). The travelling aspect in particular seems like it would be a massive trauma for them when they are used to the wild, to be shipped from country to country, from enclosure to enclosure in the shop to the final owner. I know we don’t know how much tarantulas ‘feel’, but what we probably do know is that they are stressed by constant changes; they don’t like to be disturbed. When we get the tarantula the main rule of husbandry once set up is to leave it alone. Taking them from the wild seems to be the opposite of that L

Note: I have named shops because it seemed hard talk about this without giving them a name. My hope for TSS is that people increasingly buy their captive stock (they do do a lot of breeding) and just think twice before buying the wild caught. The very reason I buy so much from them is probably due to their transparency. When messaging other shops to ask whether something is WC, it’s pretty clear I probably won’t buy it if they say yes, so I worry then whether they are being honest with me. At least at TSS because they label WC I trust them when I see a captive bred juvenile for sale.

There is also the issue of the shop owner possibly not even knowing, due to the supplier not being clear either. Spiderplanet I find reassuring as they state ‘when’ they were captive bred, and with creatures from the north he has bred most of them himself, or has got them from a close friend it seems. I think there should be more information like this about exactly where our spiders are coming from.

Please leave thoughts below! I just want a better world for spiders to live in :)
 

DustyD

Well-Known Member
1,000+ Post Club
Tarantula Club Member
Messages
1,181
Location
Maine
You make some good thoughtful points and hopefully some things are changing. I agree about the captive breeding and I believe there are many small and large breeders already in place.

I think there is a place for wild caught too, if not for the basic reason of increasing the gene pool in captive bred spiders. I am assuming that too much inbreeding could cause genetic problems way down the road but I am not knowledgeable in that field.

Also, I think some countries with tarantula populations could start their own breeding programs ( and maybe some have) where they capture wild tarantulas, breed them, then when it's right, sell some of spiderlings and perhaps raise the rest until their chances of surviving the wild are the best and reintroducing them. Hopefully there would be some economic benefit to this for the countries, particularly the poorer areas.
 

Gizalba

Well-Known Member
3 Year Member
Messages
417
Location
England
You make some good thoughtful points and hopefully some things are changing. I agree about the captive breeding and I believe there are many small and large breeders already in place.

I think there is a place for wild caught too, if not for the basic reason of increasing the gene pool in captive bred spiders. I am assuming that too much inbreeding could cause genetic problems way down the road but I am not knowledgeable in that field.

Also, I think some countries with tarantula populations could start their own breeding programs ( and maybe some have) where they capture wild tarantulas, breed them, then when it's right, sell some of spiderlings and perhaps raise the rest until their chances of surviving the wild are the best and reintroducing them. Hopefully there would be some economic benefit to this for the countries, particularly the poorer areas.

Thanks for the reply and thoughts! I hadn't thought about inbreeding issues and increasing the gene pool.
 

DustyD

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1,000+ Post Club
Tarantula Club Member
Messages
1,181
Location
Maine
It may or may not be an issue. I just don't know anything about tarantula genetics.
 

Jenniferinfl

Active Member
Messages
113
Location
Florida
You don't have to feel guilty about the huntsman if you mean Heteropoda venatoria. :)

Seriously, I'm constantly rescuing those fools from my cats cause they keep coming in my house. There's a bajillion of them. They reproduce a lot and a bunch of them survive. I have three of them in jars that I rescued from my cats just this week. As soon as they are feeding again, I'll release them back outside. If I walked around and really checked all the corners in my house, I could probably find several more.

I didn't realize how many people like them as pets, I probably should be gathering them and breeding them. They do have a pretty awesome feeding response, so I get it. I have one that lost a leg that I've kept through a couple molts and it now has all it's legs again. That guy can eat a medium cricket almost everyday. It's crazy how much faster their metabolisms are. They just live life in fast-forward compared to tarantulas.

But yeah, if you are just a pet owner who isn't going to breed your tarantulas, then skipping wild caught is probably a nice thing to do. I bought wild caught when I first started in the hobby, I just didn't know about it either. I think we're so used to hamsters and leopard geckos and so on that we just don't even think that someone would still be gathering pets out of the wild. It's why I won't own a hermit crab even though I think they're pretty much the cutest little guys ever. As soon as someone regularly captive breeds them though, I'll be buying.. lol
 

WolfSpider

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3 Year Member
Messages
1,155
Location
Florida
My 2 cents: Ts are rather solitary creatures who often spend their lives in a small space/tree/burrow (except for roaming mature males). So, in places where they are in abundance, for example Arizona in US with A. chalcodes, WC seems reasonable.

Fortunately, most Ts, at least in the US are CB.

However, for active hunters: i.e. jumping spiders, wolf spiders, camel spiders....I personally have more heartache. Yeah, many of them come a dime a dozen, but caging an active hunter/roamer arachnid with a broad range seems cruel to me.
 

Gizalba

Well-Known Member
3 Year Member
Messages
417
Location
England
You don't have to feel guilty about the huntsman if you mean Heteropoda venatoria. :)

Seriously, I'm constantly rescuing those fools from my cats cause they keep coming in my house. There's a bajillion of them. They reproduce a lot and a bunch of them survive. I have three of them in jars that I rescued from my cats just this week. As soon as they are feeding again, I'll release them back outside. If I walked around and really checked all the corners in my house, I could probably find several more.

I didn't realize how many people like them as pets, I probably should be gathering them and breeding them. They do have a pretty awesome feeding response, so I get it. I have one that lost a leg that I've kept through a couple molts and it now has all it's legs again. That guy can eat a medium cricket almost everyday. It's crazy how much faster their metabolisms are. They just live life in fast-forward compared to tarantulas.

But yeah, if you are just a pet owner who isn't going to breed your tarantulas, then skipping wild caught is probably a nice thing to do. I bought wild caught when I first started in the hobby, I just didn't know about it either. I think we're so used to hamsters and leopard geckos and so on that we just don't even think that someone would still be gathering pets out of the wild. It's why I won't own a hermit crab even though I think they're pretty much the cutest little guys ever. As soon as someone regularly captive breeds them though, I'll be buying.. lol

Thanks for the reply! It is a Heteropoda javana, however I do also have a venatoria sling :)

Interesting to hear about all the huntsman around your house, I guess because they're not native to the UK we find them very exciting to have as pets :D It's lovely that you save them from your cats and cared for that one while it grew its legs back.

But yeah, as someone has mentioned above, the fact my H. javana is an active hunter and wants to run around more than a tarantula makes it feel like they definitely shouldn't be wild caught, ethically, unless they need temporary help of course. It is really nice that you do release them back once they are feeding again :)

Indeed what you mentioned about us being used to other pets where wild caught would be unheard of/outrageous makes me concerned that with spiders on sale we don't think about it enough/ are too quick to assume it's captive bred if it's not mentioned.

Ah, I would love crabs too, the carnival vampire crabs on TSS website look amazing! But yeah again wild caught.
 

Gizalba

Well-Known Member
3 Year Member
Messages
417
Location
England
My 2 cents: Ts are rather solitary creatures who often spend their lives in a small space/tree/burrow (except for roaming mature males). So, in places where they are in abundance, for example Arizona in US with A. chalcodes, WC seems reasonable.

Fortunately, most Ts, at least in the US are CB.

However, for active hunters: i.e. jumping spiders, wolf spiders, camel spiders....I personally have more heartache. Yeah, many of them come a dime a dozen, but caging an active hunter/roamer arachnid with a broad range seems cruel to me.


Thanks for the thoughts, good points. I think that is why I am particularly bothered about my wild caught huntsman, the caging an active hunter/roamer. For ages she did hide, but now she seems more comfortable she runs around more, spending a lot of time at the crack on the door at night and I worry she wants to get out. The other week I was putting some water in and she ran straight out (nerve-wracking trying to compete with that speed to get her back in). Huntsmen definitely aren't spiders you can let out for a run every now and again!

So I have been looking for a bigger enclosure to put her enclosure in, to see if she does want more space. But it is hard finding arboreal enclosures bigger than her 20x20x30cm one unless you want a massive reptile one; there doesn't seem to be much in-between. I found one but it always seems out of stock.
 

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