Reptile Forum, Reptile Classifieds - CaptiveBred

[Sean]

Well if you saw it why not answer it.

Also you did not believe my account of panoptes panoptes over 6ft so I gave you proof. If you want to know of more animals this size I would be willing to give you more evidence.

Are you not saying that AZ'ole is referring to Arizona and arse hole= Frank? Come on your the academic!!! It saddens me to think that somebody of your capabilities can resort to such playground behavior, what a waste of an education.

I think people with common sense will understand whats going on here.

bye bye.

[Sam Sweet]

Yes, they will conclude "that guy Sean has a problem"

[crocdoc]

Ron, when I first started typing out my response, I actually typed out a point by point, numbered list of responses to answer your queries/comments about customs/smuggling/licensing. I’ll keep them saved in case I need them later (if not for this conversation with you, then with someone else, for this topic keeps popping up and everyone proposes the same 'solutions'), but for now I’ve deleted them because I think it will just go back and forth between us and we’ll have to agree to disagree.

However, you still haven’t responded to my biggest question. You’ve clearly spent a lot of time thinking about how my country could change its laws to suit your need for our animals, but you haven’t spent much time asking why. Why is it so necessary for people to have these animals, when there are so many other species available? The fact that we are even having this conversation never seems to be questioned (it's clearly not the first time I've had it with someone). It is just assumed that everyone around the world should be able to get reptiles from here. Why? Is it an innate right?

No matter how you look at it, opening the gates to exports will put some species at risk. I can see why you would like us to take that risk, but why would we want to? A little bit of extra pocket money is not a valid enough reason, in my opinion. Nor is flooding your market so that you lose interest in them.

Yes, we’ll have to agree to disagree.


Sean, you seem to have ignored just about everything I’ve said, or keep twisting what I have said. I have never said anything about people not being able to keep perenties successfully in captivity. Go to the beginning of this thread and reread it. They are easy to keep. They are easy to breed. What I said was that keeping adult perenties in a wooden box with wood shavings would not be fair to the animals. Nothing you say will alter my thoughts on that. Just because something breeds in captivity doesn’t mean its quality of life is great. Perenties are a big, active animal. No matter how much you rephrase it, reword it, twist it, retell it, it will not make perenties smaller or your enclosures larger. It will still be a sad thing to see a perentie in a wooden box. As I said before, all you had to do to stop this entire exchange is to say “I would house them in an enclosure of X size”, to which I would either respond "sounds okay" or "that would be sad". Instead, your entire argument has been trying to somehow prove that it would be okay to keep them in a box. You tried to show that they were smaller than panoptes, which are often kept in boxes, or that salvators (which are bigger) are kept in even smaller boxes. How is that going to change my way of thinking?

If it makes you any happier, I don’t like seeing photos of salvators in undersized enclosures, either. Suggesting that some people don’t treat their salvators as they should isn’t going to convince me that it’s okay to do the same with perenties. That goes along the line of your earlier argument “if you think these are small enclosures, you should see those!”

As for your comment to shay regarding ‘why keep animals at all’, that doesn’t gel with me, either. I don’t follow that whole ‘since we shouldn’t even be keeping them anyway, how we keep them doesn’t matter’ line of reasoning, which (like it or not) is essentially what you are inferring. Sam made some very valid points about this – it is because of this that we should be doing our best to keep them well.

As for Australia's export laws, what I said to Ron also applies here: I had also typed out a point by point counter to your argument about Australia opening up to export but you haven’t answered my main question: Why are we having this conversation? Why have you spent so much time thinking of ways we can make export legal, or why it would be so good making export legal, yet not spent any time analysing your wants and needs? Why is it so important for you to have these animals when there are so many species already available? Why do you feel it is an inherent right for you to have access to all of the world’s wildlife? I, for one, don't waste any time thinking about the animals I can't have, as I'm too busy looking after the ones I already do. They're more important.

Lophius, I think your cumingi are stunning, if I haven't mentioned that before. I know you’ve taken on board the gist of this conversation and I really do hope that you succeed in breeding them.

[RonW]

[crocdoc]

[Sean]

Dave don't take this personal, but I think Ron raised the point that you fail to listen to other peoples views from the other side of the coin.

I gave you a prime example for where legalizing export for regulated breeders works Peru. There as been no affect on wild populations like there was before when smuggling was rife.

Also it's not just about Australia there are other countries where legalizing export would work as well. My personal preference is monitors it just happens that my prefered species are Australian but not because they are rare outside Australia due to your law, as Ron said he prefers morelia and Aspidites, that's his personal choice.
There are other countries like yourself but I have no interest in the animals that inhabit there. If it was about money and the rare factor then I would look at your neighbours New Zealand but I have no interest in species like Naultinus etc.

[crocdoc]

Sean, it isn't a matter of failing to listen. Nothing that Ron said hasn't been said before, in the numerous other times I've had this conversation. As I said earlier, there's no point in me getting unto a point by point counter-discussion because it will very quickly degrade into a 'will not work' 'will work' battle. I could go into lengths about why Peru is an entirely different scenario from Australia - in fact, as I said earlier, I started to type out a response to that, but I deleted it because I know it is pointless. The discussion will go nowhere but spiral down into a 'will/will not' battle.

It's also not a failure on my part to see the other side. I keep reptiles, so I know why people want new and different reptiles, but when it comes to wildlife protection laws affecting availability, I don't waste time worrying about what's not available. In other words, if I were to list the pros and cons of a new species I was considering getting, 'not available' hits number one spot in the 'cons' list.


Have you really looked at the other side, though? (To make this less personal, I'm going to skip using the word 'you' from here on.) Does anyone ask themselves the question I have raised? Do one's desires for certain unavailable species rate higher than the protection of a country's native wildlife? We're not a nation of fools and if there are laws in place to protect animals, there may well be good reasons they are in place. Otherwise they would have been lifted ages ago. Do people really think that they're coming up with ideas that no one has ever thought of before? There are counters to all of them, it isn't as simple as everyone makes it out to be. Those laws may end up getting lifted one day, but if it were as simple as everyone on these forums suggests it would have been done ages ago. In the end, though, the priority has to be the good of the wildlife rather than the needs of keepers overseas, no matter how important those needs may seem from their end.

The ironic thing is, people overseas probably already have access to far more Australian monitor species than keepers here, through the corruption and smuggling that people like to gleefully boast about. There are many established species overseas (glauerti and pilbarensis come to mind) that either haven't made it onto the 'allowed to keep' list over here, or are such a recent inclusion that they are still prohibitively expensive. I also find it interesting that almost everyone that enters these discussions always throws in a "you know, we'll get them anyway, in the end - nudge nudge, wink wink - money talks" line, indicating that they don't mind supporting blackmarket trade in animals that is known to be detrimental to wild populations. The very smuggling that they then claim they are trying to prevent by having us open up our export laws. Concern over getting what they want always takes precedence over wildlife concerns.

On top of having fewer native Australian species available in the trade here than overseas, we are also not allowed to get exotics, so all of the other reptile species from around the world are out of bounds for us.

Do the unavailable species, native or not, worry me? No. Exotics would be potentially dangerous to native species due to disease and accidental release - we already have diseases in our captive collections that came in with boas that some fool smuggled in - diseases that would be potentially lethal to native pythons. If not getting exotics means protecting native species, I'm all for it. I'd rather have loads of wild reptiles out in the bush when I go camping than a couple of exotics in a box in my lounge room. As for native species that aren't yet on our 'allowed to keep' lists, most don't yet have viable captive bred populations and are protected in the wild. I'm okay with that, too. I don't NEED to have them and my life will not end if I don't.

As I've said before, there's no shortage of species we are allowed to keep, that are available CB at a reasonable cost, without potentially harming any wild populations. That's enough for me. Why waste time worry about what isn't available?

[kev]

1st up , congrats on the hatchlings dave they are absolutely gorgeous

Now onto the wildlife discussion.

I believe that by keeping the export trade illegal in oz it is encouraging smuggling of your native species as there is very big money to be made from it.
To think it is not going to happen is naive as there is always someone who will pay the big bucks needed to aquire these illegals.
Smuggling by its very nature of being illegal means the animals that are smuggled are done so by not very humane ways and often to the detriment of the animal concerned.
But some do get out and as time has shown are bred and enter the marketplace.
We now have in the eu and the usa self sustaining captive populations of various australian reptiles .
ackies, storri, glauerti, pilbarensis, kings, tristis, woma's, blackheads, diamonds, carpets etc etc are all now widely available from very limited founder stock
The simple fact that these animals no longer need to be smuggled can only benefit the wild populations of these species.
Why is it so hard to accept that legalising and licensing a limited trade in cb australian herps would in the long run stop all smuggling of these animals, which can only be a good thing .
A properly set up wildlife dept at the airports to check all cites exports before shipping is not so hard to do.
All wildlife imported legally into the uk [not from the eu] has to go through certain airports and has to go through the wildlife center at the airport, and the animals and paperwork are checked as to what they are etc before being allowed to be moved on or seized.
All that leaving it as it is is doing is continuing the rape of your country by people with only the mighty $ in mind and not the welfare of the animal or your countryside.
As with drugs - legalise and regulate.

[crocdoc]

[Scott W]

What a week to have no internet access

Dave....stunning monitors, congratulations!

Totally agree, the chances of anyone being to able to keep them suitably in private collections is slim, although of course there's nothing stopping anyone building 'zoo type/size' enclosures other than money and space.

As for Australia opening it's doors yes I'm sure it could be done and well regulated but do totally agree with you on WHY would they want to...I can't see any benefit to Australia.

Anyway....look forward to more photos
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Please DO NOT pm orders for reptiles, send email instead scott@captivebred.co.uk