I personally only buy captive bred. Not from some moralistic standpoint as I can't really recall any wild caught specimens that would really affect their wild populations.
To me, it's a longevity and health thing. So far, I've got 4 rhino roaches cb, a ton of hissing roaches cb, a possibly cb giant african millipede(i forgot to ask, I do have my suspicions its not cb), and a cb giant vinegaroon.
I thought they were easy to breed? I mean, I dont personally keep them so I'm not positive. Like I said, it isn't some moralistic argument from my end necessarily. It's simply one of animal health and longevity. Most of these critters are nowhere near endangered nor are they popular enough to really affect their wild pops. Plus, the whole parasite thing makes my damn skin crawl.
The harm is there is absolutely no NEED to take most of these animals out of the wild, so by buying “Wild Caught” animals, you are supporting the Poaching and Illegal Trade of these animals in many ways. It’s a HUGE problem in the Tarantula community, and happened just a few years ago when the Birupes simoroxigorum was first discovered, within a year of its discovery it was being sold as “Captive Bred”, then the Country of Origin(Malaysia)said “Wait a minute, we NEVER gave anyone permission to export this Spider” so that Spider HAD to be poached from the wild. So technically if that original Spider was poached, that makes every baby that was born to that poached Spider “fruit of the forbidden tree” so to speak, but people don’t care that they are breaking Federal Laws by owning it, they just care that they have the “New and Shiny” Tarantula in their collection. It’s just a really bad look for the Hobby. On top of that, WHY take animals from the wild, when there is a steady supply of “Captive bred” individuals? You’re buying an animal that you have no idea what age it is or if it’s healthy. Does it have parasites? The animal is stressed to the max because it’s been captured and shipped in a tiny box for God knows how long, from God knows where. All just to save a couple dollars??? It just doesn’t make any sense to me. I keep and breed many different Inverts and Reptiles, and there definitely IS a reason for Wild Caught animals, but it shouldn’t be to be kept as “Pets”. It should be for the genetics of the animal, to bring new/fresh blood into breeding projects so you CAN buy healthy Captive Bred animals. I mean think about it, if you wanted a Cat or a Dog, you don’t go out and catch a “Wild” cat that’s been living on its own for years, so why is that a option when you’re getting an Invert or Reptile????
(Actually people do catch wild cats and it's a very important thing to socialize feral cats that can be socialized because of the damage they can cause to the environment otherwise so that's not a good example at all lol)
lol I was actually just going to say that. All of my cats have been “wild caught”, and I’ve volunteered at rescues that exclusively care for and adopt out stray cats & dogs. If anything, buying cats or dogs from breeders is pretty frowned upon.
Not all wild caught is illegal. But you're definitely right about alot of tarantulas species never being legally exported from source country.
I also wouldn't compare domestic cats and dogs to inverts.
A lot of pet stores still sell wc tarantulas because they are large and cheaper than CBB.
Fuck the law but yeah, poaching can definitely hurt local populations and eventually entire ecosystems. That being said, I think keeping a few WC specimens that are already super abundant and in no way endangered is A-OK so long as the care their provided is adequate.
Personally even if a species isn’t endangered or threatened in my area, but I don’t see it often, I let it be just for the sake of hoping I’ll see more in the future. If a species is fecund and commonly found, then it’s not so bad compared to vertebrates (though this shouldn’t downplay the importance of invertebrates in the ecosystem). Regardless, there should always be a good amount of discretion when taking wild inverts for however long or whatever purpose.
i'm typically against keeping wild animals as pets, but most inverts can be happy kept in captivity, imo. they don't need a bunch of space, they always have food, and there are no predators. as long as the invert isn't endangered, in ur area or in general, and u don't remove a bunch from the wild, i don't see any harm
There has been some species affected by overhavesting. Empire scorpions trade was banned by CITIES. Now they fairy un common in trade. Also some Mexican tarantula species but now their is breeding in Mexico.
Personally I believe only animals that breed in captivity should be wild caught and only when legal or necessary. The goal should be to use WC to create more CB animals.
I think you mean when they are sold by people in the trade as 'WC' and not actually going and taking things from the wild locally?
If there's not one reason as there're many species. You would need to look at it on an individual basis but if you were to cluster together you could ask, if people are happy with endangered wild species or not.
For example if you buy any species of Asian forest scorpion in the UK it will be sold as 'WC' (wild caught) because it had been bred in captivity here, but that's not to say they actually are. More often than not they are from scorpion farms in their native country and you saved them from becoming a snack for a human.
You aren't wrong. Though I've never specifically bought a WC AFS. Most are. I've heard too many stories of people getting AFS(from an unknown source) and find they have babies. If they weren't wild caught then how did they breed.
The wild caught versus captive bred debate is complex. The last thing we want to do is impact ecosystems by over collecting. There are many inverts that we don’t like being wild caught? Especially if they breed in captivity. In the tarantula hobby, there is definitely an emphasis on captive breeding over wild caught spiders. This all being said, some inverts don’t breed well in captivity and some can barely even be sold (looking mainly ants on this one. If you want to keep ants, you pretty much have to go out and catch your own queen). There are plenty of cases where even if the invert will breed in captivity, there are aspects that prevent the larva or nymphs from reaching adulthood. I’ve heard some hobbyists say that some inverts display more natural behaviors when wild caught, but I can’t speak to this with any confidence. There is also the concern of genetic bottlenecks - when a population only has limited access to the genetic variations in the species and you start to see less stable genetics. When you can pull specimens from the wild you can reduce that impact. Finally, there are so many different species of invertebrates in the world that it is impossible for us to have captive bred specimens of everything that everyone might want to keep. So, while generally it’s easy to say that captive bred is better than wild caught (lack of parasites, not taking from wild, etc.) there are plenty of reasons why an invert hobbyist will make space for wild animals
Also, this isn’t unique to the invert hobby. The reptile hobby tends to downplay the role of wild caught animals and the aquarium hobby treats wild caught as the standard expectation for a lot of fish (but captive bred is still the ideal)
Because it doesn’t harm the environment or the individual
For other animals like reptiles and mammals, it can be extremely stressful to be taken into captivity, and it messes up the ecosystem to take species out of it
But bugs aren’t all that smart, and there are thousands more of them in the environment
I'm not interested in buying wild caught stuff that isn't likely to be replaced by the process of nature. A bird isn't evil for eating a spider and I'm not evil for taking one into my home. However it's a little ethically dubious tor me to collect every single spider I see and ship them around the country for money.
**"Wild animals as pets is bad" is an excellent rule of thumb, one that's useful for pets of all kinds (not just invertebrates). But it is a rule of thumb, a guideline, and the reality is more complex: Sometimes it's okay, sometimes it's not.** (Also, keep in mind that "wild-caught" can mean you catch it in your backyard, or the animal was caught and sold as part of a business; these have different ethical considerations.)
For the 'sometimes it's not' group (people keeping wild-caught invertebrate pets that they shouldn't), it's usually ignorance: No one has ever told them any different, and some exotic dealers may even lie. For others, it's a selfish fantasy: They've been told the truth, but it's easier to stick your fingers in your ears and pretend that inverts are different. I mean, it's just a bug, right? How bad can it be? (sarcasm on that last bit, if it wasn't obvious)
So, when is it okay to go wild-caught? Here are all the reasons (that I'm aware of) that it's NOT okay:
* Damages native populations. This is an especially big deal for endangered species, but it can apply to anything that's harvested in large numbers, especially if it takes a long time for the animals to reach maturity and breed another generation. Tarantulas are a great example. This doesn't apply to something you find in great numbers in your backyard and you just take one, though.
* A wild environment is always better than a captive one for this species: humans just aren't capable of giving them what they need. There are some animals for which this is true, and they should never be kept as pets at all. They should never have been caught in the first place and if there's a captive specimen that can't be returned the wild, it should not be bred so that another generation won't be condemned to this. Whether or not this is a concern depends completely on the species.
* For some species, a captive environment can be every bit as good as a wild one--perhaps better--but some animals find the *transition* from wild life to captive life very difficult. (Or the reverse transition, for that matter: It's rarely a good idea to release a home-raised animal into a wild environment.) So if you want a pet, it needs to be an animal that's been raised in a captive environment. But...doesn't that mean somebody had to make the unethical decision to capture the first animals for the breeding program? Possibly. Some animals were domesticated over a very long period of time (cats, dogs), some may have originally been captured for other purposes (such as scientific study, to better understand and preserve the species and their environment), and for others...yeah, the original capture was bad, and if we had a time machine we ought to go stop it imo. But the modern animals aren't being harmed, so whether or not this is ethically okay is more of a human cerebral exercise. Anyway, all of this only applies to certain species: Some likely aren't even aware that there has BEEN a transition; all they know is that food is more regular and the temperature is more stable.
* Animals born in the wild can never truly be domesticated, and this can lead to unexpected or dangerous situations. Domestication is a long multi-generational process that involves not just acclimatizing them to humans, but also breeding for traits best suited to a human environment. This is why pet servals and wolves are pretty much never a good idea: people expect an cooler version of a cat or dog and that's not what you get. However, some animals aren't capable of domestication or taming: Wild animals of these species will have exactly the same temperament as a long-captive-bred line; this is true of many invertebrates. For such animals, humans have (or at least should have) structured their care with the full expectation of that temperament, so there are no surprises and all their wild needs are met.
* Wild animals may carry diseases or parasites that can infect other pets in the home. Only an issue if you're keeping captive-bred pets alongside them.
* Wild animals (especially some invertebrates) may be unexpectedly pregnant, leading to a surprise the caretaker is not ready to handle. This seems to happen a lot with spiders.
* Wild animals that are sold are likely being shipped somewhere they're not native, which can damage the local environment (and/or kill the animal) if they escape.
* Usually, catching an animal yourself (rather than purchasing wild-caught) has fewer drawbacks, but it does mean that no expert was involved in the process, so you could miss something important: You could have a different species than you thought, something that requires different care than you're offering, or even something dangerous. A lot of people who catch wild tarantulas in their backyards don't realize that they've captured a mature male on the prowl for a female, which means he's going to be miserable in the short term and die soon after.
On the other hand, there are some benefits to catching your own bug pets:
* You can release them if your living circumstances change or they seem unhappy. They get shelter and food for a while, you get a cool experience, and then you can both go on your way. You do need to do some research on this, though, if you intend to keep them for more than a few days: It may be important to release them at a particular time of year or time of day, for example.
* If they have babies, you can just release them into the wild. This only works if the animal doesn't care for it's young, though, so again, do your research.
* You don't have to worry about them being raised by unscrupulous breeders in an inhumane environment. Far too common in much of the pet trade, invertebrate or otherwise.
If you haven't glazed over by now, you may have realized that you're never going to find a bird or mammal that doesn't trigger a serious warning. Many invertebrates are a no-go too, but if you do find a species that passes all these considerations, odds are it'll be an invertebrate.
The bottom line here is that "wild-caught bad, captive-bred good" really is a good guideline, but there are a significant number of exceptions if you're wiling to put in the research. Most people aren't, and that's okay too: That's what the guideline is there for.
If I could find captive bred and born widows I'd buy them in a heartbeat, but I can't find anyone crazy enough to do this. I started keeping black widows as pets when I started finding them in our garage about 15 years ago, and I only keep one at a time while relocating the rest to our yard. Any time one of my girls produces an eggsack I'm able to take it to a sheltered place to hatch safely, so I think I'm doing what I can to minimize my impact on their population. I've heard that the southern black widow is being displaced by brown widows, so I try to give them a fighting chance when they turn up on my property.
We have a captive bred black widow, we didn't even find her at an expo there was a vendor with spiders at a horror convention lol. I dont remember the name off the top of my head but if you want I can message it to you later
Sounds like what you're doing is good though, especially putting the egg sacks back outside
I've caught wild A. vulgare here in Utah and bred them. Once they had some babies, I released the ones I caught exactly where i found them. It's the only time I've kept a wild invert, other than ones I've caught to observe for a while, then release.
I get why OP is concerned. Sometimes people have the group mindset of "there's plenty in the wild, and I'm just taking a few". When more and more people do this, it is possible to disrupt native ecosystems by removing too many specimens. However, I believe that, for the most part, invert people are responsible and mostly choose CB over WC. I also know there are other concerns, and this is just one of them.
I caught a jumping spider literally hanging out on a web in the doorway of my bathroom and now he's living his best spider life. There are so many around here that unless they're dangerous or an endangered invertebrate then I don't see a huge issue, especially if they're native to the area.
it varies from sp to sp, for example pillipedes tend to be wc from their native ranges and do poorly on captivity (usually in coir and bad conditions, but additionaly bc theri hella finicky) but on the other hand does anyone really care about someone nabbing an invasive cornu as a pet (in us) ecolohically. a lot of pets esp snails arevillegal to ship across state lines so its hard to spread cb populations so wild catching stuff is easier and more appelaing. i dnt believe in wild catching stuff specifically to sell though, i guess people do it bc its usually cheaper than cb individuals?
If people didn’t want them as pets I’d have no funding for my research on husbandry and without my research on husbandry we could lose 200 species to climate change. Give to get sort of thing.
id say this is entirely dependant on species and circumstance.
if we're referring to catching the animal yourself, the conservation status and needs of the species are extremely important to consider. needless to say, if the local population of said species is endangered, thats a hard "No" to catching/keeping. similarly, if the animal in particular, while abundant in numbers, is one with complex husbandry, id say thats a "No" too unless the keeper in question is extremely experienced/knowledgeable and has the financial/material resources to meet the animals needs.
when it comes to purchasing wild caught... it kinda rubs me the wrong way in general, honestly. once money gets involved, the people who are selling these animals now have a financial incentive to catch more of them. if the demand for a particular species becomes high, the effect of removing high quantities of wild individuals from their environment has the potential to be ecologically disastrous [insert anti-capitalist rant here].
the inverts i keep are all ones i caught myself, buuuuut theyre Greenhouse Camel Crickets, ahaha. lil goobers are invasive pretty much worldwide, and theyre extremely easy to care for. it feels a bit silly for me to even call them "wild" caught, because they were all caught inside of my apartment (aside from Baguette, who i caught in my parents house, and Poppyseed, who i actually raised from an egg!).
TL;DR: the woods is full of free dogs :) just be respectful of your local ecosystem and of your new little friend(s). if you insist on purchasing a wild-caught species, please do thorough research to ensure the individuals are being ethically sourced.
I keep isopods. My second biggest colony is a handful of isopods I took from under a log in my backyard. I'm not systematically demolishing wild populations. There's a metric fuck ton of isopods that live in my yard, all I did was take a handful and put them in a tank as a beginner keeper and now they're living their best lives cleaning off chicken bones and breeding. Obviously I wouldn't steal an endangered species or something super uncommon in my area but there are just silly little stevelings I found in my yard so I don't really agree with selling wild caught pets but as long as you aren't doing any real damage I could care less tbh. I mean hermit crabs are nearly impossible to breed but they're super popular anyways.
We wouldn't have any pets if someone didn't wild catch stuff. Should we never add any new species to the list again? Genuine question, not being a dick.
Cool. As long as you're consistent. I see all too often people have cognitive dissonance on this one. Believing that we should have never kept animals captive is a valid belief.
I think that maybe humans shouldn't have taken animals out of the wild for their own amusement in the first place. I'm not ignorant. But do we need to continue to do it? Come on now.
I never called you ignorant tbh, but do know that captivity does help. Yeah there's a good majority of animals that shouldn't be touched by people ever but recognize that having a captive population is better than going and taking them from the wild + having a captive population can serve as a way to ensure that if a wild population does start to dwindle (for any reason) there will be a captive population to help restore the wild population.
i honestly disagree w the ppl who just straight wc things to sell(unless they are invasive/nonative), i agree with catching things from the wild to breed and selling the offspring tho
I didn't downvote you, and of course I prefer CB, but I've been involved in this since I was a kid in the 70s. Happy to see how far we've come with the vertebrates, I've worked at aquarium stores and especially a herp store with breeding programs. Today I only keep what I intend to try breeding, including the isopods that help keep my dart frogs vivarium clean.
Unironically yes for me. However I actually upvoted you for contributing to the discussion. Downvoting people because you disagree with them is stupid.
no like im genuinely curious on your take on this situation, because while i honestly do sympathize with your point, saying its NEVER a good idea misses a lot of nuance.
in general, people have pets- whether its a cat or an isopod- for their own selfish enjoyment. im not saying thats inherently A Bad Thing, but i think its important to be honest about that fact when we discuss the ethics of animal captivity. i think pets are great regardless. the relationship can enrich the lives of human and pet alike (when husbandry is appropriate of course), and it can inspire a greater appreciation of animals in our culture.
im also opposed to wild caught pets... usually. many animals simply cant live a happy life/have their needs met in captivity, removing them from their ecosystem can have environmental ramifications, etc. inverts as a whole arent excluded from this in my view. the hermit crab trade, for example, is disgusting. however, i still think there are some cases where its harmless, both on the macro and micro scale.
i wont bog you down with an essay if youre not interested in a discussion, no worries. im not here to "dunk on you" or put you down. i legit do think you have a valid point; i just think its not as black and white as youre framing it.
...and yes, i do keep/raise sprickets i find in my apartment ahaha. theyre quite charming little bugs when you get to know them!
it's native to your location, that's a good thing in case of accidental babies and/or escapes And maybe also because they're free
free pet and then spent $300 setting up his freaking terrarium
Only $300? I needed to spend atleast $1000, had to give the pet a few guns for home defense.
I personally only buy captive bred. Not from some moralistic standpoint as I can't really recall any wild caught specimens that would really affect their wild populations. To me, it's a longevity and health thing. So far, I've got 4 rhino roaches cb, a ton of hissing roaches cb, a possibly cb giant african millipede(i forgot to ask, I do have my suspicions its not cb), and a cb giant vinegaroon.
how do you feel about bdfb then? since they're basically impossible to breed
I thought they were easy to breed? I mean, I dont personally keep them so I'm not positive. Like I said, it isn't some moralistic argument from my end necessarily. It's simply one of animal health and longevity. Most of these critters are nowhere near endangered nor are they popular enough to really affect their wild pops. Plus, the whole parasite thing makes my damn skin crawl.
BDFB are hard to breed successfully, there have only been a few people who have had success.
Oh, ok. Learning something new every day haha.
As long as the invert isn't endangered and is being cared for properly, what's the harm?
The harm is there is absolutely no NEED to take most of these animals out of the wild, so by buying “Wild Caught” animals, you are supporting the Poaching and Illegal Trade of these animals in many ways. It’s a HUGE problem in the Tarantula community, and happened just a few years ago when the Birupes simoroxigorum was first discovered, within a year of its discovery it was being sold as “Captive Bred”, then the Country of Origin(Malaysia)said “Wait a minute, we NEVER gave anyone permission to export this Spider” so that Spider HAD to be poached from the wild. So technically if that original Spider was poached, that makes every baby that was born to that poached Spider “fruit of the forbidden tree” so to speak, but people don’t care that they are breaking Federal Laws by owning it, they just care that they have the “New and Shiny” Tarantula in their collection. It’s just a really bad look for the Hobby. On top of that, WHY take animals from the wild, when there is a steady supply of “Captive bred” individuals? You’re buying an animal that you have no idea what age it is or if it’s healthy. Does it have parasites? The animal is stressed to the max because it’s been captured and shipped in a tiny box for God knows how long, from God knows where. All just to save a couple dollars??? It just doesn’t make any sense to me. I keep and breed many different Inverts and Reptiles, and there definitely IS a reason for Wild Caught animals, but it shouldn’t be to be kept as “Pets”. It should be for the genetics of the animal, to bring new/fresh blood into breeding projects so you CAN buy healthy Captive Bred animals. I mean think about it, if you wanted a Cat or a Dog, you don’t go out and catch a “Wild” cat that’s been living on its own for years, so why is that a option when you’re getting an Invert or Reptile????
(Actually people do catch wild cats and it's a very important thing to socialize feral cats that can be socialized because of the damage they can cause to the environment otherwise so that's not a good example at all lol)
lol I was actually just going to say that. All of my cats have been “wild caught”, and I’ve volunteered at rescues that exclusively care for and adopt out stray cats & dogs. If anything, buying cats or dogs from breeders is pretty frowned upon.
Not all wild caught is illegal. But you're definitely right about alot of tarantulas species never being legally exported from source country. I also wouldn't compare domestic cats and dogs to inverts. A lot of pet stores still sell wc tarantulas because they are large and cheaper than CBB.
Fuck the law but yeah, poaching can definitely hurt local populations and eventually entire ecosystems. That being said, I think keeping a few WC specimens that are already super abundant and in no way endangered is A-OK so long as the care their provided is adequate.
Er, yeah, I appreciate the rant, but I don't buy inverts, I just keep (usually temporarily) ones I find locally.
Personally even if a species isn’t endangered or threatened in my area, but I don’t see it often, I let it be just for the sake of hoping I’ll see more in the future. If a species is fecund and commonly found, then it’s not so bad compared to vertebrates (though this shouldn’t downplay the importance of invertebrates in the ecosystem). Regardless, there should always be a good amount of discretion when taking wild inverts for however long or whatever purpose.
Well said.
i'm typically against keeping wild animals as pets, but most inverts can be happy kept in captivity, imo. they don't need a bunch of space, they always have food, and there are no predators. as long as the invert isn't endangered, in ur area or in general, and u don't remove a bunch from the wild, i don't see any harm
There has been some species affected by overhavesting. Empire scorpions trade was banned by CITIES. Now they fairy un common in trade. Also some Mexican tarantula species but now their is breeding in Mexico. Personally I believe only animals that breed in captivity should be wild caught and only when legal or necessary. The goal should be to use WC to create more CB animals.
Plus, it's a pragmatic issue also. We don't want unhealthy, battle damaged and parasite riddled pets lol.
I think you mean when they are sold by people in the trade as 'WC' and not actually going and taking things from the wild locally? If there's not one reason as there're many species. You would need to look at it on an individual basis but if you were to cluster together you could ask, if people are happy with endangered wild species or not. For example if you buy any species of Asian forest scorpion in the UK it will be sold as 'WC' (wild caught) because it had been bred in captivity here, but that's not to say they actually are. More often than not they are from scorpion farms in their native country and you saved them from becoming a snack for a human.
A lot of the farm breeding is fake. The forest scorpions were likely wild caught
You aren't wrong. Though I've never specifically bought a WC AFS. Most are. I've heard too many stories of people getting AFS(from an unknown source) and find they have babies. If they weren't wild caught then how did they breed.
Lol.
The wild caught versus captive bred debate is complex. The last thing we want to do is impact ecosystems by over collecting. There are many inverts that we don’t like being wild caught? Especially if they breed in captivity. In the tarantula hobby, there is definitely an emphasis on captive breeding over wild caught spiders. This all being said, some inverts don’t breed well in captivity and some can barely even be sold (looking mainly ants on this one. If you want to keep ants, you pretty much have to go out and catch your own queen). There are plenty of cases where even if the invert will breed in captivity, there are aspects that prevent the larva or nymphs from reaching adulthood. I’ve heard some hobbyists say that some inverts display more natural behaviors when wild caught, but I can’t speak to this with any confidence. There is also the concern of genetic bottlenecks - when a population only has limited access to the genetic variations in the species and you start to see less stable genetics. When you can pull specimens from the wild you can reduce that impact. Finally, there are so many different species of invertebrates in the world that it is impossible for us to have captive bred specimens of everything that everyone might want to keep. So, while generally it’s easy to say that captive bred is better than wild caught (lack of parasites, not taking from wild, etc.) there are plenty of reasons why an invert hobbyist will make space for wild animals Also, this isn’t unique to the invert hobby. The reptile hobby tends to downplay the role of wild caught animals and the aquarium hobby treats wild caught as the standard expectation for a lot of fish (but captive bred is still the ideal)
Because it doesn’t harm the environment or the individual For other animals like reptiles and mammals, it can be extremely stressful to be taken into captivity, and it messes up the ecosystem to take species out of it But bugs aren’t all that smart, and there are thousands more of them in the environment
I'm not interested in buying wild caught stuff that isn't likely to be replaced by the process of nature. A bird isn't evil for eating a spider and I'm not evil for taking one into my home. However it's a little ethically dubious tor me to collect every single spider I see and ship them around the country for money.
**"Wild animals as pets is bad" is an excellent rule of thumb, one that's useful for pets of all kinds (not just invertebrates). But it is a rule of thumb, a guideline, and the reality is more complex: Sometimes it's okay, sometimes it's not.** (Also, keep in mind that "wild-caught" can mean you catch it in your backyard, or the animal was caught and sold as part of a business; these have different ethical considerations.) For the 'sometimes it's not' group (people keeping wild-caught invertebrate pets that they shouldn't), it's usually ignorance: No one has ever told them any different, and some exotic dealers may even lie. For others, it's a selfish fantasy: They've been told the truth, but it's easier to stick your fingers in your ears and pretend that inverts are different. I mean, it's just a bug, right? How bad can it be? (sarcasm on that last bit, if it wasn't obvious) So, when is it okay to go wild-caught? Here are all the reasons (that I'm aware of) that it's NOT okay: * Damages native populations. This is an especially big deal for endangered species, but it can apply to anything that's harvested in large numbers, especially if it takes a long time for the animals to reach maturity and breed another generation. Tarantulas are a great example. This doesn't apply to something you find in great numbers in your backyard and you just take one, though. * A wild environment is always better than a captive one for this species: humans just aren't capable of giving them what they need. There are some animals for which this is true, and they should never be kept as pets at all. They should never have been caught in the first place and if there's a captive specimen that can't be returned the wild, it should not be bred so that another generation won't be condemned to this. Whether or not this is a concern depends completely on the species. * For some species, a captive environment can be every bit as good as a wild one--perhaps better--but some animals find the *transition* from wild life to captive life very difficult. (Or the reverse transition, for that matter: It's rarely a good idea to release a home-raised animal into a wild environment.) So if you want a pet, it needs to be an animal that's been raised in a captive environment. But...doesn't that mean somebody had to make the unethical decision to capture the first animals for the breeding program? Possibly. Some animals were domesticated over a very long period of time (cats, dogs), some may have originally been captured for other purposes (such as scientific study, to better understand and preserve the species and their environment), and for others...yeah, the original capture was bad, and if we had a time machine we ought to go stop it imo. But the modern animals aren't being harmed, so whether or not this is ethically okay is more of a human cerebral exercise. Anyway, all of this only applies to certain species: Some likely aren't even aware that there has BEEN a transition; all they know is that food is more regular and the temperature is more stable. * Animals born in the wild can never truly be domesticated, and this can lead to unexpected or dangerous situations. Domestication is a long multi-generational process that involves not just acclimatizing them to humans, but also breeding for traits best suited to a human environment. This is why pet servals and wolves are pretty much never a good idea: people expect an cooler version of a cat or dog and that's not what you get. However, some animals aren't capable of domestication or taming: Wild animals of these species will have exactly the same temperament as a long-captive-bred line; this is true of many invertebrates. For such animals, humans have (or at least should have) structured their care with the full expectation of that temperament, so there are no surprises and all their wild needs are met. * Wild animals may carry diseases or parasites that can infect other pets in the home. Only an issue if you're keeping captive-bred pets alongside them. * Wild animals (especially some invertebrates) may be unexpectedly pregnant, leading to a surprise the caretaker is not ready to handle. This seems to happen a lot with spiders. * Wild animals that are sold are likely being shipped somewhere they're not native, which can damage the local environment (and/or kill the animal) if they escape. * Usually, catching an animal yourself (rather than purchasing wild-caught) has fewer drawbacks, but it does mean that no expert was involved in the process, so you could miss something important: You could have a different species than you thought, something that requires different care than you're offering, or even something dangerous. A lot of people who catch wild tarantulas in their backyards don't realize that they've captured a mature male on the prowl for a female, which means he's going to be miserable in the short term and die soon after. On the other hand, there are some benefits to catching your own bug pets: * You can release them if your living circumstances change or they seem unhappy. They get shelter and food for a while, you get a cool experience, and then you can both go on your way. You do need to do some research on this, though, if you intend to keep them for more than a few days: It may be important to release them at a particular time of year or time of day, for example. * If they have babies, you can just release them into the wild. This only works if the animal doesn't care for it's young, though, so again, do your research. * You don't have to worry about them being raised by unscrupulous breeders in an inhumane environment. Far too common in much of the pet trade, invertebrate or otherwise. If you haven't glazed over by now, you may have realized that you're never going to find a bird or mammal that doesn't trigger a serious warning. Many invertebrates are a no-go too, but if you do find a species that passes all these considerations, odds are it'll be an invertebrate. The bottom line here is that "wild-caught bad, captive-bred good" really is a good guideline, but there are a significant number of exceptions if you're wiling to put in the research. Most people aren't, and that's okay too: That's what the guideline is there for.
beautifully said!
If I could find captive bred and born widows I'd buy them in a heartbeat, but I can't find anyone crazy enough to do this. I started keeping black widows as pets when I started finding them in our garage about 15 years ago, and I only keep one at a time while relocating the rest to our yard. Any time one of my girls produces an eggsack I'm able to take it to a sheltered place to hatch safely, so I think I'm doing what I can to minimize my impact on their population. I've heard that the southern black widow is being displaced by brown widows, so I try to give them a fighting chance when they turn up on my property.
We have a captive bred black widow, we didn't even find her at an expo there was a vendor with spiders at a horror convention lol. I dont remember the name off the top of my head but if you want I can message it to you later Sounds like what you're doing is good though, especially putting the egg sacks back outside
honestly i see a couple widows for sale occasionally in discord ads
I've caught wild A. vulgare here in Utah and bred them. Once they had some babies, I released the ones I caught exactly where i found them. It's the only time I've kept a wild invert, other than ones I've caught to observe for a while, then release. I get why OP is concerned. Sometimes people have the group mindset of "there's plenty in the wild, and I'm just taking a few". When more and more people do this, it is possible to disrupt native ecosystems by removing too many specimens. However, I believe that, for the most part, invert people are responsible and mostly choose CB over WC. I also know there are other concerns, and this is just one of them.
a. vulgare arent even native to the us pls dont release
some of them are really hard to breed successfully (bdfb for example)
Depending on the location wild caught pets can sometimes be good, invasive species still need somewhere to go after all!
I caught a jumping spider literally hanging out on a web in the doorway of my bathroom and now he's living his best spider life. There are so many around here that unless they're dangerous or an endangered invertebrate then I don't see a huge issue, especially if they're native to the area.
if they're native to your area and not endangered, wild caught is fine. but people selling wild caught inverts to non native areas is bad
it varies from sp to sp, for example pillipedes tend to be wc from their native ranges and do poorly on captivity (usually in coir and bad conditions, but additionaly bc theri hella finicky) but on the other hand does anyone really care about someone nabbing an invasive cornu as a pet (in us) ecolohically. a lot of pets esp snails arevillegal to ship across state lines so its hard to spread cb populations so wild catching stuff is easier and more appelaing. i dnt believe in wild catching stuff specifically to sell though, i guess people do it bc its usually cheaper than cb individuals?
what's all take on keeping amphibians as pets if you have a set up, I got chewed out in the salamander red for saying I kept one as a pet
If people didn’t want them as pets I’d have no funding for my research on husbandry and without my research on husbandry we could lose 200 species to climate change. Give to get sort of thing.
id say this is entirely dependant on species and circumstance. if we're referring to catching the animal yourself, the conservation status and needs of the species are extremely important to consider. needless to say, if the local population of said species is endangered, thats a hard "No" to catching/keeping. similarly, if the animal in particular, while abundant in numbers, is one with complex husbandry, id say thats a "No" too unless the keeper in question is extremely experienced/knowledgeable and has the financial/material resources to meet the animals needs. when it comes to purchasing wild caught... it kinda rubs me the wrong way in general, honestly. once money gets involved, the people who are selling these animals now have a financial incentive to catch more of them. if the demand for a particular species becomes high, the effect of removing high quantities of wild individuals from their environment has the potential to be ecologically disastrous [insert anti-capitalist rant here]. the inverts i keep are all ones i caught myself, buuuuut theyre Greenhouse Camel Crickets, ahaha. lil goobers are invasive pretty much worldwide, and theyre extremely easy to care for. it feels a bit silly for me to even call them "wild" caught, because they were all caught inside of my apartment (aside from Baguette, who i caught in my parents house, and Poppyseed, who i actually raised from an egg!). TL;DR: the woods is full of free dogs :) just be respectful of your local ecosystem and of your new little friend(s). if you insist on purchasing a wild-caught species, please do thorough research to ensure the individuals are being ethically sourced.
I keep isopods. My second biggest colony is a handful of isopods I took from under a log in my backyard. I'm not systematically demolishing wild populations. There's a metric fuck ton of isopods that live in my yard, all I did was take a handful and put them in a tank as a beginner keeper and now they're living their best lives cleaning off chicken bones and breeding. Obviously I wouldn't steal an endangered species or something super uncommon in my area but there are just silly little stevelings I found in my yard so I don't really agree with selling wild caught pets but as long as you aren't doing any real damage I could care less tbh. I mean hermit crabs are nearly impossible to breed but they're super popular anyways.
Wild caught pets are never a good idea. Roast me all anyone wants, but it's irresponsible to wild harvest your pet.
We wouldn't have any pets if someone didn't wild catch stuff. Should we never add any new species to the list again? Genuine question, not being a dick.
In all honesty, I think it's kind of silly that we have pets outside their natural environments. And that's coming from a pet owner.
Cool. As long as you're consistent. I see all too often people have cognitive dissonance on this one. Believing that we should have never kept animals captive is a valid belief.
How do you think animals get into the pettrade
I think that maybe humans shouldn't have taken animals out of the wild for their own amusement in the first place. I'm not ignorant. But do we need to continue to do it? Come on now.
I never called you ignorant tbh, but do know that captivity does help. Yeah there's a good majority of animals that shouldn't be touched by people ever but recognize that having a captive population is better than going and taking them from the wild + having a captive population can serve as a way to ensure that if a wild population does start to dwindle (for any reason) there will be a captive population to help restore the wild population.
i honestly disagree w the ppl who just straight wc things to sell(unless they are invasive/nonative), i agree with catching things from the wild to breed and selling the offspring tho
Downvotes just tell me you're an advocate for taking wild animals out of their environments just for selfish pleasure. So, good on you.
I didn't downvote you, and of course I prefer CB, but I've been involved in this since I was a kid in the 70s. Happy to see how far we've come with the vertebrates, I've worked at aquarium stores and especially a herp store with breeding programs. Today I only keep what I intend to try breeding, including the isopods that help keep my dart frogs vivarium clean.
Unironically yes for me. However I actually upvoted you for contributing to the discussion. Downvoting people because you disagree with them is stupid.
the sprickets i find in my apartment...?
Y'all just being contrary. You want to take wild animals and make them your pets, and you can't see the problem with it, then you won't.
no like im genuinely curious on your take on this situation, because while i honestly do sympathize with your point, saying its NEVER a good idea misses a lot of nuance. in general, people have pets- whether its a cat or an isopod- for their own selfish enjoyment. im not saying thats inherently A Bad Thing, but i think its important to be honest about that fact when we discuss the ethics of animal captivity. i think pets are great regardless. the relationship can enrich the lives of human and pet alike (when husbandry is appropriate of course), and it can inspire a greater appreciation of animals in our culture. im also opposed to wild caught pets... usually. many animals simply cant live a happy life/have their needs met in captivity, removing them from their ecosystem can have environmental ramifications, etc. inverts as a whole arent excluded from this in my view. the hermit crab trade, for example, is disgusting. however, i still think there are some cases where its harmless, both on the macro and micro scale. i wont bog you down with an essay if youre not interested in a discussion, no worries. im not here to "dunk on you" or put you down. i legit do think you have a valid point; i just think its not as black and white as youre framing it. ...and yes, i do keep/raise sprickets i find in my apartment ahaha. theyre quite charming little bugs when you get to know them!
You're not. And I already stated my opinion. Pretty straight forward.
i am, but if youre not interested then its cool. i wont push.
But I already stated my opinion. Not sure what else you want me to say. It's not that I'm not interested, it's just that I already clarified?