|
If you are going to give numerous statistics,
please site where you found them. Unfounded stats are
meaningless.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, November 19, 2003 10:31
AM
Subject: Re: [gecko]Complaints Against
Petshops
Again, I expected to be chewed out for posting the last
email. I use to also be heavily in herpetoculture until I moved into
herpetology and saw the direct effects of the pet trade on fauna. I would like
to add to this debate with other information.
1. Yes, I agree that
educate is very important, without it, conservation would not be where it is
today. Thanks to zoos and people that KNOW what they're doing.
2. An
idea that should be considered, for every one person who does know how to keep
a pet properly, there might be 5-10 times more people that doesn't know how to
take care of one. And there are additional individuals that don't even care if
information is available, all they want to do is buy the animal just for
enjoyment. They don't care if it gets sick or dies in the end. They just
wanted to buy it for the hell of it. I'll let you do the math of how many
animals die from this.
3. Now put the idea of #2, into a petshop
environment. The owners' of "BAD" petshops just want to sell the animals.
Don't care, just want to sell it for money. Period. Don't care the condition,
health, etc of the animal, just sell it.
4. Due to the high demand of
herps nowadays in the pet trade, this encourages smugglers to export/import
any herp species: common, rare, endangered, etc. As long as there is a demand,
people will supply! This includes all animals, birds, mammals, fish, etc. I
have worked in zoos where half the herp collection is from confiscation from
smugglers.
5. Following up on #4, since there is a demand for herps,
this encourages natives to seach and captive these animals for money.
Destroying their ecosystems they live in without even knowing. One easy
example is saltwater fish trade. If you don't know anything about it, I
suggest you to read up on it.
6. Also, for every one wildlfe caught
herp you get from a pet shop, five to ten or more of these animal either gets
sick or dies in transit to this country. Yes, I know, we have to just buy
captive bred animals. But still, before you can get captive bred animals, you
need wild caught animals to establish a stable population to bred from. Again,
going back to, I'll let you do the math of how many animals died until you
finally got that CB animals.
7. Also, imagine your some animals (does
matter what you are, anything will do) living in the woods, next thing you
know, this guy comes picks you up. Next thing you know, you're stuck in a cage
and this person is trying feed you a cricket which you never seen before. From
freedom to cage. I'm not a PETA activitist, in fact I hate PETA. But I would
like to give that persecptive to all pet owners. Just leave animals in the
wild. Mother native takes care of them, not us. I know this sounds stupid and
all loving and stuff, but thing about it.
8. Again, back to #7, I
constantly read on this list forum about people needing to add vitamins or
minerals to their animals diet. If we need to add stuff to the standard
cricket we feed to our animals, doesn't it make you wonder what else we are
missing? Yes, I know, we have to constantly learn and figure what these
animals need but nature takes care of them already. Just leave them there.
Don't know how many pet people I seen/met that ended up killing animals
because of this.
9. For every individual animal you take out of the
population, you are reducing the gene pool. Yes, for some herp species, it
doesn't hurt to take animals for the pet trade. REALLY? You mean shrinking the
gene pool won't hurt them? You mean decreasing the fighting chance they have
won't hurt them from surviving?
10. This is the best answer I get from
a lot of herpetoculturist. "Yeah, there's this endangered species, it's about
to go extinct. I wish that the government would give me jsut a pair so I can
help breed them for conservation." Haha, ok, you bred them in your house, now
what? That's doesn't help the population. Just leave them in their environment
to bred or a zoo. You breeding doesn't help conservation.
Again, I'll
end it here. I can go on and on for days but will cut it short. I started this
not to yell or debate with people on this forum. I actually am very impressed
and commend everybody on this forum. I also in the past asked questions on
this forum, when I started with geckos. The purpose of this email is to share
with everybody on this forum what I see and what I have to deal with as a
wildlife biologist/herpetologist and be aware of these issues. These issues
applies mainly to the pet trade industry of fish, mammals, bird, herps, etc.
|
