Hi there,
I used to have Dr Robert Raven's (QLD arachnologist) figures on my website (10,000 bird-eating spiders a year collected for the pet trade), but found, as you did, that there didn't seem to be any evidence to back this up. Saying that, at the beginning of the spider trade, there were 50 a week alone sold in my local town, so I wouldn't doubt that in the beginning that these figures would have been a good estimate. As you may know, the Cairns region in particular was being overcollected at the time, and I do know that the giant spiders that used to be seen in the pet stores aren't anymore, just the smaller ones.
What I object to, is that to satisfy human's curiosity to 'bottle' these giant spiders they are being collected and put in a fish tank in a pet store. We are talking about a spider that may have lived 20 years in one burrow, and never seen a human, and then dug up and put into a fish tank, with hundreds of people being able to look at it, and nowhere to hide. I also know of collectors that accidently kill many spiders while they are digging them up. Most of the species i have are burrowing, and the ones found under sheets of iron are the males, but they have to actually go and dig up the females. The stress of trying to adapt to captivity, coupled with the inaccurate care advice and housing the buyer is often given, has been the demise of many of these spiders, and this is a sad, shameful waste. As with these kinds of animals, you also get the people that just want to buy for the 'freak factor' and once they realize their spider just wants to dig a hole and live in a burrow, they lost interest and the spider becomes neglected. What a waste, considering this spider could have been thriving in it's natural environment. I also know, only 1 out of the 6 of my local pet stores now stock the spiders as they found they were all dying in the store (correct conditions could have helped this). The QLD government also think that this is should be regulated, and as of the 1st of March this year, collectors are now required to have a permit and log everything that is collected.
I'm not talking spiders in general here, just the ones collected for the pet trade. I have heard the pesticide reason, but many of these spiders are dug up in a forest or bush area, and not caught around a house where they would be sprayed anyway. I have witnessed and rehabilitated many spiders that were dug up and subjected to awful conditions for the pet trade, and this is my main reason for captive-breeding the spiders, in the hope that the support of this trade will stop. I know wild-caught specimens are necessary for the captive-breeding of these spiders, and I don't object to this if they are kept in the right conditions.
Saying this, if there is anyone who has a bird-eating spider they purchased from a pet store, I have caresheets I send out with my spiders I sell, and I would be happy to send you one of these caresheets, so you can be sure you are keeping your spider in the right condition. Please email me on
[email protected] if you have any questions about your spider, or wish to receive a caresheet, all free of charge of course! :wink:
It comes down to that, and I hope that clarifies my stance on this a bit. I know what uproar there would be if it were known that pet stores were blatantly obtaining reptiles from the wild and putting them in a tank 2 days later, clearly stating and knowing they are wild caught. It is sadly because of most people's aversion to spiders, that not an awful lot of people care about these giant's put into a pet store. This is what I hope to help educate people on.
Kind regards,
~Nome.