Collecting Wild Reptiles.

[Gregory]

I'll start this off by saying this is not a personal attack on the members of APS that do this.

I have an inherent disgust that people in WA ( and other states and territories) are able to buy a licence and can then go out and collect wild reptiles and sell them for what is obviously very high profit. I know I'll be howled down by those members that do, with them saying they have to pay so much for a licence and to cover costs and such but I still can't get my head round profiteering from wild caught animals. Fine, get your licence and collect some and start breeding them and sell the offspring but to go out and collect and sell is in my book wrong.
It's certainly not envy that makes me voice this opinion but just my moral obligation. Someone will surely point out if I'm wrong but I'm told that the controlling body in WA charges quite a lot for the privilege and I think that they have a lot to answer for in as much as their restrcitions on private breeding and such but that's just another example of revenue raising and bureaucracy gone mad.
As I said at the beginning, I'm not personally attacking you WA folk, so don't take it as such.



Gregory

 

[jimmy_the_kid]

lol i have to agree i think on sum level its as bad as poaching an sum levels not as bad lol i mean i would loveth chance to go grab a few animals out of the buch and keep them ive had the chances but i wouldnt even if it was legal im not sure y but it just feels wrong to me

 

[Guest]

Legal poaching to fatten the wallets of the government cronies!!!

 

[jimmy_the_kid]

lol forgot to add nuthing personal to the members of this site holding these liscences not saying ur doing anything wrong just saying it isnt sumthing i would do

 

[Nome]

:twisted: Contraversy, havent' had a good dose of it for a while :twisted:

I know very little about WA laws, but is a licensed person there able to go out and catch a reptile, then resell it? Are there any catches to it? Waiting period, collecting limit, limited to certain species??

 

[Magpie]

I think CALM have a lot to answer for here.
Not allowing imports from other states and what seems to me to be actively discouraging captive breeding once there is a decent captive population in WA.
I have no problem with the people out there collecting them, I would have done my damnest to get a licence if I was still in WA. But they could have allowed people to collect their own for a $200 fee, or given more incentive for people to captive breed in large numbers. I've lived in WA most of my life, and have a fair idea what CALM are about though and cannot see anything changing in the near future.

 

[Nome]

Yes, it seems rather strange, the money involved. For me to send spiders to a zoo in WA, the receiver had to get an import permit from CALM, and this costs much money, certainly much more than the spiders they bought.

What is the purpose besides making money for their strange laws regarding importing and exporting and expensive permits?

 

[womas4me]

Well, had to be brought up eventually. We will give a few facts first.

1. WA is Australia's biggest state (obviously). In this state 11 (yes, only 11) people are licensed to collect wild reptiles.

2. You can't just buy this license. A lot of people have been refused, and some who now hold it had considerable hardship obtaining one. There is also a considerable financial outlay with enclosures, etc. to get set up in the first place.

3. Where are all the pythons going to come from for WA keepers and breeders if not from the wild? It is ILLEGAL to import a python into WA. All captive pythons in collections today have descended from a wild caught animal.

4. CALM will be adding and removing animals from the list as captive stocks reach a self sustaining level. Remember not all reptile owners breed their animals and not all wild caught animals will breed, either.

5. What private breeding restrictions are there? A private person in WA can breed legally obtained animals as much as they want. If they have 10 pairs of stimis and 10 pairs of BHP's they can breed them until the cows come home with NO RESRICTIONS. It is only if a private person wants to sell more than one clutch from any species in a calender year that they need to obtain a farmer's license and register as a breeder.

 

[womas4me]

That said, can you justify the claim of very high profit. Of course there are overheads and royalties. These reduce this 'very high profit' down considerably. A tyre on my vehicle costs $240. If I blow a tyre while catching one stimson's where is my profit? Some collectors travel for 7-8 hours one way and then may spend a week in that location to obtain certain animals. This costs money don't forget and the only reimbursement is the sales we make.

As for morally right or wrong- we don't care in the slightest what others think. That is for members of this site to debate and reach their own conclusions. If you feel so strongly about it, why don't you complain to CALM yourself instead of putting it on a website like this?
Complaints can be adressed to:
Department of Conservation and Land Management
Wildlife Branch
Locked Bag 104
Bentley Delivery Centre
Bentley
WA 6983

We also are not having a personal attack against anybody on this site or the site itself, but it does seem some of you make your own conclusions instead of researching the facts first.

Jim and Rach

 

[jimmy_the_kid]

3. Where are all the pythons going to come from for WA keepers and breeders if not from the wild? It is ILLEGAL to import a python into WA. All captive pythons in collections today have descended from a wild caught animal.

lol arnt all reptiles or any pet animals for that mater desendents to wild caught animals lol

 

[dobermanmick]

I dont know I think i will sit on the fence on this one

 

[jimmy_the_kid]

u bloody fence sitter

 

[Gregory]

A tyre on my vehicle costs $240. If I blow a tyre while catching one stimson's where is my profit?

How can you use the small chance of a blown tyre to rationalise high prices?

As for morally right or wrong- we don't care in the slightest what others think.

No, because you're not thinking morally. How can you justify taking animals from the wild and profiteering from them? Regardless of whether it's legal or not? What restrictions are placed on your licence as to how many animals you can collect?

If you feel so strongly about it, why don't you complain to CALM yourself instead of putting it on a website like this?

Because websites like this are the perfect forum to find popular opinion.
Why have websites like this if the hard questions can't be answered as well?

We also are not having a personal attack against anybody on this site or the site itself, but it does seem some of you make your own conclusions instead of researching the facts first.

Exactly what I was doing, trying to find out the facts.



Greg

 

[Guest]

wow, i'm out.

 

[ether]

There prices are extreme, $200 just to export a reptile. We pay $20 in NSW. Why is WA so far behind. Do they have anything against keeping reptiles?

Regards Alex

 

[NoOne]

I must say Greg, i'm with you on this one.....wild collecting in any way really gets to me....with most species there is NO need at all to keep catching....the only need is greed.
There are some speices in that have no captive populations....and to me i think it should stay that way....onepellies are something i think should be left alone i see no need to collect animals like this......i like the fact that we no next to nothing about them.

 

[Simon_Archibald]

Firstly, I think that everyone who owns a reptile, has bred it and has sold it is in some way profiteering from a wild-caught animal as all were descendants from the wild. However you look at it, just because we might own captive-bred stock, by buying any reptile, we've effectively supported someone from the 70's-90's and onwards taking animals from the wild.

I understand and respect the opinions of people on both sides of this argument though, because some valid points can be raised for each.

The most exciting thing though (and Sdaji said it in the Pilbara Stimsons advert) about being able to keep wild-caught reptiles from these areas is that they can be guaranteed locality-pure and this can be preserved in captive collections basically forever. As it is unfortunately, a lot of our current captive stock is mix-and-matched.

Good topic to bring up Greg...sure to get the brains ticking over.

Simon Archibald

 

[hugsta]

I personally don't agree with taking from the wild, however, there is always exceptions to the rule. But I just want to know a couple of things.

Does CALM put a number on the amount of any one species that can be taken from the wild?

Surely if you had enough of one species then you are bound to end up with some that breed.

Why don't CALM only permit those ppl that have permits to only sell what has been captive bred?

As for cost of setups and finding the animals it's not much different to buying captive bred. You still have to buy the enclosures and you still have purchase the animal. The only difference is you guys get to catch it and not breed it. I know I would love to be able to go out into the wild and catch reptiles for minimal cost and then sell them.
In fact I pay to go and see them in the wild, look at them, photo them and then carry on leaving the animals behind and thinking geez that was worth 200 or 300 dollars.

I am not having a go at you guys over there as I know if I was there I would be doing the same. It just seems that CALM have a bad way of doing things. IMO

 

[Sdaji]

I've tried to keep quiet on this one, but argh, I can't help it!

Gregory, if wild animals can be taken for profit, without damaging the populations, do you have a problem with it? I eat fish, they are harvested from the wild, someone is profiting from me buying them. I eat kangaroo, I buy it from someone who shoots them in the wild for profit. We all use paper, this is often produced by the destruction of natural forest, again, someone profits.

I have a small problem with the way the animals are being collected, but I think it's absolutely wonderful that it's being done, even if it's not in the absolute best way. As long as those collecting them are doing it responsibly, I certainly don't have anything against them and would even go as far as buying them if the right animal was available at the right price (although I think I'll be waiting for captive bred offspring of these wild caught animals, for various reasons, mostly because I'm happy for someone else to do the work of producing captive bred offspring which are better animals to keep).

I think it would be silly to say that the animals shouldn't be collected at all (although I know many absolutely loathe the practise) and if private individuals aren't allowed to do it (and although this is the way I would have thought best, within many restrictions, I admit this would have carried its own problems) then there has to be profit involved for someone to go out and collect them. I would rather pay $800 or so for someone to collect 8 stimmies for me than get my own, because I know that it would take me a heck of a lot more than $800 to get there and spend time searching etc, and I may not even be able to find any. Yes, they're doing it on a large scale, which is why it's economically viable for them and yes, I agree the system isn't perfect, but can you think of a perfect system?

To say that profiteering from wild animals is wrong is just silly, I know that I am going to keep eating fish, kangaroo and all the other ones. People seem to lose the concept of reality when it comes to pet animals, somehow it's okay for someone to catch tonnes upon tonnes of fish, which will each be killed and eaten just once, but on the other hand it's wrong for a small number of reptiles to be taken which will each be carefully looked after for their entire lifetime and reproduce to provide babies which can found a new population.

As much as I cringe to say it, the legal sitation is important, it's important for it to happen within the law, because it makes things possible to keep track of and ensures, at least to some degree, that it is done responsibly. I know of illegal collecting which has been done hideously irresponsibly, I've literally felt violently ill when I've seen what poachers have done to large areas of habitat and at least to some degree, people doing it legally will be more responsible.

 

[dobermanmick]

Does CALM put a number on the amount of any one species that can be taken from the wild?

Surely if you had enough of one species then you are bound to end up with some that breed.

Why don't CALM only permit those ppl that have permits to only sell what has been captive bred?

Yes Hugsta i think you have made some valid points there
I do think they should have a quota on how many they can take
Also why should they sell adults and not just captive bred hatchies ?

At least if they want to build up there own captive bred colony surely that would be the way to do it .And it would reduce the amount of snakes taken from the wild .