Reptile & Amphibian Forums

The number of subadults/adults that have come available in the last few weeks is amazing. It reminds me of back in the day when pancakes were throw away tortoises that you could buy at any pet shop for $60. I'd love to know where all these animals are coming from. Any thoughts out there?

See posts from December 29th 2005

Tanzania

I'm not TOO bitter...

Yes, they were all VERY likely small WC animals, grown in the UK to a size over 4" and shipped to the US with illegal CBB paperwork. But, who really cares... right?! So much for trying to be a Captive breeder of them... Okay, sorry to rant. Pretty much a similar deal as with Spiders a few years ago. Maybe we'll get lucky and they will do the same with Radiata or Ploughshares!

Matt

>>The number of subadults/adults that have come available in the last few weeks is amazing. It reminds me of back in the day when pancakes were throw away tortoises that you could buy at any pet shop for $60. I'd love to know where all these animals are coming from. Any thoughts out there?

Matt, don't worry about this too much. With the exception of Russian tortoises (and I hope I'm wrong about them as well ultimately) no tortoise species in the wild will sustain consistent importation enough to supply the pet trade.
Spider tortoises are a good example. Huge influx of adults almost 10 years ago, only a certain percentage of which actually acclimated and did well in captivity, and finally only a smaller % of those which have gone on to sucessfully produce captive babies. Now importation has ceased and people have to rely on those who produce the captive offspring.
Stars were the same. All the 4inch plus so-called European captive bred animals poured into the country a few years ago and people sold them dirt cheap. Rarely did they establish well and now you hardly see those that you would identify as the imports. For those people who had the foresight to keep their adult mainland star groups I would say hold on a little longer because this will come around again and healthy captive mainlands will be in demand once again.
Pancakes should be similar to either of these. The imported adults will not establish all that well and the most likley people to be successful with them are the ones who already keep them and have a vested interest in maintaining their market value. My advice would be to pick some up. Diversify your bloodlines and hold on until they become scarce. It will happen. I can almost guarantee it. Good luck...

of course, an alternate strategy would be to decline to purchase any tortoise, including pancakes, if you suspect at all that they might be imports. This would go a long way toward relieving pressure on them in the wild and might eventually lead to them surviving in the wild long-term, while wanton collection of either adults or juveniles will lead to their extinction.

Ideally, that is the case. Unfortunately, we have to deal with the reality which is that these animals are here and the responsible thing to do is to try to establish them. Several of the people who frequent this forum are ideally suited to do that unlike the occasional person who buys them on impulse at a pet store or reptile show.
I appreciate the idea that withdrawal of support of the animal trade would ultimately end demand for the animals and stop collection but when habitat is not guaranteed, we are just choosing an alternative means of pushing these animals to extinction. The Madagascan tortoises are an example of species that will undoubtedly disappear as their habitat is "developed". I would be afraid that if no effort is made to breed these animals in captivity, there is no hope for them. Of course, we could always argue whether an existence in someone's basement or specialty zoos is better than extinction but I'll hold off on that for now.

For tortoises already in US collections, then yes, of course we should be eager to captive breed them. But it is absolutely not true that they or any other tortoise, including Malagasy species, are going to be extinct in the wild anyway, so why not collect them. That is absolutely not the case, and I'm speaking as a biologist who has worked with wild endangered tortoise populations. That is what hobbyists tell themselves to rationalize the keeping of animals that they find cool and fascinating.

What is true is that there are torts that may go extinct due to collecting for the pet trade, and if the export of the torts were banned and strictly enforced, their monetary value would plunge and exports would drop. Pancakes are a good example - they are not eaten widely, being small and secretive - their main threat is the pet trade.

I believe in the value of captive breeding, but I also believe that hobbyists (casual ones at least, as opposed to dedicated breeder) pose a major threat to the existence of many chelonians.

This is a very interesting post, Simias. While I appreciate your viewpoint and I may even agree with you on several points I have a few comments that I need to make.

Firstly, if you have evidence to suggest that the Malagasy tortoises (Pyxis specifically) are not in significant danger, published evidence, evidence that they are abundant in secure habitat, I'd love to have it as I've been asked to write a review about them and I am not nearly as hopeful about their future. Discussions I had with John Behler prior to his death regarding Madagascar served only to strengthen my notion that unless significant changes are made in how deforestation is being handled there, it is only a matter of time before the island is paved.

As far as the pet trade is concerned, there is no evidence to support that quotas or enforcement of importation laws will change anything. It never has. Firstly, the countries of origin in most cases have neither the resources, nor the desire to enforce regulations. It is very difficult to convince a person who's net annual income is $30 that selling a tortoise or a snake or monkey, that they otherwise would have eaten, for a dollar is a bad idea. Secondly there will always be an alternative means to funnel animals into this country. The recent influx of star tortoises is evidence of that. Sure, the US has strict laws preventing the importation of these animals before they reach 4 inches. So what happens? They are collected,(illegally) raised until they reach the 4 inch threshold and are brought here through Europe or somewhere else. Of course, along the way, there is a significant death rate and once they make it here, the percentage that die only increases.
So, the next thing we could all do is decide that we will not purchase anything that we suspect is wild caught. So those importers who are holding the pancakes decide that instead of trying to sell them for $400, they drop their price to $150. You can be sure that as you drop the price you will attract an entire new class of "hobbyist", to use your term, who will purchase these. I've seen it happen. When Egyptian tortoises were abundant and $69 at Petland you couldn't keep enough of them in stock. Every single one would sell. Of course, price them at $500 and you will only get serious, committed "collectors". Those who have a vested interest in getting them to reproduce.

"That is what hobbyists tell themselves to rationalize the keeping of animals that they find cool and fascinating". Such an indictment. I've heard this so many times. I'm not going to argue that it is not true in some cases. I hope that the bulk of this audience is sophisticated enough to not fall into this category of "hobbyist". This is a statement that a scientist makes. Well, I have to admit, I am a scientist as well. The difference is that I've had 20 years around these animals, and around the so-called "pet industry" for my opinions to evolve.

The notion that these animals are only safe in the hands of "scientists" is far from true. Their fate rests in the hands of government which will secure habitat at a time when every economic incentive would direct efforts in the opposite direction, with scientists who will hopefully help government to identify both the animals at risk and the most effective means of conserving them and finally with concerned, responsible captive breeders. I can tell you, find a few hundred acres of secure, suitable habitat in Madgascar and it will not be difficult to find successful breeders in this country that could repopulate that country with genetically diverse groups of all the animals that exist there.

Wow, this has been an incredibly long message. I will finish by saying that my viewpoint is not very far from yours, Simias. I am disgusted when I see 3 Russian tortoises and a forest hingeback in a 20 gallon tank at the local petstore. My comments are not to suggest that we should have animals pouring into this country from all over the world to support an "exotic fetish". But I do believe that the solution to this problem is complex and involves many groups of people, not one of which has any chance of arriving at the solution on its' own. Unfortunately, these diverse groups have never demostrated an ability to work together and I'm not hopeful that that will change anytime soon. We operate in a vacuum, very separate from each other. No chance of that succeeding...

Just a brief clarification to your long and well thought out post. First, clearly what I said pertains mostly to the masses of hobbyists who are not about to dedicate years to establishing assurance colonies. But I do not think that 'only scientists' should be involved. In my field and captive work (Asian tortoises), I work with folks from across the spectrum, including many serious hobbyists. But it is in my view indisputably true that there are many species for which the pet trade is the real villain, and it's a cop out to say that we shouldn't shut if down because a black market will thrive anyway.

When I mentioned Madagascar, I was talking about radiata, which are plain abundant in the right, protected habitat accordinng to recent censuses, population may approach 1 million animals. Pyxis may be a whole other story.

I worked in wildlife research and conservation for 20 years also, and I've seen common species go nearly exinct not for food, but as pets (Burmese stars for example). Herp hobbyists tend to have a libertarian, anti-gov't streak which often renders them unable to embrace conservation measures.

For the priciest hobbyist tortoises, I can accept the smugggling of a few very high priced CITES I species, because the overall effect of export/import bans is better protection of the whole species, even when enforcement is weak and third world governments are corrupt. I've worked a lot with such gov'ts, and the results are real.

Craig Stanford
Univ Southern California

The odd thing is that many of them aren't even 4". Makes you wonder if they are really being imported from Europe or if they are just being shipped through the post office from somewhere.
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Michael
http://turtletracker.com

I agree both ways. I think it is a huge shame for these pancakes to be brought in this way. And I have under a good word that the major source of these is under investigation and hopefully this time something will come of it. I think if someone offers you these animals then says Ok I have to order them in etc blah blah blah stay away, but for the animals in the states I think purchasing them and starting different bloodlines wouldn't hurt. Especially after reading alot of these suppliers who swear to their "CB" status and why are they so clean and flat with '0' pyramiding? Oh because "they were kept in humid enclosures". If adults are kept in high humidity it will definitely lead to their demise, why do you think the breeders in FLA rarely keep them? So obviously they have no idea about how to keep them, so I would only assume they would be keeping them incorrectly until their iminent death. I own 11, 1.2 adults, 1.3 young adults and the rest are yearlings. All are CB and I am not ashamed to say these all have very minor pyramiding which is a good indication of true CB animals of this species, seeing the prices of these makes me look like a jack a$$ for spending what I did on mine, but at least I know mine are CB. As far as the smaller ones coming in I think it is one of 2 things. I think there were a good amount of true cb babies produced and before the flood came in they had word of the aminals set to land here and got rid of them to make some sort of cash before the adults came in cheaper. But if they were illegally smuggled in you can get all sizes. Hopefully my adults who hump every night will produce some nice babies this year. AND I WILL GAURANTEE CB animals.

BTW Will the turtle is doing awesome, you know which one, and hopefully some proof will be in the making VERY SOON!