Good suggestion Nightwing, but we as the Tarantula Community have no power to enforce something like that. Only NatCon could do the permits.

The higher ups like Taki and Dimitri and Cerat could perhaps suggest it at the next NatCon meeting, but it will take awhile, if you look at the whole baboon spider permit thing.

(read: if you have a problem with my views regarding mettalica, then don't read further)

IMO, I doubt the P. mettalica breeders are suffering to much. Most newbies I've spoken to list P. mettalica as highest on their list. I won't go into detail regarding my opinion of the little blue spider, but I think X. immanis is more worth R1200 a pop.

There are a lot of species that are being bred at this moment that hopefully will bring a little new life to the hobby, and some Tarantulas that aren't at breeding age yet, but will definetly be a major thing in SA when they're bred

So we just need to stick it out, stop breeding, enjoy the low prices we can get for Ami sp Panama and other cheap spiders.

EDIT: Oh yeah, I'm sure the importers are also kicking themselves for bringing in stuff that was expensive overseas, but nobody want's here. You know who y'all are whistle2

HeteroScuderia wrote:

What's ticking me off is that these profiteers don't even like tarantulas. They come in breed, make money, sell their T's and leave the real hobbyists to clean up the mess and try convince people that, money aside, this is still a cool hobby to be in.

Amean HeteroScuderia, that so true.

---

@ Martin
I was speaking with someone who breeds snakes, he said there is not really sort after or rare snakes that one can't get in the hobby any more, it is the quality of your stock and the service you offer the person, after you have sold the stock off. That what makes you a good breeder in these times.
Also a fair price on the stock.

---

@ Nightwing
It is a good Idea, but there is no way to control what people do outside of the hobby, different story if the hobby started with permits and things like this, like breeding of dogs and pure breeds but the hobby is all ready far to gone to start trying to fix it now with permits and things like that. (not talking about Baboon spider permits)
Before we had a ban on imports people weren't interested in breeding they would just import, and not every tom imported spiders only a handful would do so, this controlled prices and kept prices fairly low.
Then breeding become easy, and the people saw the amount of cash that could be made from egg sacks, so they cranked the prices, using the term of supply and demand to justify the high prices, and justify the hard work that goes into breeding spiders.

The biggest problem is that we support the fly by nights and the greedy money making people, so we only have ourselves to blame for this problem.

Would of been better if we had controlled the price of the spider being sold, that in my opinion would of been much better, regardless of what we say and what we want there is a problem with spiders getting flooded but we will just have to deal with it for the time being.

I can't see it being able to be policed or controlled. Basically I feel that it's a maturity issue, our hobby in SA hasn't reached maturity yet and will be doing so sooner rather than later. In Europe and the USA for example, they obviously hit the saturation point a loooong time ago and obviously what has to happen next is that only the real die hard breeders that do it properly professionally can survive!
B smithi's still command a respectable price overseas as an example.
The fly by night's (not generalising but there's plenty of people who are mating things incorrectly out there), will do damage to the hobby and I for one, would only be comfortable buying a sling from someone I trust 100% to have the correct species. I will happily pay R100 instead of R20 to get a PROPER B vagans for example....

It boils down to whether or not you view the spiders as a hobby or an investment/commercial opportunity. Sure, I get irritated when a spider I spent megabux on a few months ago suddenly becomes cheap seemingly overnight but I’m not in the business of selling spiders.

Overbreeding of pet species is a massive problem in the States but their spider (or reptile, or any pet) community hasn’t collapsed, in the end, those who really love the hobby will stay with it.

I agree with everyone’s postings thus far with the proviso that the relevent organs of SA Gov. cant and wont regulate the hobby in any way that we could accept. IMO, just check out all the illegal animals on Junkmail, there’s no way we can control breeding, as nice as that would be.

Keep introducing new species and people to the hobby, don’t breed with flooded species, don’t support the fly-by-nights, enjoy your specimens and hope to God the hobby never degenerates into a Cycad-Collector type of mentality, 'cos then we're screwed!

Support those who breed for the love of the thing as Taki points out, you get what you pay for and after-sales service is priceless.

And hands up for the guys, who are trying so hard to get captive bred locals into our collections legally, expand the hobby and conserve our own unique biodiversity, that rocks big time!

Yes its not a perfect solution and has its pros and cons. Its just a suggestion to try and regulate things a bit better and discourage fly by night practices, making things more difficult for them. The Consumer AKA us will rather choose to get his pets from a reputable person or pet shop getting it from a reputable breeder rather than getting it off the "black market"

What can certainly be done, is that we as members of this forum can nominate breeders we know of and trust - as "tarantulas.co.za approved breeders" and anyone else wanting to breed need only apply to be a member for a small annual fee like R50 that can go towards the site. We then turn that title in to a requirement that people should look out for when buying spiders.

If you are a new breeder, you will need two other registered breeders on the site to vote for you to become eligible and then the a board of breeders can make the final decision.

In the beginning, nobody would pay it any mind and T's would still be selling all over the place, but eventually it would start becoming the "better idea" to buy from a tarantulas.co.za approved breeder. I will even design us a logo that approved breeders can use, and each approved breeder will have a unique breeder number which can be verified here on the site.

So for example if someone wanted to buy from a breeder and wanted to make sure he is an approved breeder, the breeder can give his customer his breeder number and we could have a dedicated page here on this site that is only accessible by Taki and Dimitri, where the customer can come and check the details and breeder number for the specific breeder.

This will not solve the worlds tarantula problems and scrupulous sellers will always be out there - but this gives consumers the option of rather buying from someone reputable and will not only curb excessive breeding because approved breeders will be keeping track of what is and is not being bred, but it will also prevent poor unknowing noobs from buying "Theraphosa paraybana's" lol.

This is my suggestion. use it, don't use it. Flame it Grill it, but consider it.

HS