dear german aquarists

[Ollie Mengedoht]

Wolfgang,

I agree with THAT! Of course there are some things that should be controled better and in general there are of course situations and species that shouldn't be exported. Of course either there are also often export conditions which kill more animals than survive – what's wrong either (and gradually our importeurs tend to inform the exporteurs of HOW they should send which invertebrate). Of course no animal should be exported under wrong conditions – like most of the time Uca species come in fresh water and often with newspaper paper, what is of course their death.

But indeed we want to inform people, especially BEFORE they buy crabs! We research conditions to keep and to breed those animals, we work together with the best known scientists around the world and we warn not to keep this or that species because of different causes if we think this is the better way.

Especially Geosesarma species are quite often endangered because their habitats and their distribution is too small to face a big withdrawal of animals. On the other hand it seems more than ever necessary to keep those endangered species in captivity and breed 'em because elde a simple local catastrophe or habitat destruction of humans could extinguish them! So obviously yes, it is wrong to export SUCH species in high numbers. There should not be taken more than a few dozen of those animals and with them You have to start a breeding program.