dear german aquarists

[Song]

Dear german aquarists,

I write here just a few miles away from Singapore and I have to tell something: Every day I see hundreds of packages filled with invertebrates, especially crabs which are caught and sent. Some of them are from Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, etc. and are exported to Europe and Germany via Singapore ! Can you give me an example where one has successfully breeded crabs, except Geosersarma? The animals are taken from the wild and CONSUMED! Only for making money with it. Our nature is already in danger because of deforestation etc.. Now european aquarists are a problem! I think you should be ashamed for helping destroying our natural environment. Crabs and other invertebrates which are not easy to breed should spend their life in their natural habitats!

And your bad synthetic-Photoshop-pictures never can be a reason for taking wild animals out of their environment!


That it was,
Song

[Ollie Mengedoht]

Dear Song,

I think it's a funny reasoning to argue that You EAT those animals and a few caught for aquaristic and scientific reasons shall be a danger for them? I think that is quite illogical.

Nonetheless – except from some Geosesarma species – we bred Pseudosesarma crassimanum and Nanosesarma sp. successfully already, our breeding of Cardisoma armatum (from West Africa) just failed in the very last stage. Either Parathelphusa pantherina and Potamon lirrangensis were bred in Germany already.

Also we have reports from friends who were at Your location and saw often (!) that crabs were wasted away from the exporteurs and thrown away immediately – they had to tell these people first what they were doing.

Another point: Dr. Peter K. L. Ng thinks about captive breeding programs for endangered species – like Johora singaporiensis for example! He wants to do this with our help because he's a taxonomist but we are keepers of crabs like these and sometimes know more of the conditions they need. We also tried to breed Thaiphusa sirikit because its habitat in Thailand is destroyed consequently and if we don't succeed in keepin and breeding them in captivity they will meet extinction quite soon.

Of course one always should consider IF a species is endangered and if it should be taken from the wild, You are right here. The yery few dozens or in some cases hundreds of crabs from one species imported to Germany I don't think are a big problem – and in many cases we ask local scientists like Ng or Shih (from Taiwan) what they think about this. Always there is the question if humans have the right to take wild animals out of their life into pet keeping. And not always this question is easy to answer… Take already endangered species out of the wild? If You ask me: Of course, more than ever one should do this and try to breed them in captivity so maybe in the future one can reintroduce them to their habitat if possible.

We don't keep crab for pets only but do research about them either. In case of Geosesarma for example we found out some breeding behaviour of the adult animals the science did not yet know. We don't keep every species we find either because if we can't give these animals the conditions they need we won't keep them. We only do or try this if we can give them conditions we think they can live in.

[Palinurus]

Dear Mr. Song

I agree to your opinion, that the trade of pets should be controlled better. And of course you are wright, that the demand in Europe, North-America or Australia is the main reason for catching these animals. But the first step should be done in the countries, the animals come from. But often customers of both sides don´t know these animals, or they don´t know if they are endangered. They are exported under wrong or fantasy names, sometimes with certificates obtained by corruption. Some of these critters aren´t still mentioned in the Washington list. But I think the greater threatening is the destroying of their habitats. Many mangrove belts had been destroyed for the breeding of prawns or shrimps. A increasing global population needs food and land. I understand this. But there is also the consumption of parts of tigers, rhino´s horns, seahorses, antlers of deers e.g. for dubious medical purposes. This forum is one way to inform before keeping delicate inverts and to prevent thoughtless buying of pets. E.g. we warned our members not to buy clams, which outer layer had been ground and coloured, or small shrimps in earrings. Provenience: south east Asia. I admit, we are consumers of inverts, but as it is now with many fishes, other people learned from amateurs like us how to keep and breed it in captivity. And that´s always the coronation of our efforts: if we succeed to breed a pet in captivity. Remember: the first Orang utans didn´t survive long in zoolocical gardens, but now the zoo orangs soon may be the last ones, if the wild ones are extincted in their natural habitats.

That´s my opinion

Wolfgang

[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.