How to make a career (ethically) capturing and dealing wildlife in 2023?

[Great Argus]

They do share large swaths of native range, but not all of it. American bullfrogs aren't native to here in Colorado, and northern leopard frogs are considered an endangered species here as well.

They are native to Colorado - just the Eastern half and they have been introduced elsewhere in the state.
American Bullfrog (Lithobates catesbeianus) - Species Profile

Do some private exotic breeders work with unusual species? Of course. Is it the majority? Not even close. What happened to "the big picture"?

Hmm... someone seems to be little versed in the immense species realm that is the private realm here. Numerous species have far better strongholds here in the private trade than the zoos, from antelope to venomous snakes to fish. You might find some surprises looking into it.

 

[TinoPup]

I'm also not defending doing anything illegal, but that doesn't seem to matter to you anyway.

It's near impossible to do this without doing something illegal, though. It's like asking how to be a drug dealer. There are legal ways to do that - by being a pharmacist - but it's a lot less profitable, which you keep mentioning, and it's specifically called that. You are using terms and descriptions that go along with people who aren't so concerned with ethics or morals or regulations. Your problems with AZA regulations adds to that appearance.

 

[La Cucaracha]

It's near impossible to do this without doing something illegal, though. It's like asking how to be a drug dealer. There are legal ways to do that - by being a pharmacist - but it's a lot less profitable, which you keep mentioning, and it's specifically called that. You are using terms and descriptions that go along with people who aren't so concerned with ethics or morals or regulations. Your problems with AZA regulations adds to that appearance.

I don't have a problem with AZA regulations. I just have a problem with some people that think an unaccredited zoo is inherently a roadside zoo.
There are still permitting systems in various jurisdictions for the commercial collection of fish and reptiles.

They are native to Colorado - just the Eastern half and they have been introduced elsewhere in the state.
American Bullfrog (Lithobates catesbeianus) - Species Profile



Hmm... someone seems to be little versed in the immense species realm that is the private realm here. Numerous species have far better strongholds here in the private trade than the zoos, from antelope to venomous snakes to fish. You might find some surprises looking into it.

And with that said I'm not wasting any more of my time here as I am now completely convinced you're just here looking for somewhere to argue.

They're still not native to large parts where they compete with northern leopard frogs. But I guess that is an entire topic on its own.
Somehow I'm not convinced you actually like that addax, scimitar horned oryx, dama gazelles, and others are raised in hunting ranches for profit. Yet another topic I don't think would go well here.
Very well - I'll walk away from this with my only ethics being anything legal.

Well the invert hobby does not condemn wild capture for many species. I know of many collectors collecting unkept roaches, beetles and other under represented species such as harvestmen and start colonies and sell them. Are the U.S native tarantulas commonly bred?

I see the hobby and zoos alike are just starting to catch up with captive breeding tarantulas to take pressure off wild populations, but it's largely South American species. Josh's Frogs I believe breeds Arizona blonds.
I have a penchant for American southwestern critters myself, so this is what I would get into if I got into breeding spiders. Perhaps a species of Old World tarantula as well.
Before anybody acts like I'm betraying the piaba fishermen in Brazil, this is an area of wildlife trade with little to no regulation. In some parts of the world, tarantulas are even consumed at an irreplaceable rate.

 

[splendens]

It's near impossible to do this without doing something illegal, though. It's like asking how to be a drug dealer. There are legal ways to do that - by being a pharmacist - but it's a lot less profitable, which you keep mentioning, and it's specifically called that. You are using terms and descriptions that go along with people who aren't so concerned with ethics or morals or regulations. Your problems with AZA regulations adds to that appearance.

There are definitely ways to collect species legally especially invertebrates if you have licenses/permits and the know how.

 

[Fresco3]

I just want to say at this point that, you keep saying ‘I won’t do x and I have x ethics’ but you’ve demonstrated several times in this thread this is not the case. For a start, you’ve stated in that hot takes thread that you want animal rights and animal welfare to be separate entities, I agree with this. But you’ve demonstrated a significant disregard for animal welfare - because at the end of the day your entire thread here seems to be about capturing wild animals and placing them in captivity because it’s something you enjoy. There’s no regard for the ethics of animal welfare there whatsoever. No consideration for the need/benefit of catching x species on conservation. In addition, you’re hoping that it can make you a liveable wage. Coupled with your talk of being pro-circuses, I thinks it’s very clear that you are not interested at all in the ethics of animal welfare at the individual level, because in your own words ‘you enjoy capturing wild animals’..

You seem more focused on the ‘legal’ ethics of the whole scheme, saying you wouldn’t dare break laws etc. Do you think if the industry was that simple, Wildlife trafficking wouldn’t be a massive criminal enterprise worldwide? You may start with good intentions but at the end of the day, 95% of Wildlife trading on this planet will be of the illegal variety, because that’s where the money is, and thousands of people are arrested every year for that very reason. Once you dip your toe in the marginal/tiny industry of legal animal imports, you’ll find yourself in competition with those illegally importing wildlife and then what will you do? Follow suit to stay in business + keep up your passion and just start collecting specimens from areas that you’re not supposed to/species you’re not allowed to catch. Or let others carry on illegally collecting while you scrape the barrel in a highly competitive environment against others who are ‘cheating’ the game…

People can mean well but that doesn’t mean anything when money and crime comes into the picture. I used to be relatively involved in commercial fishing for the food industry, the amount of well-meaning fishermen who were catching undersized fish and collecting undersized shellfish because their competitors were doing it was unbelievable. Just one or two boats start doing it and within a year or so they all were. Because they had to to survive. If they didn’t their livelihood would go under and they simply convinced themselves that if everyone else was doing it, them not doing would mean somebody else would just take their place. And so, they would all happily catch undersized fish to sell.

Animal trafficking is a dangerous and unethical (both in the welfare and conservation senses) path unless very carefully managed by those assessing populations. It should be done on a basis of needing and benefiting conservation in captive populations, not simply collecting specimens for sale. Even if legal in some areas, it doesn’t make it beneficial or ethical, it simply means it’s not considered to be too damaging ‘yet’.

 

[La Cucaracha]

I just want to say at this point that, you keep saying ‘I won’t do x and I have x ethics’ but you’ve demonstrated several times in this thread this is not the case. For a start, you’ve stated in that hot takes thread that you want animal rights and animal welfare to be separate entities, I agree with this. But you’ve demonstrated a significant disregard for animal welfare - because at the end of the day your entire thread here seems to be about capturing wild animals and placing them in captivity because it’s something you enjoy. There’s no regard for the ethics of animal welfare there whatsoever. No consideration for the need/benefit of catching x species on conservation. In addition, you’re hoping that it can make you a liveable wage. Coupled with your talk of being pro-circuses, I thinks it’s very clear that you are not interested at all in the ethics of animal welfare at the individual level, because in your own words ‘you enjoy capturing wild animals’..

You seem more focused on the ‘legal’ ethics of the whole scheme, saying you wouldn’t dare break laws etc. Do you think if the industry was that simple, Wildlife trafficking wouldn’t be a massive criminal enterprise worldwide? You may start with good intentions but at the end of the day, 95% of Wildlife trading on this planet will be of the illegal variety, because that’s where the money is, and thousands of people are arrested every year for that very reason. Once you dip your toe in the marginal/tiny industry of legal animal imports, you’ll find yourself in competition with those illegally importing wildlife and then what will you do? Follow suit to stay in business + keep up your passion and just start collecting specimens from areas that you’re not supposed to/species you’re not allowed to catch. Or let others carry on illegally collecting while you scrape the barrel in a highly competitive environment against others who are ‘cheating’ the game…

People can mean well but that doesn’t mean anything when money and crime comes into the picture. I used to be relatively involved in commercial fishing for the food industry, the amount of well-meaning fishermen who were catching undersized fish and collecting undersized shellfish because their competitors were doing it was unbelievable. Just one or two boats start doing it and within a year or so they all were. Because they had to to survive. If they didn’t their livelihood would go under and they simply convinced themselves that if everyone else was doing it, them not doing would mean somebody else would just take their place. And so, they would all happily catch undersized fish to sell.

Animal trafficking is a dangerous and unethical (both in the welfare and conservation senses) path unless very carefully managed by those assessing populations. It should be done on a basis of needing and benefiting conservation in captive populations, not simply collecting specimens for sale. Even if legal in some areas, it doesn’t make it beneficial or ethical, it simply means it’s not considered to be too damaging ‘yet’.

While I understand that legal does not necessarily mean sustainable, I think you're still melding animal rights and animal welfare. While I may want to catch a northern leopard frog to trade or sell with appropriate permits, another man may want to eat it. Which is better?

While yes, illegal wildlife trafficking is the third largest illicit market after guns and drugs, you're essentially insinuating that I would inevitably break the law because greed would get the best of me and that I'm competing directly with poachers. This is a very jaded view of a legitimate wildlife trade, which conservation biologists actually work hard to make sustainable.

 

[Lafone]

While I understand that legal does not necessarily mean sustainable, I think you're still melding animal rights and animal welfare. While I may want to catch a northern leopard frog to trade or sell with appropriate permits, another man may want to eat it. Which is better?

While yes, illegal wildlife trafficking is the third largest illicit market after guns and drugs, you're essentially insinuating that I would inevitably break the law because greed would get the best of me and that I'm competing directly with poachers. This is a very jaded view of a legitimate wildlife trade, which conservation biologists actually work hard to make sustainable.

I think you probably need to avoid over using straw man arguments in every thread. It’s something you do a lot in posing questions which don’t have a comparison / are just not valid. This is something you did in the hot tales thread and it just distracts.

While you might want to catch an animal someone may want to jump up and down on it singing the greatest hits of Bing Crosby. So what. The latter has no impact on the former. The latter does not make the former good. Worse things do not automatically make bad things better.

 

[La Cucaracha]

I think you probably need to avoid over using straw man arguments in every thread. It’s something you do a lot in posing questions which don’t have a comparison / are just not valid. This is something you did in the hot tales thread and it just distracts.

While you might want to catch an animal someone may want to jump up and down on it singing the greatest hits of Bing Crosby. So what. The latter has no impact on the former. The latter does not make the former good. Worse things do not automatically make bad things better.

> While you might want to catch an animal someone may want to jump up and down on it singing the greatest hits of Bing Crosby.

The latter is categorically criminal animal abuse, probably punishable as a felony.
But thanks for trying to help my argument. Better I learn to hone it now than later.

 

[Fresco3]

While I understand that legal does not necessarily mean sustainable, I think you're still melding animal rights and animal welfare. While I may want to catch a northern leopard frog to trade or sell with appropriate permits, another man may want to eat it. Which is better?

While yes, illegal wildlife trafficking is the third largest illicit market after guns and drugs, you're essentially insinuating that I would inevitably break the law because greed would get the best of me and that I'm competing directly with poachers. This is a very jaded view of a legitimate wildlife trade, which conservation biologists actually work hard to make sustainable.

I think in that one paragraph you’ve demonstrated you don’t understand the two concepts of welfare and rights. It is not animal rights to acknowledge the physical and mental welfare implications of capturing, transporting and permanently holding wild-born animals in captivity. A Northern Leopard Frog that is captured, killed and eaten may have much better welfare than one captured, transported and then held in captivity given the stessors that can place on the individual animal. You trying to conflate that as animal rights demonstrates a severe lack of understanding of the subject.

As per point b, I am not going to repeat myself again. The legal side of animal imports is nothing like what you’re suggesting you’d like to do. It’s a carefully managed programme based on benefits to captive breeding populations. Not just capturing and selling to whomever will buy. But doing what you want to do based on what you’ve stated, you don’t want to do that, that would require working with conservation organisations and being involved in breeding programmes for specific species. You want to simply capture herps and fish to supply to any institution that will pay. Doing it this way is a direct spit in the face of conservation biologists (I say this as one) and you WILL inevitably end up in competition with other specimen collectors whom will break the law by following dubious collection practices as that is simply the nature of the beast. It’s highly competitive and stocks are limited where heavy regulations exist. How is this combated and income supplemented? People collect from outside permitted areas, capture species they’re not meant to capture. It’s a tale as old as time and pretending it doesn’t happen globally is foolish.

 

[La Cucaracha]

I think in that one paragraph you’ve demonstrated you don’t understand the two concepts of welfare and rights. It is not animal rights to acknowledge the physical and mental welfare implications of capturing, transporting and permanently holding wild-born animals in captivity. A Northern Leopard Frog that is captured, killed and eaten may have much better welfare than one captured, transported and then held in captivity given the stessors that can place on the individual animal. You trying to conflate that as animal rights demonstrates a severe lack of understanding of the subject.

As per point b, I am not going to repeat myself again. The legal side of animal imports is nothing like what you’re suggesting you’d like to do. It’s a carefully managed programme based on benefits to captive breeding populations. Not just capturing and selling to whomever will buy. But doing what you want to do based on what you’ve stated, you don’t want to do that, that would require working with conservation organisations and being involved in breeding programmes for specific species. You want to simply capture herps and fish to supply to any institution that will pay. Doing it this way is a direct spit in the face of conservation biologists (I say this as one) and you WILL inevitably end up in competition with other specimen collectors whom will break the law by following dubious collection practices as that is simply the nature of the beast. It’s highly competitive and stocks are limited where heavy regulations exist. How is this combated and income supplemented? People collect from outside permitted areas, capture species they’re not meant to capture. It’s a tale as old as time and pretending it doesn’t happen globally is foolish.

Yes, capture can be stressful for animals. I'm not anti animal welfare for enjoying catching a frog and taking it with me, nor does it mean I have a disregard for animal welfare for wanting to sell it. It's all in how you do it; which is sadly missing from this entire conversation because it's been taken philosophically instead of practically.

Conservation biologists also set bag limits for commercial collectors.
Obtain a Collection Permit for Reptiles and Amphibians.

The main criticisms of my desired activity are that I would personally inevitably do something illegal because of competition with those that don't follow the law, which is a slippery slope fallacy.

 

[CGSwans]

... t's all in how you do it; which is sadly missing from this entire conversation because it's been taken philosophically instead of practically.

Don't you hate it when all you want to do is pay lip service to ethics, but other people take it seriously?

 

[Great Argus]

It's all in how you do it; which is sadly missing from this entire conversation because it's been taken philosophically instead of practically.

Because the first question should be "ethically, should I do this?" not, "how do I do this?" and asking ethics questions later. Thus most of us stop at the ethics question.

 

[La Cucaracha]

Because the first question should be "ethically, should I do this?" not, "how do I do this?" and asking ethics questions later. Thus most of us stop at the ethics question.

The question wasn't if it's ethical to field collect. It was what ethics should I consider, and how can it be done ethically.
Sadly, the discussion of ethical collecting I was hoping to have has been missed entirely in favor of posing collecting itself as an ethical dillema.

 

[CGSwans]

The question wasn't if it's ethical to field collect. It was what ethics should I consider, and how can it be done ethically.
Sadly, the discussion of ethical collecting I was hoping to have has been missed entirely in favor of posing collecting itself as an ethical dillema.

You have your answer, you just don't like it.

 

[La Cucaracha]

You have your answer, you just don't like it.

You're right in a way. I was really hoping to have more of a discussion about if it's more ethical to collect albino or leucistic instead of normal herps, or if adult female turtles should be left alone even if they can be collected legally.

But the implication that I would do something illegal because others do is both fallible and at this point circular.

 

[Great Argus]

I was really hoping to have more of a discussion about if it's more ethical to collect albino or leucistic instead of normal herps,

Of course, the rarity of said morphs would sink that option easily enough.

 

[15399]

But the implication that I would do something illegal because others do is both fallible and at this point circular.

I don't think the legality of an action is what truly matters in this case. Unfortunately, a lot of field collection is legal that probably shouldn't be, and except in very limited circumstances, I'm opposed to the collection of animals from the wild. Period. I don't care whether that animal is a cricket or an elephant. Unless it's an invasive species or unable to survive in the wild (e.g. injured, habituated to humans), then the right, responsible thing to do is let it continue living its life in the wild. For that reason, I guess the best answer I can give you is this: either collect only invasive species, or focus on wildlife rehabilitation. Those are the only ethical ways to do what you are suggesting.

 

[CGSwans]

You're right in a way. I was really hoping to have more of a discussion about if it's more ethical to collect albino or leucistic instead of normal herps, or if adult female turtles should be left alone even if they can be collected legally.

But the implication that I would do something illegal because others do is both fallible and at this point circular.

This is dishonest nonsense.

It's been very clearly laid out to you that the concept you have - of collecting wild animals and selling them to zoos - is an outdated one and that zoo ethics has largely moved on. In the rare cases where wild capture is still countenanced, your idea of trapping and selling is not how this occurs. Ergo, your proposal is unethical because only unethical actors would engage with you.

You might not like that fact, but it's true. You are now trying to imply that it is us who are being obtuse and circular in their reasoning. That is false.

 

[TeaLovingDave]

what ethics should I consider

If something is ethical or unethical, you shouldn't view it as a matter of which ethics you can pick and choose. If you know something is unethical, and decide not to take this fact into consideration for the purposes of personal convenience, that is entirely on you as are people's reactions when you admit to having this mindset.

 

[Simon Hampel]

I'm not sure this thread is going to achieve anything further of value - closing it.