interesting addition

[YK Thom]

The deed is done, regardless of which side of the fence you are on. It is now up to you to get everything set up properly and carry on. Good luck.

[meow]

I work in the construction trade. It is plain awful what we are doing to mother earth. I saved no less than 3 tiger salamanders last year alone. At least I hope I saved them....Many times we have dug up and around marshes. I am forever releasing frogs and salamanders and It's at the point were the guys will bring them to me. I am ashamed at what we are doing. I owned a native frog for years that I took away from a child. It was a member of the "family", but I knew it didn't belong in my home. Observe folks, observe.

[joeysgreen]

I caught 3 tiger salamanders yesterday. It was pretty amazing and my first adults in found in Alberta. Next to no habitat destruction and they were all released. Forgot the camera this time, doh!

[lordoftheswarms]

Originally Posted by FrogO_Oeyes

Most of the herps in captivity were taken from the wild, including the vast majority of available Phelsuma and Uroplatus.

I suppose, but I support captive breeding when I can. I've got most of my Uroplatus and Phelsuma from breeders in Alberta.
I suppose I'll do some double talk. Sustainable harvest is ok, which is what I hope my animals that are WC were part of, but what they were doing was field herping, and impulsive capture.

As YK Thom said, what's done is done. Take care of it now that you have it, but impulsive capture shouldn't be encouraged.

[KiKiKiKida]

Originally Posted by tychodragon

should any of the other members with tiger salamanders come to my defense or any for that matter?

I have a Tiger Salamander. He was caught by a little kid who dug up his home, and chucked him in a 5 gallon tank under a heat lamp, and with no water dish because the kid figured he didn't need one. Obviously the lamp did him no good, he became dehydrated and skinny, shriveled up and wouldn't eat. The kid finally got tired of it, and passed him off to me.

Don't you think he would have had a better life in a little burrow by a pond, with other tiger salamanders and lots to eat? Sure, he's healthy now, but I'd still love to release him if I could. He's a cool critter, and he deserves better than he's had.

Of course no one's gonna come to your defense, because a lot of us have experience with what often happens to critters when people take them out of their homes. Just my two cents, you've gotta take care of the salamander now. At least give him a better life than mine's had.

[ti-pite]

Originally Posted by FrogO_Oeyes

Catch-and-release is okay.



The latter is basically a major cause of amphibian declines worldwide. Batrachochytrium, and possibly Ranavirus, came from wild animals, were transfered to captive animals, and were then transfered to the wild by unsanitized tools and released animals! In North America, I suspect the following:
Xenopus [with chytrid] ===> lab
Lithobates pipiens [with Ranavirus] ===> lab
Lithobates pipiens [with Ranavirus AND chytrid] ===> released
result? Ranavirus and chytrid widespread in Alberta, and leopard frogs and Canadian toads severely declined especially near major cities!

Are these diseases present on the little dwarf clawed frogs we can buy at big al's or PJ's?

are you talking about a released dwarf african clawed frog? how could it survive in an alberta environment long enough to spread the disease among our native species?

[joeysgreen]

Pierre, both the chytrid and ranavirus are present in Alberta; I know that the chytrid is pretty wide spread, but am unsure about the ranavirus.

It doesn't take long for pathogens to spread. Think of it like catching a cold from a coworker. Infected frogs need only to pass on the disease to other amphibians, or in many cases, simply the environment itself. During a summer, a released animal could meet hundreds or thousands of other amphibians.

While I have known that these diseases are prevailent in Alberta, I have been designing an experiment that will look to see if there is a link between pet store animals and wild disease. Are we risking local populations simply by tossing used pet water down the drain? Are there any strains of the above two diseases that can be linked definitively to pet store sources? It's a costly endeavor and thus on hold for the next season or two, but I still hope to work on it sooner rather than later.

[FrogO_Oeyes]

Dwarf aquatic frogs and common clawed frogs are very different members of the same family. The latter is the problem animal. They survive and breed in southern England, and are spreading in California and elsewhere. They are banned in many American states, including Arizona, Washington, Oregon, and I think Nevada. In their natural range they survive on high altitude plateaus where the temperature drops many nights below freezing. Survival of aquatic species in harsh environments is a LOT easier than for terrestrial species, because liquid water by definition is not colder than 4C. It can be -50 three feet above in the open air, but under water it's a cozy and stable 4 degrees. There are plenty of locations in the tropics and subtropics where water may approach this temperature for at least part of the day. As long as starvation and suffocation aren't issues, an aquatic animal which handles that, can handle it anywhere.

However, that's beside the point. The issue [in this case] is not introduction of clawed frogs. It's introduction of the diseases they may carry. neither Batrachochytrium nor Ranavirus are host specific. In fact, I would not even consider chytrid to be a "parasite" in the usual sense. It's a fungus which feeds on keratin. It doesn't matter where that keratin comes from, but amphibians typically have plenty of it AND exist in moisture and temperature regimes suitable for the fungus. Reptiles have lots of keratin, but are usually too dry and often too hot for the fungus to live. Mammals and birds are both too hot and too dry. However, any old frog will do fine as a host. Even the clawed frog, which may be immune partly because it's slimy and fully aquatic and actually has little for the fungus to feed on.

Additionally, I never suggested that the fungus went from clawed frogs straight to the environment. Rather, it was spread in captivity to OTHER common classroom/lab animals like bullfrogs and leopard frogs. Those frogs, or the equipment they touched, WERE often turned loose, thus putting the pathogens into the environment. Chytrid doesn't need a host to survive - it can live and grow slowly in the soil and water. Thus, where amphibians have chytrid, the habitat in some senses has been destroyed, because there is no way to remove the fungus once it's there.

I haven't kept up with the statistics on the spread or prevalence of chytrid, but here are some tidbits:
1930's - clawed frogs exported globally for pregnancy testing
all dates - leopard frogs [in North America] widely used in labs and classrooms for dissection and other demonstrations. Excess animals often given to students and subsequently released
1950's - a bullfrog collected and preserved in Quebec. Decades later, found to be the oldest known specimen outside of Africa infected by chytrid.
1976/77 - leopard frogs in Alberta crash
1980's - Canadian toads in Alberta decline. Many species of frog globally decline or disappear, especially montane species in tropical or subtropical areas. The same species at lower altitudes often survive, while entire frog populations [all species] disappear at upper elevations.
1999 - Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis named as a new species and identified as a pathogen killing frogs around the world.
?? - bullfrogs implicated not only as a rapidly spreading introduced predator of smaller frogs, but ALSO a vector for chytrid. Living in lower altitude and warmer habitats, and being largely aquatic may protect the bullfrogs from harm, but other species they contact are often more vulnerable.
2010 - chytrid widespread in Alberta, and in a great many countries around the world. Madagascar holding it's own as chytrid-free, BUT two southern African frog species now introduced and could potentially have brought the fungus with them.

FYI - "dwarf African clawed frog" is probably not an appropriate name for dwarf aquatic frogs [Hymenochirus, Pseudhymenochirus]. There are dwarf clawed frogs of the genus Xenopus [and the nearly identical Silurana], and like the common clawed frogs, they don't look or behave much like the dwarf aquatic frogs [which are more similar to their bigger South American cousins, the Surinam toads - Pipa].

[ti-pite]

[QUOTE=meow;136660]I work in the construction trade. It is plain awful what we are doing to mother earth. ..QUOTE]

my favorite bumper sticker: a picture of planet earth, and beside is the caption: "respect your mother"

would look great on a hummer

[Alexanderyana]

interesting statment frog o eyes..interesting facts..I tend to forget about just introducing a spieces can be harmdful, instanstly it comes to mind that the animals would eat eachtother or just co exist, instead they bring visuses or diseases they are immune to but others who are not are killed ...such a beautiful interesting place we live in , I wish more people were interested in saving her