Site Specific Pumilio, and Darts in General

[RichFrye]

I've read a few posts on the lack of availability of site specific frogs, pums especially. Almost all of the pums I work with are very site specific.
Here's an interesting take on why some froggers (who have not "done the math") are not overly concerned with site locals. They think that the lack of genetic material is going to thin the locals to a point to which the line is useless/sterile. B.S. Pure and simple.
Let's do the math. A pum can/should live over ten years. It's offspring can/should also. This is a potential for at least 20 years of a once removed for the wild line of pumilio. Once removed in 20 years. If you know what you are doing, and keep your frogs healthy. Any chance of there being more site specific pumilio from the known local being imported in those 20 years, and thus adding to the genetic mix? I'd say it is a very good chance.
The arguments for not wanting and working with site specific frogs do not add up.
Here's a simple question. Anyone working with and successfully breeding F3's , besides me? Anyone think that it is impossible to go to F3, F4, F5 without degradation genetically to the point of sterility? Because I have bred frogs to F5...
That would mean that at F5, we have a potential for the frogs to be in captivity for 60 years. Longer than I will most likely be in the hobby, and almost absolutely a longer period of time that we should expect more site specific frogs from those locals to be available in our hobby.
The bottom line. If you care about site locals (and everyone should) do something about it. You $$$ spent is your vote , and importer's/exporter's and breeder's incentive.
The math is simple people.

Rich

[RichFrye]

...and , after understanding that an F1 or F2 frog is a perfectly healthy and viable animal, let's throw another, separate line (collected from the same local, at the same time) WC into the breeding mix with the F1 or F2 (or even the original WC founder) and do some more math...

[jellyman]

I'm not sure if you are referring to the threads on the "other board" about the importance of site information but I believe the question that is evolving deals with the actual accuracy of site information. A frog is being named after site X, typically the name of the closest city or region. In that respect how does one know how far and in what direction site X is from the namesake. How is one to know that the original import X originated 5 miles west of the namesake and then 3 years later someone finds another group located 10 miles East of the namesake with frogs that look the same. Are these different morphs. Are these morphs seperated, do there territories overlap, are there territories seperate from one another. From what I understand most of the site information is more a generalization because the true local does not want to be revealed so others do not go in and collect the frogs(for protection of the frogs and protection of an investment).

I'm not sure there are enough honest collectors/importers/exporters to compensate for all the ones who are ony in it for the dollar.

One can always dream.

[RichFrye]

I'm not sure if you are referring to the threads on the "other board" about the importance of site information but I believe the question that is evolving deals with the actual accuracy of site information. A frog is being named after site X, typically the name of the closest city or region. In that respect how does one know how far and in what direction site X is from the namesake. How is one to know that the original import X originated 5 miles west of the namesake and then 3 years later someone finds another group located 10 miles East of the namesake with frogs that look the same. Are these different morphs. Are these morphs seperated, do there territories overlap, are there territories seperate from one another. From what I understand most of the site information is more a generalization because the true local does not want to be revealed so others do not go in and collect the frogs(for protection of the frogs and protection of an investment).

I'm not sure there are enough honest collectors/importers/exporters to compensate for all the ones who are ony in it for the dollar.

One can always dream.

It is true that many, if not most all, of the labels being thrown on pum imports are not accurate site locals. Most of the time it is a person looking at a picture on Tropical Experience and saying"wow, I have a san cristobal pumilio!" These are the 'best guesses'.
But there have been a number of imports where the people collecting the frogs have passed along the exact (or at least know) site local info. This is not a hard thing to do in the day of the sub-$100 GPS at any Walmart. They just happen to not be the ones where the natives are walking around grabbing any and all pums they find, throwing them into a communal holding bin, and then flying them out the next day...It's not hard to understand that it costs more money to do it the right way.
Marcus knows exactly where a number of his pum imports came from (ones after his original 'best guess imports') and the MSU pumilio I work with all have exact site data. There have also been a number of other imports with exact data. They just are not the ones that often get publicized on the chatty Board.
So, my point is that there are indeed a number of pumilio in our hobby that have exact local data. You just need to do some work to find out who is working with them, and confirm how they got their data. That, and not buy 'best guesses'.

Rich

[jellyman]

The real shame is that it is probably better not to have exact site locals released anyway so as to help prevent the over harvesting of an area even.

[RichFrye]

The real shame is that it is probably better not to have exact site locals released anyway so as to help prevent the over harvesting of an area even.

In some cases , such as Robalo, and a few other morphs which are not found in great abundance, that it probably true. There are however a great number of morphs which while in their locals ( locals not hard to find) you need to concentrate hard not to step on them, there are so many.

Rich

[RichFrye]

One other thing to remember. The exact site locals do not need to be 'published' on the web. Contrary to popular belief, there can be some 'behind the scenes ' work done to see if your site matches up with the next guys same morph site locals. There is a grey area as to how close these locals need to be to interbreed them in captivity. But not much, being that there are far fewer known local pums than not. Let's start on bringing in/buying only site local frogs, then we can further dissect exactly where so and so's frogs are from and what should be bred to what.
Many morphs in question such as Darkland, Esperanza, and Cauchero have distinct (in most cases) factors which separate them. Caucheros are larger than Darklands, Esperanzas have red popping up in the populations, and yet it is one 'continual population' of blue frogs. Blue frogs separated by rivers, valleys, and evolution, for quite some time. Same can be said about basti populations. We know frogs from Red Beach are different from Salt creek, ect.

Rich

[jellyman]

In your opinion, is that not way over the head of most hobbiest?

Realistically I would think that the percent of frog owners going to that far of an extreme to accurately identify where there frog may have possibly originated from is pretty low. I would think most would find whatever answer they received from the seller would be taken at face value and they would move on with their day.

Do not get me wrong, I know for those that are passionate about keeping locals seperate they would go to this extreme but I'm thinking of all the casual purchasers at petshops, from online vendors, and at shows that are simply happy knowing it is whatever the seller claims it to be.

[RichFrye]

In your opinion, is that not way over the head of most hobbiest?

Realistically I would think that the percent of frog owners going to that far of an extreme to accurately identify where there frog may have possibly originated from is pretty low. I would think most would find whatever answer they received from the seller would be taken at face value and they would move on with their day.

Do not get me wrong, I know for those that are passionate about keeping locals seperate they would go to this extreme but I'm thinking of all the casual purchasers at petshops, from online vendors, and at shows that are simply happy knowing it is whatever the seller claims it to be.

It is absolutely 'over the head of most hobbyists' because most hobbyists are lazy ( or ignorant to the facts) and too cheap to do some work. I site the many, many thousands of pum deaths in the last years.
Exactly how hard is it for someone who cares, this is key, to purchase from people who's word should be believed?
If the people who care stop buying from pet shops and best guess whole salers then the market may not dry up, but it changes. That's what we need, change. It's really not that hard.

[jellyman]

I'm with you most of the way on this but I would not say a hobbiest is lazy because they are not overly concerned with the exact local information of a frog. If they research to the extent of reputable breeder of healthy frogs then as a hobbiest they have done their job. The lazy ones are the ones you see post that bought a frog because it was pretty and now it is dead or dying.

[RichFrye]

I'm with you most of the way on this but I would not say a hobbiest is lazy because they are not overly concerned with the exact local information of a frog. If they research to the extent of reputable breeder of healthy frogs then as a hobbiest they have done their job. The lazy ones are the ones you see post that bought a frog because it was pretty and now it is dead or dying.

Read these next sentences and time how long it takes to read them.

" Where did you get the frogs from? What local are they? How do you know this?"

It took me less than 15 seconds to type them. I'd say it should take less to read them. If someone does not ask those questions, and plans on breeding darts, they are not concerned about where the hobby is going and are either ignorant to the facts of local frogs, too lazy to take 15 seconds to ask, or too cheap to spend a little extra cash it takes to acquire pedigreed frogs. Why do we put effort into pedigreed dogs, cats, horses, ect., ect., ect., when it comes to breeding...but not our frogs?

I absolutely agree that impulse buys pertaining to darts are very much not the way to go.

Rich

[RichFrye]

Here's another way of putting it.
As it stands today in our hobby;
The vast majority of people selling darts will sell any frog they have to anybody with the cash wanted by the seller.
The vast majority of people who buy darts buy the the $25 'show' darts or the $50 pet shop darts.
The vast majority of people in the hobby do not care , know, or plan to know much at all about the history , site local, health , or too many other thing relating to their impulse buys.
The vast majority of darts imported end up dieing in less than a year's time.

Those who read forums and feel they are actually part of the community need not contribute to any of the above mentioned positions or groups. To move the hobby forward and not only improve the hobby but the quality of our darts it is important to understand as much about our darts as possible. This includes where they come from.

Rich

[thedude]

hey rich,

i think people think their frogs would have low genetic diversity because of the lack of site specific adults breeding. for example: if i bought 3 of your robalo froglets, what would i breed them with? i cant breed them with eachother (responsibly anyway) and i only know of one other person that has them. so a persons options sometimes are a little limited with what they can do for best genetic breeding practices.

at the same time, maybe you know of others with site specific populations im not aware of. as ive talked to you before, im interested in several of yours, but i know of others i could also get offspring from.

on a side note, are your granuliferus or blue jeans site specific??

[RichFrye]

hey rich,

i think people think their frogs would have low genetic diversity because of the lack of site specific adults breeding. for example: if i bought 3 of your robalo froglets, what would i breed them with?

Well, I kind of explained all of this in the Op, but here's a specific example.
You could take one male offspring from group #1 (WC male, WC female) and two female offspring from group #2 (WC male, F1 female, F1 female) and breed some very nice frogs.

i cant breed them with each other (responsibly anyway) and

Sure you absolutely could. It is just best when you can to breed to non-relatives. But we know we can breed a number of generations without too many issues. I mentioned already that the lifespan, combined with the probability of new responsible imports, combined with the fact that we can line breed them for a number of generations breaks down to being able to keep very site specific darts around for a long time. Potentially...

i only know of one other person that has them. so a persons options sometimes are a little limited with what they can do for best genetic breeding practices.

Please let me know this one other person is. If they do in fact really have site specific Robalo I obviously would be interested in exchanging bloodlines. This is a bit of a surprise, and the first I have heard of it. PM if you need.

at the same time, maybe you know of others with site specific populations im not aware of. as ive talked to you before, im interested in several of yours, but i know of others i could also get offspring from.

There are a few site specific imports that have gone on in the past few years. Some were commercial, and some research.
I'm sure there are a number of people breeding site specific frogs.

on a side note, are your granuliferus or blue jeans site specific??

The frogs I have can be traced back to certain locales.

Rich