Dart Den

I've personally seen the effects and efforts of Captive breeding and what that means to Herp import numbers since the early 1980's, so I feel I can intelligently and accuratley speak about this topic.

I also feel very strongly that we- The Herpetoculturist segment of the Dart Frog Hobby, has made a signifcant dent in the amount of Wild Caught Dart Frogs imported into the U.S. Hopefully this thread will ultimately include some hard data and facts / numbers, but until then, I stick to my statement and perception.

If hobbyists producing a lot of frogs for the consumer market thereby causing less imports due to decreased profit margin isn't a serious form of Conservation, then I just don't know what is.

I'm not trying to belittle any other group or effort, and you all know by now, that I support TWI 100%, but we need to showcase the Captive Breeders efforts once in a while, IMO.

As always, I welcome discussion, opposition to my views and arguments for and against same.

I don't have a whole lot of time to discuss it now, but the low posit margin of the animals really is a nil point. In fact it could go to actually increasing demand for wild frogs since the low prices allow the importers to launder smuggled frogs in safely in high numbers along with the legal imports.

Yes cb frogs do slightly have an impact on the amount of imports, but after all my years in the herp hobby I'm willing to bet not nearly as much as most people think. The true hobbyist are some of the worst when it comes to demanding wc animals. Most beginner hobbyist prefer cb while many long term hobbyist prefer wc for the new gene pool and to add the newest and greatest legal imports into their collection.