# The social psychology of hybridization



## Groundhog (Dec 17, 2006)

Greetings y'all:

So I have perused all these threads about hybridization, and the consensus seems to be summed up nicely in a quote used by Skylsdale:

_"Hybridization leads to frogs that no longer resemble wild frogs in either appearance or behavior. History in other breeding hobbies has shown that uncontrolled hybridizing creates market forces that lead to the total, or near disappearance of wild type specimens in the hobby"
_(emphasis added).

But I have different type of question, a sociological question if you will: Um, how come it seems only the PDF guys feel this way? I am quite serious. Consider:

--Ball python breeders
--Bearded dragon breeders
--Goldfish breeders
--Plant breeders
--and yeah, DOG breeders

As if dog breeders really care if cockapoos "resemble wild dogs in either appearance or behavior." Why do you guys feel that PDF hobby attracts and encourages a completely different attitude? I am open to all serious ideas--I'll even accept "Because we rule and they suck" if you can support it.

Full disclosure: If anything, I'd like to see all the above become more like you guys. I am offended by roosters with 25' tails, goldfish with upward facing eyes, pugs that can't breathe, and albino snakes that eliminate real aesthetic diversity. I also have limited patience for the myriad plant hybrids with names like Begonia 'Bonesmoker.' (Okay I get it, in agriculture and in horticulture, hybridization can improve plants for our use. We want CMV resistant cucurbits, and it's nice to have a greater assortment of terrarium-suitable bromeliads.)

Understand that with my background in social science, I am fascinated by how (and why) different groups of people think. So what do you guys think--why such a different philosophical ethos among PDF people? 

P.S.

Forgive me, Mod, if I posted this in the wrong place.


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## WinifredBarkle (Dec 9, 2012)

Having just started to dip my toe into this culture, I was surprised at how strictly the community views cross-breeding. I'm very interested to see what other replies come up. I, for one, love genetics, and I think it would be fun to see what crazy patterns we could come up with.

Though I understand the other side as well. "Novelty" dog breeds aren't my schtick either!!


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## Scott (Feb 17, 2004)

You already discovered why (Ron's quote). 

We are a "young" enough group (in comparison to others) that it's still a choice - we haven't misbegottenly gone down the wrong path.

And we'll fight to keep it that way.

s


Groundhog said:


> ...
> 
> Understand that with my background in social science, I am fascinated by how (and why) different groups of people think. So what do you guys think--why such a different philosophical ethos among PDF people?


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## RichardSimm (Dec 10, 2012)

Well speaking from the world of Morelia we as as group as are split between the purist and those who are perfectly fine with hybrids / intergrades. Then there are people like me who covet them equally intergrades for new morph combos and pure animals for representations of wild type yet selectively bred individuals. Then the most coveted of all treated almost like they are their own species are animals of known locale origin.


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## Bunsincunsin (Feb 11, 2008)

I, too, have been really impressed with the way this hobby tends to reject hybridizing. And I think it's pretty cool, and very respectable. This is something that has been on my mind for a while now - thanks for bringing it up.

I, for one, got into this hobby because I have a great admiration for the natural world; I'm constantly looking for different organisms and really enjoy observing how they interact with their surroundings. I wanted to bring a part of the natural world into my every day life since I'm not always able to go out and spend a few hours walking around the forest; so, what better way to do this than to make a vivarium? Skylsdale did put it quite well... I, personally, find it very difficult to admire something not natural (i.e. hybrid frogs - or hybrid anything for that matter) in a world saturated with synthetic things.

I think the majority of modern human civilization aims at distancing ourselves from nature - we've created means to limit our exposure to the elements and to control nature as if we're above it. We've kind of lost touch with, and our respect for, nature - hybridization only amplifies this in my eyes. I get the impression that the dart frog hobby is geared more towards conservation, where as the other "hobbies" are more "pet" related. I don't know if this is because we realize just how important amphibians are to the ecosystem (obviously all organisms are essential) or that a lot of us come from more of a biology/ecology/genetics/etc.-related background. I'm not too familiar with the reef hobby - so, hopefully you reef-guys can chime in - but I would imagine there to be a similar mind-set to that of our dart frog hobby seeing as how the world's reefs are in a very similar situation to that of the world's rain forests and amphibian populations. I also get the impression that most of us aren't in it for the money (again, relating back to more of a conservation mind-set) - in contrast to the other previously mentioned "pet" hobbies/trades which tend to cater to the latest "fashion". I think this is quite evident when you look around this forum and see the wealth of knowledge and the pure generosity (the Bill Schwinn donations come to mind) that have resulted from this community. It sounds kind of lame, but you guys actually act like real human beings should act...


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## Groundhog (Dec 17, 2006)

Well said, Shaun--something to think about.


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## boabab95 (Nov 5, 2009)

> --and yeah, DOG breeders


Not to be annoying, but Dog breeders dont really hybridize [atleast not anymore] since all the domesticated dogs, with the exception of wolf/coyote crosses are the same species [C.l.familiaris] if anything, they are outcrossing at best...

But your point is still there 



I have to agree with Scott. Since we are still a fairly small community, it's a lot easier to regulate things like this...


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## GRIMM (Jan 18, 2010)

Could it also be because getting most darts to reproduce is a little more involved compared to popping 2 snakes in a tupperware and letting things happen? Usually when people go to the distances that we do to keep/breed darts, there is a little more care and research that goes into it. I see a lot fewer clueless beginners in the dart communiy then I have seen in the reptile side of things. Much less spur of the moment purchases and "look what my hubby brought home, now what?" threads here. Perhaps the added care requirements and personal research also leads to becomming more aware with the natural beauty of nature? Its a nice thought at least haha


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## Groundhog (Dec 17, 2006)

boabab95 said:


> Not to be annoying, but Dog breeders dont really hybridize [atleast not anymore] since all the domesticated dogs, with the exception of wolf/coyote crosses are the same species [C.l.familiaris] if anything, they are outcrossing at best...
> 
> But your point is still there
> 
> ...


Oh, you're not being annoying. The point I was making is the sociological one: Dog breeders--like plant breeders or any domesticate breeders--do have a "how can we manipulate X to get Y" ethos. Which PDF keepers certainly do not; at least I've never heard of "How do we get a frog the size of a terribilis with the colors of a bastimento and the temp tolerance of a leuc?" Isn't that essentially what dog and plant and goldfish and ball python breeders do? 

To put it another way, I ain't asking about the animals; I'm asking about the people!


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## Groundhog (Dec 17, 2006)

GRIMM said:


> Could it also be because getting most darts to reproduce is a little more involved compared to popping 2 snakes in a tupperware and letting things happen? Usually when people go to the distances that we do to keep/breed darts, there is a little more care and research that goes into it. I see a lot fewer clueless beginners in the dart community then I have seen in the reptile side of things. Much less spur of the moment purchases and "look what my hubby brought home, now what?" threads here. Perhaps the added care requirements and personal research also leads to becoming more aware with the natural beauty of nature? Its a nice thought at least haha


With the use of Occam's razor--I really think you may be on to something. Then again, dog and fish breeding certainly require time, $$ and space. But the nature of dart frogs kind of precludes the "yo, I gots tegus and they rule" mentality. Think about how many PDF keepers learn about plants, arthropods, ecosystems, etc. These all come with the territory.


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## hypostatic (Apr 25, 2011)

Bunsincunsin said:


> I think the majority of modern human civilization aims at distancing ourselves from nature - we've created means to limit our exposure to the elements and to control nature as if we're above it. We've kind of lost touch with, and our respect for, nature - hybridization only amplifies this in my eyes.


You know, humans tend to think that we have the natural world under our thumbs, but if you look at it in a slightly different light, you'll see that some of nature has done its best to control us. And by that I mean plants; they've trained us to spread their seeds, kill their competitors and predators, fertilize them, and tend to their every needs. Check out this PBS docu based on the Book "Botany of Desire", very good:

http://video.pbs.org/video/1283872815


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## Nath514 (Jul 8, 2012)

hypostatic said:


> You know, humans tend to think that we have the natural world under our thumbs, but if you look at it in a slightly different light, you'll see that some of nature has done its best to control us. And by that I mean plants; they've trained us to spread their seeds, kill their competitors and predators, fertilize them, and tend to their every needs. Check out this PBS docu based on the Book "Botany of Desire", very good:
> 
> Video: Full-Length Program | Watch Botany of Desire Online | PBS Video


Very interesting perspective I will have to watch the video when I get off work!


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## Groundhog (Dec 17, 2006)

hypostatic said:


> You know, humans tend to think that we have the natural world under our thumbs, but if you look at it in a slightly different light, you'll see that some of nature has done its best to control us. And by that I mean plants; they've trained us to spread their seeds, kill their competitors and predators, fertilize them, and tend to their every needs. Check out this PBS docu based on the Book "Botany of Desire", very good:
> 
> Video: Full-Length Program | Watch Botany of Desire Online | PBS Video


Ah, Michael Pollan does ask the kind of questions I find fascinating...

To the point: Could you not make the same observation about any domesticates? Yes we manipulate, abuse, cull--all the while increasing inclusive fitness (defined as one's genetic fitness plus that of one's relatives). How many wolves are there compared to domestic dogs? 

I guess the question becomes: Are you guys doing this for the frogs? Is the goal to limit pressure on wild populations, or to have stock for potential reintroduction? I often wonder about the latter, because any organism in captivity is subject to selection. But it becomes more than a philosophic exercise when one considers chytrid.

This incidentally, is a big concern at BSI--can/should cultivated bromeliads be reintroduced? If so, where? (And a big concern with bromeliads is that, quite frankly, much of the stock comes from cloning--offsets--and tissue culture. What good does this do for genetic variability?) 

Still, the fact that you guys do not feel a need to play Frankenstein is always refreshing.


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## thedude (Nov 28, 2007)

boabab95 said:


> Not to be annoying, but Dog breeders dont really hybridize [atleast not anymore] since all the domesticated dogs, with the exception of wolf/coyote crosses are the same species [C.l.familiaris] if anything, they are outcrossing at best...


Actually they do, because hybridizing doesn't just occur between different species. If you mix 2 different breeds, morphs, or in our hobby populations, you are in fact hybridizing. And this is based on biology and genetics. 


I think the biggest reason this hobby is against hybridizing is because a lot of us are from scientific backgrounds, or at least have a fascination with nature.


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## Groundhog (Dec 17, 2006)

thedude said:


> Actually they do, because hybridizing doesn't just occur between different species. If you mix 2 different breeds, morphs, or in our hobby populations, you are in fact hybridizing. And this is based on biology and genetics.
> 
> 
> I think the biggest reason this hobby is against hybridizing is because a lot of us are from scientific backgrounds, or at least have a fascination with nature.


Okay, so maybe we should specify:

*intra-specific* (bengal tiger X siberian tiger) 
vs. 
*interspecific* (mule, liger, fantasy frog)
vs 
*intergeneric *(Vriesea X Guzmania, Lampropeltis X Pantheropisis) hybrids.

I guess that in my OP, I also should have been more specific.


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## jacobi (Dec 15, 2010)

Groundhog said:


> Understand that with my background in social science, I am fascinated by how (and why) different groups of people think.


In that case, think about this. Why do people bring these animals, or animals of any kind, into their homes at all? I think once that is answered we will have a better understanding of why people feel the way they do about hybridization.




Bunsincunsin said:


> I would imagine there to be a similar mind-set to that of our dart frog hobby seeing as how the world's reefs are in a very similar situation to that of the world's rain forests and amphibian populations.


Not quite... That mind set in the reefing world is relatively new, where it exists at all. Doug (Pumilo) wrote a post about it a while ago, maybe he can chime in.


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## hypostatic (Apr 25, 2011)

Groundhog said:


> Ah, Michael Pollan does ask the kind of questions I find fascinating...
> 
> To the point: Could you not make the same observation about any domesticates? Yes we manipulate, abuse, cull--all the while increasing* inclusive fitness* (defined as one's genetic fitness plus that of one's relatives). How many wolves are there compared to domestic dogs?


"Inclusive" seems to be the very important key word here. As we "domesticate" (and i use that term very loosely here, such as coming into contact enough to provide a selective pressure on a population) organisms we SEVERELY lower their fitness for their original habitat/environment. Take most of the crops we grow here in the united states. Without the constant labor of farmers to kill of pests with pesticides, set up irrigation systems, or fertilize unfit land, these domesticated organisms of ours would perish.

So, as a result of the selective pressure of our contact with these organisms, their genetic makeup becomes intrinsically altered from their original wild type siblings. This change makes them much less fit to survive in their original habitat. So the frogs in our hobby, for example, would be unfit to be released back into the wild for repopulation purposes for example.


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## thedude (Nov 28, 2007)

hypostatic said:


> So the frogs in our hobby, for example, would be unfit to be released back into the wild for repopulation purposes for example.


Some of them yes, but it wouldn't be an issue to release F1's or F2's into the wild. The real reason we couldn't at this time is pathogens.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

thedude said:


> Some of them yes, but it wouldn't be an issue to release F1's or F2's into the wild. The real reason we couldn't at this time is pathogens.


Quoted you for continuty purposes.... 
Actually it is more than pathogens but pathogens are one of the major reasons see the discussion starting here 
http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/sc...e-bred-conservation-efforts-2.html#post576511


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Groundhog said:


> To the point: Could you not make the same observation about any domesticates? Yes we manipulate, abuse, cull--all the while increasing inclusive fitness (defined as one's genetic fitness plus that of one's relatives). How many wolves are there compared to domestic dogs?


When making the comparision of this type, one has to keep in mind that the comparision has to also be kept in context... If you compared number of wolves in domestic situations (homes) versus dogs, then dogs are going to have the greater fitness, if you compare domestic dogs that have gone feral to wolves then wolves have the greater fitness (in no small part since feral dog packs are dependent on recruiting dogs from outside the feral population to sustain thier pack (mortality and sex ratios of litters tend to prevent recruitment from offspring (see for example The Domestic Dog: Its evolution, behavior and interactions with people). 



Groundhog said:


> I guess the question becomes: Are you guys doing this for the frogs? Is the goal to limit pressure on wild populations, or to have stock for potential reintroduction? I often wonder about the latter, because any organism in captivity is subject to selection. But it becomes more than a philosophic exercise when one considers chytrid.


Lowland species of dendrobatids are fairly safe from death by chytrid since the temperatures in thier habitat and thier diurnal behaviors, reduce or eliminate the risk of death (chytrid only kills frogs below 75 F, and basking frogs are able to eliminate the infection if allowed to elevate thier body temperature). The population in captivity is subjected to selection but one should also keep in mind that if we lose a captive population, there is a significant risk of not being able to replace it..(for example Giron valley morph of E. tricolor). 

Some comments 

Ed


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## Groundhog (Dec 17, 2006)

Ed said:


> Quoted you for continuty purposes....
> Actually it is more than pathogens but pathogens are one of the major reasons see the discussion starting here
> http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/sc...e-bred-conservation-efforts-2.html#post576511



Thanks for this, Ed!


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## ICS523 (Mar 10, 2012)

I think the attitudes in the hobby are a result of the combination of a lot of the factors mentioned, less morons who don't do their research, more people who care about the environment, younger hobby, etc.
I must say congratulations though, you have created a hybrid related thread where not one person has been called a troll or something. Good Job.


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## Baltimore Bryan (Sep 6, 2006)

Groundhog said:


> But I have different type of question, a sociological question if you will: Um, how come it seems only the PDF guys feel this way? I am quite serious


Sorry if someone said this before and I missed it, but I think one of the main reasons this hobby is like that is because of the natural diversity that already exists for frogs. 

For some of the other hobbies/ animals you listed, the natural form may have very little variability or not appeal to the average person. For example, look at wild Carassius auratus- not exactly something I would want to keep in a small fish tank... so people domesticated them and selectively bred for different colors, sizes, shapes, and patterns in goldfish. 

I tend to think the same applies to some of the snake hobbies- wild boas don't normally occur in the different colors and patterns that breeders want. Poison dart frogs, on the other hand, already exist in literally hundreds of color, pattern, call, etc. combinations. So I think part of the reason people don't breed a red galac x aureus x amazonica to get a small frog with red back and blue legs is because it already exists- escudo. Obviously this is not a realistic example, but there are so many naturally occurring frogs, and who knows what will be discovered next, that I don't see a need or want to change them.
Bryan


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## Groundhog (Dec 17, 2006)

jacobi said:


> In that case, think about this. Why do people bring these animals, or animals of any kind, into their homes at all? I think once that is answered we will have a better understanding of why people feel the way they do about hybridization.


Dude, ya just threw me a hanging curve with a short rightfield porch

Now, we could say that it's because:
1) Humans are nurturant;
2) humans are curious.

But this would be quite ahistorical. Students of anthropology and/or non-western history are often surprised to learn that "pre-industrial" people often have very unsentimental ideas about other species, even what we call "pets." For much of our history, our interactions with other organisms were framed simply in terms of utility. (See Jared Diamond for a detailed discussion of the origins of domestication). It is only among the upper classes of complex societies that we start to see menageries or "hanging gardens." 

I will suggest that modern domestication and cultivation took two routes. In Western Europe, it was more utilitarian; the ratter, the herder, the fowl with a bigger breast, a sweeter apple, etc. By contrast, in East Asia, much cultivation was done treating the organism as living canvas; think roosters with 25' tails, ornamental koi, bonsai. 

What changes in the modern world has two foundations: The age of discovery and the Enlightenment. Science was of course conceived in terms of utility, not abstract knowledge. But modernization and economic growth created the specialization that gave at least some people the time to think about things. People would grow to be fascinated (rather than apprehensive) by "exotic" places, cultures and organisms. This sometimes took bizarre turns, such as 17th C Dutch tulipomania and the 19th C orchid craze (that led to wardian cases). These are early modern examples of what E. O. Wilson calls this "biophilia," the tendency of people in modern, urban societies to crave green (although I guess the same could be said of the hanging gardens, built to comfort a homesick concubine). 

Also, in the 19th C, come three modern phenomena: The Brit Henry Bergh, and the modern conception that we owe _animals_ humane treatment. Next came the Boy Scouts, with the ethos that we owe _nature_ humane treatment. The third may seem tenuous: 19th C paleontology, which leads to Steven Jay Gould's contention that children innately find dinosaurs to be cool. Still, I will suggest that modern attitudes towards nature, pet-keeping and ornamental horticulture are European inventions, admixed with an an awareness of East Asian aesthetics. 


So yes Virginia, humans are certainly nurturant and curious mammals. But we today are a product of a social history that allows us to develop these tendencies. I do not think it risky to suggest that, with the ubiquity of cable and the internet, the popularity of hobbies like this will probably grow--as long as we have an economy that can support it...

How say you?


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## hypostatic (Apr 25, 2011)

Groundhog said:


> But this would be quite ahistorical. Students of anthropology and/or non-western history are often surprised to learn that "pre-industrial" people often have very unsentimental ideas about other species, even what we call "pets." For much of our history, our interactions with other organisms were framed simply in terms of utility.


Not only was the feeling for other animals unsentimental, but it was often quite negative. 

If you look at the history of the united states, you'll see that as settlers started to colonize the country, they actually employed programs to exterminate species like bears or wolves, as I believe they were seen as major pests/threats/competitors to humans in the area. They didn't just try to get rid of them in an area -- once they trapped an animal once they would often beat, bait, torture, and try to humiliate the animal.

And after a long term practice of this you find that lots of local ecosystems where wolves resided in the country are way out of whack. Here in New Jersey for example, the deer population has exploded to the point where they are practically everywhere, and it's often dangerous to drive around at night because you'll often encounter them on the roads. Deer were even a problem in Yellowstone Park; due to the absence of wolves their population boomed, and due to overgrazing they caused a crash in the native deciduous woody species, which caused a sharp decline in "desirable" species such as beavers in the park. When wolves were reintroduced to the park in 1995 biologists started to see the ecosystem returning to a balance.

This mindset still persists today, where a lot of people still see organisms as good or bad according to their perceived usefulness. Destroying an ecosystem can be seen as more useful than letting it stand. A recent example is the construction of the Belo Monte Dam in Brazil's part of the Amazon. The government decided that it would be more useful to build a dam for energy production, than to preserve the immense biodiversity that is totally unique to the area -- not to mention the horrible dislocation and uprooting of native peoples that make their livelihood by that river. The potential for energy production is seen as having a greater utility than the ecosystem services provided by the biodiversity of the rainforest.


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## phender (Jan 9, 2009)

You asked for someone to compare Dart frogs to the reefing hobby. I have been in the reefing hobby for about 35 years. During the early years, it took a lot of knowledge, talent and luck to keep a reef tank. Information was scarce and there was no internet. With the advent of more access to the internet in the late 80's and later the WWW in the 90's, people were able to exchange information on personal experiences and experimentation. Even then it still took some serious experience/talent to keep a reef tank and even more talent to farm corals or breed fish (clownfish). Most of the people at that point were purists and from scientific backgrounds. (I'm talking about reef keepers not "dead coral fish only tanks".) The knowledge of the "scientific" folks drove the increase in better technology in reef keeping. While making things easier for themselves, they also made it easier for novices to keep reef tanks. Now a days you can still keep a reef tank on a small budget if you know what you are doing, but if you have enough money, you can buy a tank that almost takes care of itself. In addition, their are hundreds of books telling you how to set up a tank and at least a couple stores near you who would be glad to set you up with a system.

This ease of care has brought in a whole different group of people with a whole different mind set. Instead of "bringing the beauty of nature" into your home, the new group only buys expensive corals so they can grow them for a while, break them up and sell the pieces. I am amazed at how many people that have "display" tanks that are nothing more than a big "frag" tank. 

Now the craze is designer clownfish, most of which look horrible to me compared to the natural colors and patterns of clownfish.

The easier it gets to keep reefs, the more knuckleheads you get, and the more you get into having it as a decoration or a quick money making scheme and the appreciation for natural beauty goes out the window.

Dart frogs are different. There isn't a whole lot you can do to improve the ease of care for a vivarium. Better lights won't help. We don't need filters. The limiting factor is, YOU HAVE TO GROW YOUR OWN FOOD! And its a Pain in the butt! There is no way to get around it. You can't go to the store and buy it. (Well you can, but its not really practical). Having to grow your own food pretty much weeds out the knuckleheads. It even weeds out a lot of the pet stores that might otherwise sell dart frogs. That leaves the people with a least some interest in nature for nature's sake and not just for decoration or a money making opportunities. Those sorts of people value nature for what it is, not for how they can change it to impress their neighbors.

Just my opinion


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## Groundhog (Dec 17, 2006)

phender said:


> The easier it gets to keep reefs, the more knuckleheads you get, and the more you get into having it as a decoration or a quick money making scheme and the appreciation for natural beauty goes out the window.
> 
> Dart frogs are different. There isn't a whole lot you can do to improve the ease of care for a vivarium. Better lights won't help. We don't need filters. The limiting factor is, YOU HAVE TO GROW YOUR OWN FOOD! And its a Pain in the butt! There is no way to get around it. You can't go to the store and buy it. (Well you can, but its not really practical). Having to grow your own food pretty much weeds out the knuckleheads. It even weeds out a lot of the pet stores that might otherwise sell dart frogs. That leaves the people with a least some interest in nature for nature's sake and not just for decoration or a money making opportunities. Those sorts of people value nature for what it is, not for how they can change it to impress their neighbors.
> 
> Just my opinion


I think you're on to something here.


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## Groundhog (Dec 17, 2006)

Ed said:


> When making the comparision of this type, one has to keep in mind that the comparision has to also be kept in context... If you compared number of wolves in domestic situations (homes) versus dogs, then dogs are going to have the greater fitness, if you compare domestic dogs that have gone feral to wolves then wolves have the greater fitness (in no small part since feral dog packs are dependent on recruiting dogs from outside the feral population to sustain thier pack (mortality and sex ratios of litters tend to prevent recruitment from offspring (see for example The Domestic Dog: Its evolution, behavior and interactions with people).
> 
> Some comments
> 
> Ed


Not to hijack my own thread--but environmental context or sociological context? I do not think it irrelevant to suggest, as long as we have so many human-dominated ecosystems, domestic dogs will have a big advantage over wolves. Three thoughts here:

1) I think it was Daniel Dennett who suggested that, if the unit of selection is, in fact, the gene, then there ain't no such thing as artificial selection--human agency just becomes another selective force. So yes, as long as humans are around, we're going to have a lot of dogs, cats, pigs, tomatoes, sterile roses, grasses that cannot reproduce w/o human intervention, etc.;

2) And that's not even counting human commensals! Ever see that show, "After Man" or some such? Made the point that many animals would suffer almost immediately if humankind became extinct. E.g., roaches and rodents that thrive in heated human dwellings. (Interesting hypothesis: the show suggested that large zoo animals--carnivores and ungulates--that escaped would actually prosper a la _I am Legend_.) In a more scholarly vein, after Katrina a study was done about stray dogs; it concluded that dogs as dogs would not survive long-term without human assistance. First, the big dogs eat the little dogs; in a few generations they'd all look like medium sized pariahs; then they'd get their asses whupped by other carnivores, especially wolves. And the primary reason is that stray dogs would not compete well _as hunters_.

3) But I guess the question here is: Does captive maintenance and breeding possibly alter fitness in ways we cannot readily see? I know that some exotic plant people struggle with this, wondering if their prized ________ could be reintroduced to Brazil or Madagascar or New Guinea. But your previous replies have given us stuff to read about this.


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## Baltimore Bryan (Sep 6, 2006)

phender said:


> This ease of care has brought in a whole different group of people with a whole different mind set. Instead of "bringing the beauty of nature" into your home, the new group only buys expensive corals so they can grow them for a while, break them up and sell the pieces. I am amazed at how many people that have "display" tanks that are nothing more than a big "frag" tank.


I agree with this. I don't check the reef forums as much now, but I remember seeing this trend and ads for acan frags the size of a quarter went for $700... and the crazy names they had- I swear the creativity of the name had almost as much to do with the appearance! 
One thing that is different about the reef hobby than the frog hobby is that most reef fish are imported because captive breeding is too difficult, but techniques are improving for some species. Even though reefers can't just cross two tang species intentionally, naturally occurring fish hybrids go for very high premiums. And like you said, with the growing amount of "designer clowns" (which I really dislike, but to each his own...), I do see a trend for artificial breeding and intentional hybridizing in the fish hobby as well.

Although this hobby certainly is not difficult enough to deter everyone who shouldn't be in it, I have to admit that as bad as some of the beginner "look what I can mix" threads are here, the poor husbandry practices prevalent with many people who aren't qualified to keep reef fish are also horrible. 
Bryan


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## Groundhog (Dec 17, 2006)

Baltimore Bryan said:


> I agree with this. I don't check the reef forums as much now, but I remember seeing this trend and ads for acan frags the size of a quarter went for $700... and the crazy names they had- I swear the creativity of the name had almost as much to do with the appearance!
> One thing that is different about the reef hobby than the frog hobby is that most reef fish are imported because captive breeding is too difficult, but techniques are improving for some species. Even though reefers can't just cross two tang species intentionally, naturally occurring fish hybrids go for very high premiums. And like you said, with the growing amount of "designer clowns" (which I really dislike, but to each his own...), I do see a trend for artificial breeding and intentional hybridizing in the fish hobby as well.
> 
> Although this hobby certainly is not difficult enough to deter everyone who shouldn't be in it, I have to admit that as bad as some of the beginner "look what I can mix" threads are here, the poor husbandry practices prevalent with many people who aren't qualified to keep reef fish are also horrible.
> Bryan


1) Well, I guess the argument made by the leopard gecko and ball python pygmalions is that they are reducing the pressure on wild populations; it would be nice to think this applies to clownfish, but I don't see how this helps reefs. For myself, I still like a lot of natural organisms, like my rescue normal ball python. That's right, I have a normal ball python. (I think there are more pet tribbles and xenomorphs than normal ball pythons.)

2) You mean to tell me that reefing may have a similar percentage of knuckleheads with dumbass husbandry practices? Don't the costs somewhat mitigate against that? Gee-zus...


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Groundhog said:


> Not to hijack my own thread--but environmental context or sociological context? I do not think it irrelevant to suggest, as long as we have so many human-dominated ecosystems, domestic dogs will have a big advantage over wolves. Three thoughts here:


I don't think this is a clear cut... the only reason dogs have an advantage over wolves is due to people pushing to not have wolves in the same regions as people.. We can look at another large wild canid (the coyote) to see that passive human dominance doesn't give feral dogs an advantage, instead it is active human dominance that changes the distribution.. This is why you have to specify whether your comparing wolves kept domestically with dogs in the same type of enviroment, or feral dogs with wolves in the wild enviroment....



Groundhog said:


> 1) I think it was Daniel Dennett who suggested that, if the unit of selection is, in fact, the gene, then there ain't no such thing as artificial selection--human agency just becomes another selective force. So yes, as long as humans are around, we're going to have a lot of dogs, cats, pigs, tomatoes, sterile roses, grasses that cannot reproduce w/o human intervention, etc.;


This argument is based on a simplified argument and care has to be taken when using it... A single gene by itself is rarely the sole unit of selection..(exceptions are (as an example) fatal autosomal dominent genes)) instead it is the sum total of the genes and how they are expressed (and this interact) with the enviroment that determines the actual selection.... If the distribution of genes are manipulated through human agency and/or the enviroment is modifed to permit the aggregation of those genes, we have artificial manipulation to permit those aggregations to persist...



Groundhog said:


> 2) And that's not even counting human commensals! Ever see that show, "After Man" or some such? Made the point that many animals would suffer almost immediately if humankind became extinct. E.g., roaches and rodents that thrive in heated human dwellings. (Interesting hypothesis: the show suggested that large zoo animals--carnivores and ungulates--that escaped would actually prosper a la _I am Legend_.) In a more scholarly vein, after Katrina a study was done about stray dogs; it concluded that dogs as dogs would not survive long-term without human assistance. First, the big dogs eat the little dogs; in a few generations they'd all look like medium sized pariahs; then they'd get their asses whupped by other carnivores, especially wolves. And the primary reason is that stray dogs would not compete well _as hunters_.


Actually even pariah styled dogs don't survive without access to human modified enviroments (specifically garbage). Feral dogs don't do well on recruitment through reproduction (sexes are heavily skewed (almost 5 to 1 male to female (maternal effect)) and instead have to rely on recruitment from the domestic dog population. 




Groundhog said:


> 3) But I guess the question here is: Does captive maintenance and breeding possibly alter fitness in ways we cannot readily see? I know that some exotic plant people struggle with this, wondering if their prized ________ could be reintroduced to Brazil or Madagascar or New Guinea. But your previous replies have given us stuff to read about this.


Absolutely. There are a lot of examples (salmon are the best studied to date) and it can be devastating to the population. See for example http://www.une.edu.au/esnrm/pdf/fritz geiser/AcrobatesJCP01.pdf 

Some comments 

Ed


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Groundhog said:


> 1) Well, I guess the argument made by the leopard gecko and ball python pygmalions is that they are reducing the pressure on wild populations;


Except when you look at the numbers of ranched ball pythons exported, over time there has been some fluctuations but effectively the numbers are greater than when the ball python thing started so we can make the argument that there has been no reduction on wild populations... . 

With respect to leopard geckos, genetic issues are showing up in some of the very heavy inbred lines so there is starting to be some demand for wild collected animals for outcrossing.... 

Some comments 

Ed


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## hypostatic (Apr 25, 2011)

phender said:


> Dart frogs are different. There isn't a whole lot you can do to improve the ease of care for a vivarium. Better lights won't help. We don't need filters. The limiting factor is, YOU HAVE TO GROW YOUR OWN FOOD! And its a Pain in the butt! There is no way to get around it. You can't go to the store and buy it. (Well you can, but its not really practical). Having to grow your own food pretty much weeds out the knuckleheads. It even weeds out a lot of the pet stores that might otherwise sell dart frogs. That leaves the people with a least some interest in nature for nature's sake and not just for decoration or a money making opportunities. Those sorts of people value nature for what it is, not for how they can change it to impress their neighbors.
> 
> Just my opinion


I don't even think it's that much of a limiting factor -- there's at least one sponsor on the boards that will deliver premade cultures to your doorstep on a regular basis so you never have to make your own culture. You can even order pre-planted and fully assembled vivs, so you don't have to do ANYTHING but feed the frogs. And all this for a fraction of the price that setting up and maintaining a reef tank would be; and for a fraction of the effort as well.

I think what separates the dart frog hobby from the reefing hobby is the emphasis on preservation and conservation, and how people on the boards feel this is important.

Conservation and preservation are definitely not the central focus of the reefing hobby. The fast majority of the corals and fish are plundered straight from wild reefs; we currently don't have the knowledge/ability to breed these organisms in an artificial environment. And the feel that I've gotten from the hobby is that it is a money driven business, and this is much often a deciding factor in the hobby. And if you look at the ball python and leopard gecko hobby it's pretty much the same. People acquire $10K ball pythons with an intent on making a profit off of that purchase in the future, not because they admire the inherent beauty of the organism itself.

Whereas I feel conservation/preservation is definitely one of the foci of the dart frog hobby. If you look at the animals in this hobby, you'll see that most of them are captive bred; when was the last time someone has seen a wild-caught azureus for sale? In addition there are many groups in the hobby whose main focus is conservation, like Tree Walkers International. There are even vendors like Understory Enterprises that work hand-in-hand with the governments of foreign countries to to up sustainability and conservation projects.

So this is the background which feeds the mindset of the hobby. The hobby dislikes hybridization because with the idea of conservation/preservation deep in our minds, we want to preserve the morphs that we have in the hobby. To us a morph isn't just an outward coloration, as it would be in the ball python hobby for example. In the dart frog hobby a morph is much more: it is a representative of the distinct locality from which that frog originally came from, and as such each frog is a holotype of what that population should look like. And this circles back to conservation -- this frog I own comes from this location, and since I like my frogs it's important to conserve that region they came from. And by preserving the morphs/localities, it helps remind us of the need for conservation, and it also draws a distinction from other hobbies by reminding us that these are wild animals that we are trying to keep in our homes, not just animals that we mix and match for fun.


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## NathanB (Jan 21, 2008)

in my opinon this hobby can be compared closely to the killifish hobby. They are both small hobbies, both have people crossing/what ever, and both have about the same effort of skill and effort required to raise. Frankly I dont see the what Ron was saying about "total, or near disappearance of wild type specimens" to be all that true. The crosses/whatever just end up going to a different part of the hobby instead of completely replacing the wild types. In the case of killies its the general fish keepers and frogs go to the "pet" part of the hobby. The demand for "proper" species and morphs/locations is way to high with the serious hobbyists to really worry about it.


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## phender (Jan 9, 2009)

hypostatic said:


> I don't even think it's that much of a limiting factor -- there's at least one sponsor on the boards that will deliver premade cultures to your doorstep on a regular basis so you never have to make your own culture. You can even order pre-planted and fully assembled vivs, so you don't have to do ANYTHING but feed the frogs. And all this for a fraction of the price that setting up and maintaining a reef tank would be; and for a fraction of the effort as well.
> 
> I think what separates the dart frog hobby from the reefing hobby is the emphasis on preservation and conservation, and how people on the boards feel this is important.
> 
> ...


I don't think I can agree with a lot of what you said. 

Having fruit flies delivered to my house would cost me at least $60 a month, and I don't even have many tanks. That is way more than I spend on my 2 reef tanks and 2 100 lb. dogs combined. Like I said previously, there are alternatives to growing your own, but they aren't very reasonable.

I don't think many people even know you can keep dart frogs because you don't see them much in stores. When you do, they are not in a nice vivarium. Because not many people know about them, there isn't a large market for books about them. Why don't stores keep them? It goes back to raising fruit flies.

I also don't agree with people going into the frog hobby as already being conservation minded. I don't know if I can think of any of the froggers that I personally know who went into frogs to preserve them. They got into dart frogs because dart frogs are cool, interesting and pretty. Once they were in the hobby, then they became interested in preserving their habitat, etc.

Even though the reef hobby can't really breed fish, they do propagate corals much like we propagate broms. In addition there are a great number of companies in the reef business that are very similar to UE. They set up coral and clam farms and train local populations to operate the farms so they don't have to harvest from the reef. They show the locals how to sustainably harvest fish using safe (for the fish) capture methods. They do studies to find out how many fish they can take and from where, all the while building the local economies.

So, the dart frog hobby can control the attitude towards hybridization basically through intimidation with a little bit of science and reasoning thrown in. (You will be looked down upon, we won't buy frogs from you, you can't buy frogs from us, etc). This is because it is a pretty small hobby. Why is it a small hobby? They are not hard to breed. They are not difficult to care for. They don't take up a lot of space (as long as you don't keep more than a few tanks.) The cost is not that much, except the frogs themselves, but not more than saltwater fish or corals. They live a long time. So why aren't we a bigger hobby like geckos, pythons or reefs? My opinion is still fruit flies. You have to be into frogs enough to deal with the flies. Someone who likes dart frogs enough to deal with fruits flies also likes them the way they are and has no desire to change them, or at least not enough desire to swim against the prevailing current.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

phender said:


> Having fruit flies delivered to my house would cost me at least $60 a month, and I don't even have many tanks. That is way more than I spend on my 2 reef tanks and 2 100 lb. dogs combined. Like I said previously, there are alternatives to growing your own, but they aren't very reasonable.


So for your two reef tanks and the two dogs, what is your annual cost in electricity, bulbs, temperature control, salt, water, additives, dog food, dog treats, toys, leashes, collars, vet bills, heartworm and flea/tick treatments........? 
As opposed to bulbs, water,electricity, heating/cooling plus $60 for flies/month, vet bills if any?

I'm finding it more than a little hard to believe that your total cost/12 months is cheaper than $60 month for two reef tanks and two large dogs.... I go through almost $40 a month in food for two much smaller dogs.... 



phender said:


> I don't think many people even know you can keep dart frogs because you don't see them much in stores. When you do, they are not in a nice vivarium. Because not many people know about them, there isn't a large market for books about them. Why don't stores keep them? It goes back to raising fruit flies.


So where do the thousands of dart frogs imported in the US over the years go? For example more than 50,000 auratus were imported into the US over a 8 year period (2000 to 2008) (see http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/ge...ild-caught-auratus-pet-stores.html#post476465) and this is before we look at pumilio.... which some estimates put at 15,000 between 04 and 08.... so at least an estimated 65,000 dart frogs came into the country during that period and went where?? 

While they may not make it to a local pet store, they are being prevelently marketed on many classified ads on sites specifically set up to sell them.... so you can't really claim they aren't available given the prevelence of people shopping online these days, to argue it's because they aren't in the local pet store is somewhat moot at best. 

.


phender said:


> Even though the reef hobby can't really breed fish, .... They show the locals how to sustainably harvest fish using safe (for the fish) capture methods. They do studies to find out how many fish they can take and from where, all the while building the local economies.


Actually, most of the fish in the marine fish hobby are collected from the reefs are collected unsustainably, and often illegally... cyanide collecting is alive and well in the Philippenes and Indonesia where a huge majority of the reef fish originate... See for example, Cyanide fishing and cyanide detection in... [Biosens Bioelectron. 2005] - PubMed - NCBI. and PLOS ONE: Excreted Thiocyanate Detects Live Reef Fishes Illegally Collected Using Cyanide 

The level of this has not really declined since the 1960s... In addition, these collecting methods are now demonstrating that coral damage is occuring due to the cyanide exposure.... So you can't really claim the few clam/coral farms are offsetting most of this damage. 

.


phender said:


> This is because it is a pretty small hobby. Why is it a small hobby? They are not hard to breed. They are not difficult to care for. They don't take up a lot of space (as long as you don't keep more than a few tanks.) The cost is not that much, except the frogs themselves, but not more than saltwater fish or corals. They live a long time. So why aren't we a bigger hobby like geckos, pythons or reefs? My opinion is still fruit flies. You have to be into frogs enough to deal with the flies. Someone who likes dart frogs enough to deal with fruits flies also likes them the way they are and has no desire to change them, or at least not enough desire to swim against the prevailing current.


Again, if it is so small of a hobby what happened to the combined auratus and pumilio frogs imported into the US? Attempting to claim it is small based on the number of people here and/or the lack of sightings of frogs in local pet stores doesn't account for the numbers..... Unless some people are running the equivalent to a mass death camp for them.... 

Some comments 

Ed


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

NathanB said:


> in my opinon this hobby can be compared closely to the killifish hobby. They are both small hobbies, both have people crossing/what ever, and both have about the same effort of skill and effort required to raise. Frankly I dont see the what Ron was saying about "total, or near disappearance of wild type specimens" to be all that true. The crosses/whatever just end up going to a different part of the hobby instead of completely replacing the wild types. In the case of killies its the general fish keepers and frogs go to the "pet" part of the hobby. The demand for "proper" species and morphs/locations is way to high with the serious hobbyists to really worry about it.


I was a member of the JAKA for a number of years and one of the things that was repeatedly discussed among those members at that time was the number of locality fish lost to the hobby through neglect, hybridization and/or breeding for color varients.... 

The loss of wild type is well documented in all species studied to date so to argue that the wild type isn't at risk of being lost is supported by everything known about captive populations unless they are being managed. I know I've repeatedly put the references up for that information.... 


Some comments 

Ed


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## hypostatic (Apr 25, 2011)

phender said:


> I don't think I can agree with a lot of what you said.
> 
> Having fruit flies delivered to my house would cost me at least $60 a month, and I don't even have many tanks. That is way more than I spend on my 2 reef tanks and 2 100 lb. dogs combined. Like I said previously, there are alternatives to growing your own, but they aren't very reasonable.
> 
> I don't think many people even know you can keep dart frogs because you don't see them much in stores. When you do, they are not in a nice vivarium. Because not many people know about them, there isn't a large market for books about them. Why don't stores keep them? It goes back to raising fruit flies.


It is true that having FFs delivered can be expensive. Ignoring the limiting factor of money, you can keep dart frogs and never have to set up your own culture. Reefing is several times more expensive than keeping darts. Especially if you're constantly buying frozen food for your fish, specialized phyto/zooplankton to feed your corals, salt, phosphate/calcium/nitrate reactor media, and dosing for calcium/magnesium/iodine, etc. And assuming you don't have an extremely expensive automated system to do all that for you, maintaining a reef tank is a lot more labor/time intensive than a dart frog tank.

The reason why stores don't carry frogs isn't because of fruit flies. They carry lots of animals that eat crickets, and most stores certainly don't have their own cricket breeding operation running -- they just order more crickets when they run out; and there many stores that even carry flies (like petco). 

I think stores don't regularly carry frogs because they're more difficult to restock, and there isn't a large demand for them. Saltwater fish can be easily replaced if the store's stock dies off for some reason -- you just call up the importer and they'll ship you a new batch of wild caught fish pronto. You can't just call up an importer and have a ton of frogs shipped to you in a week; certainly not enough frigs with enough consistency to regularly stock a large amount of pet stores. This is regularly done with saltwater fish however.



phender said:


> I also don't agree with people going into the frog hobby as already being conservation minded. I don't know if I can think of any of the froggers that I personally know who went into frogs to preserve them. They got into dart frogs because dart frogs are cool, interesting and pretty. Once they were in the hobby, then they became interested in preserving their habitat, etc.


I do agree with you that people might not have gotten into the hobby with conservation/preservation in mind. But I stand by my statement that it is a big focus within the hobby, and I previously stated some of the reasons why hobbyists wish to preserve morphs, and don't want them mixed.



phender said:


> Even though the reef hobby can't really breed fish, they do propagate corals much like we propagate broms. In addition there are a great number of companies in the reef business that are very similar to UE. They set up coral and clam farms and train local populations to operate the farms so they don't have to harvest from the reef. They show the locals how to sustainably harvest fish using safe (for the fish) capture methods. They do studies to find out how many fish they can take and from where, all the while building the local economies.


While there are some companies like Sustainable Aquatics and ORA that aquaculture corals and clownfish, the vast majority of reef livestock comes in through importers that regularly take them straight from the reef. And stores receive regular shipments of these reef animals; they receive much less stock of the "sustainable" animals. And while some species like pumilio are still imported, it is in a much smaller amount and frequency than corals/fish. You could say that only a percentage of all the pumilio in captivity are captive bred, but every single hippo tang/lionfish/hermit crab that you see in the aquarium hobby is taken straight from reefs.


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## jeeperrs (Jan 14, 2010)

As a Psychologist, I think the title should be changed. The title should read: "The economics of hybridization". The title would the become the post. The post would then become your answer. In reflection, we must have not been very good in economics/business.


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## phender (Jan 9, 2009)

Ed said:


> So for your two reef tanks and the two dogs, what is your annual cost in electricity, bulbs, temperature control, salt, water, additives, dog food, dog treats, toys, leashes, collars, vet bills, heartworm and flea/tick treatments........?
> As opposed to bulbs, water,electricity, heating/cooling plus $60 for flies/month, vet bills if any?
> 
> I'm finding it more than a little hard to believe that your total cost/12 months is cheaper than $60 month for two reef tanks and two large dogs.... I go through almost $40 a month in food for two much smaller dogs....


I was talking about food costs, but if you want me to crunch some #'s for you....
I have 504 watts of light (16 bulbs) over my 9 frog tanks. There is 432 watts (8 bulbs) over my reef tanks. So as far as lighting goes my frogs cost me more in electricity and bulb replacement. As far as heating/cooling I have had to lower my thermostat to keep the frogs cool, whereas a simple fan over the tank did the job for my reefs. I don't do water changes (many old time reefers don't) so I don't use much salt. Water is from my R/O unit which I need for my frogs and reefs so you can't really count filter replacements against either one. I use a 2 part CA/Alk additive which is about $24 a year. I don't know how much I spent on Repashy per year. Collars and leashes last a lifetime for me, and get passed from dog to dog. I go through about 1 40 lb bag of dog food a month @ ~$50. I don't have to treat for heartworm in CA and my dogs aren't bothered by fleas. Yes, a big vet bill would probably tip the scales a little, but that really wasn't what I was talking about.



> So where do the thousands of dart frogs imported in the US over the years go? For example more than 50,000 auratus were imported into the US over a 8 year period (2000 to 2008) (see http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/ge...ild-caught-auratus-pet-stores.html#post476465) and this is before we look at pumilio.... which some estimates put at 15,000 between 04 and 08.... so at least an estimated 65,000 dart frogs came into the country during that period and went where??


Shawn Harrington? Just kidding 

I am sure a large percent die and never make it to the marketplace, but I am comparing dart frog keeping to other pet keepers in this discussion, i.e. reefs, pythons, geckos. So lets say that is 10,000 per year. That sounds like a lot (and it certainly is) but that is like a week's worth of corals and fish maybe even a day's worth. 
Are you saying that the dart frog hobby is as big as the reef keeping, python or gecko hobbies?

[quote}
While they may not make it to a local pet store, they are being prevelently marketed on many classified ads on sites specifically set up to sell them.... so you can't really claim they aren't available given the prevelence of people shopping online these days, to argue it's because they aren't in the local pet store is somewhat moot at best. [/quote]

So while my wife is shopping for shoes online, she is going to happen across a site that sells dart frogs? I don't even happen across sites that sell dart frogs when I am shopping for reef stuff online. It is far more likely, in my opinion, for someone to be shopping and walk into a pet store and become interested in a snake, fish, turtle or whatever, than to be shopping online and just happen to have a reptile, herp or aquarium site pop up.
. 


> Actually, most of the fish in the marine fish hobby are collected from the reefs are collected unsustainably, and often illegally... cyanide collecting is alive and well in the Philippenes and Indonesia where a huge majority of the reef fish originate... See for example, Cyanide fishing and cyanide detection in... [Biosens Bioelectron. 2005] - PubMed - NCBI. and PLOS ONE: Excreted Thiocyanate Detects Live Reef Fishes Illegally Collected Using Cyanide
> 
> The level of this has not really declined since the 1960s... In addition, these collecting methods are now demonstrating that coral damage is occuring due to the cyanide exposure.... So you can't really claim the few clam/coral farms are offsetting most of this damage.


I didn't mean to imply what I wrote was the norm in the reef industry, just that it exists. Just like UE isn't the norm in the dart frog hobby either. I do know that it is actually easier (for me anyway) to buy an aquacultured/maricultured small polyp stony coral than it is to buy a wild colony these days. That doesn't mean I can't find any wild colonies, but they are out numbered by the farmed sps corals. 
I was commenting on the evidence that was given supporting a poster's thought that dart frog hobbyists were generally conservation minded. I don't think that most of the people (other that UE) who are exporting frogs are terribly conservation minded. I don't think that the people who buy frogs that were smuggled into Europe and then imported here are conservationally minded. I don't think that people who keep frogs that were never legally exported from their home country are conservatonally minded. I think a lot of froggers are conservationally minded until their dream frog becomes available and then they "forget" to ask those important questions.



> Again, if it is so small of a hobby what happened to the combined auratus and pumilio frogs imported into the US? Attempting to claim it is small based on the number of people here and/or the lack of sightings of frogs in local pet stores doesn't account for the numbers..... Unless some people are running the equivalent to a mass death camp for them....
> 
> Some comments
> 
> Ed


Again, small is a relative term. I am comparing the size of the dart frog hobby to that of the reef, python and gecko hobbies. The reef hobby because the OP asked and the python and gecko hobbies because they were some examples where breeding for a variety of colors exists when it is frowned upon in our hobby.

Are you saying that the dart frog hobby is as big as the reef, ball python or gecko hobby? I know that is not true compared to the reef hobby, but I don't hang out in reptile circles. Based on the numbers pythons and geckos I see for sale at reptile shows and discount pet stores, I assume that we are quite a bit smaller.

10,000 frogs a year is a lot of frogs and may be more than a wild population can handle. I am sure that many of them never make it into the trade or out of their shipping container for that matter, and even if they did, I am sure that the number of CB frogs sold in the U.S. each year is probably many times that. I know that I have sold more frogs than I have bought in the last 4 years. There are 1,150 Petco and 1,200 Petsmart stores in the U.S.. That doesn't even count the independent reptile/pet stores. The number of frogs that we import and produce don't go very far when you look at it like that.


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## Groundhog (Dec 17, 2006)

jeeperrs said:


> As a Psychologist, I think the title should be changed. The title should read: "The economics of hybridization". The title would the become the post. The post would then become your answer. In reflection, we must have not been very good in economics/business.


As a social scientist, I'll stand by "social psychology." The question--my heuristic goal--was/is to learn why there seems to a different ethos among PDF keepers, especially in contrast to python, gecko or dog breeders. (It was not just to learn who goes into pdfs, and why.) I had never thought of the comparison to reefers; this is a comparison that could be the subject of a sociology paper!

I must say I find the discourse to be serious and stimulating.


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## phender (Jan 9, 2009)

hypostatic said:


> It is true that having FFs delivered can be expensive. Ignoring the limiting factor of money, you can keep dart frogs and never have to set up your own culture. Reefing is several times more expensive than keeping darts. Especially if you're constantly buying frozen food for your fish, specialized phyto/zooplankton to feed your corals, salt, phosphate/calcium/nitrate reactor media, and dosing for calcium/magnesium/iodine, etc. And assuming you don't have an extremely expensive automated system to do all that for you, maintaining a reef tank is a lot more labor/time intensive than a dart frog tank.


Man, I don't work near that hard on my reef tanks. I drop in some pellet food 3 times a week, I fill up the make-up water bucket twice a week and use a 2 part CA/Alk additive a couple times a week for my stony coral tank and I wipe off the glass once a week. That's it. And yes, I keep high end sps corals with great color, difficult to keep clownfish host anemones and I have 3 clownfish pairs that spawn like clockwork every 10 days.
But I see your point. Most reefers spend a lot of money. If they wanted to do frogs, what would stop them for having a constant supply of flies shipped to their door.


> The reason why stores don't carry frogs isn't because of fruit flies. They carry lots of animals that eat crickets, and most stores certainly don't have their own cricket breeding operation running -- they just order more crickets when they run out; and there many stores that even carry flies (like petco).
> 
> I think stores don't regularly carry frogs because they're more difficult to restock, and there isn't a large demand for them. Saltwater fish can be easily replaced if the store's stock dies off for some reason -- you just call up the importer and they'll ship you a new batch of wild caught fish pronto. You can't just call up an importer and have a ton of frogs shipped to you in a week; certainly not enough frigs with enough consistency to regularly stock a large amount of pet stores. This is regularly done with saltwater fish however.


I concede again. 




> While there are some companies like Sustainable Aquatics and ORA that aquaculture corals and clownfish, the vast majority of reef livestock comes in through importers that regularly take them straight from the reef. And stores receive regular shipments of these reef animals; they receive much less stock of the "sustainable" animals. And while some species like pumilio are still imported, it is in a much smaller amount and frequency than corals/fish. You could say that only a percentage of all the pumilio in captivity are captive bred, but every single hippo tang/lionfish/hermit crab that you see in the aquarium hobby is taken straight from reefs.


I was talking more about companies in the countries of origin of the fish and corals when I was talking about sustainability. There are companies in Fiji and several other South Pacific islands that farm corals. In fact, most of the corals and almost all the clams that I see in our local shops are farmed in these locations and not wild colonies. There are also companies in the Solomon Islands, PNG and other islands that have been licensed by the governments to collect because they showed that they could sustainably harvest those reef animals, including fish. 
Obviously this is a small percentage of the total number of animals imported, but UE frogs are also only a small percentage of the frogs imported legally and illegally every year as well. 

So why don't dart frogs have a greater appeal? Why aren't they as popular as reef tanks, pythons and geckos? I thought maybe it was a supply problem like you said about the pet shops, but once I decided to take the plunge, I had no problem finding a supply of quality frogs. Are we just in before the boom? Is there some weirdness about us that we like to keep pretty pets that we can't touch in glass boxes?


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## Baltimore Bryan (Sep 6, 2006)

phender said:


> So why don't dart frogs have a greater appeal? Why aren't they as popular as reef tanks, pythons and geckos? I thought maybe it was a supply problem like you said about the pet shops, but once I decided to take the plunge, I had no problem finding a supply of quality frogs. Are we just in before the boom? Is there some weirdness about us that we like to keep pretty pets that we can't touch in glass boxes?


You know, I think part of it is just that a lot of people don't even know about poison dart frogs. Unless you watch rainforest shows on Discovery Channel, or go to a good zoo/aquarium, you may not know much about them. It's not too surprising to hear that others keep fish, but people are amazed when I tell them about keeping dart frogs. They ask, "Are those real? Are they poisonous? Where do you get them?" So maybe they just aren't widespread enough for the average person to be interested in them.
Bryan


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

phender said:


> I am sure a large percent die and never make it to the marketplace, but I am comparing dart frog keeping to other pet keepers in this discussion, i.e. reefs, pythons, geckos. So lets say that is 10,000 per year. That sounds like a lot (and it certainly is) but that is like a week's worth of corals and fish maybe even a day's worth.
> Are you saying that the dart frog hobby is as big as the reef keeping, python or gecko hobbies?


I'm not saying that it is as big, but those frogs have to go somewhere..... That is a lot of frogs to end up somewhere...... 



> So while my wife is shopping for shoes online, she is going to happen across a site that sells dart frogs? I don't even happen across sites that sell dart frogs when I am shopping for reef stuff online. It is far more likely, in my opinion, for someone to be shopping and walk into a pet store and become interested in a snake, fish, turtle or whatever, than to be shopping online and just happen to have a reptile, herp or aquarium site pop up.


. 
It is bigger than you think......try this on for a simple experiment. Go to google and type the following search phrase "reef dartfrog" into the search engine and then look at the results... A surprising number of reef forums popup with discussions on keeping dendrobatids. (total results 172,000).. try it again with tropical fish... again a surprising number of. forums (and sellers).... and this is before we look at sites like kingsnake.com or faunaclassifieds.com or sites of those selling pet supplies and animals (like black jungle or thatpetplace.com).. 

Try dog dart frog.... oddly enough it pulls up a retailer with the name "Dartfrogs to dogs".... 

Check out this question on yahoo answers.. Can a pet store sell poison dart frogs, & can you keep them as pets? - Yahoo! Answers 

So with a little effort we can see that the idea that dart frogs for pets is pretty widely spread across a number of aspects of the pet hobby.... 






> I didn't mean to imply what I wrote was the norm in the reef industry, just that it exists. Just like UE isn't the norm in the dart frog hobby either. I do know that it is actually easier (for me anyway) to buy an aquacultured/maricultured small polyp stony coral than it is to buy a wild colony these days. That doesn't mean I can't find any wild colonies, but they are out numbered by the farmed sps corals.


That is due to the CITES listing of many (or most SPS)...to get around it, the same thing is done as we see with the "farmed" Panamian Pumilio or the "farmed" Costa Rican Bluejeans.... So the fact that "farmed", "mariculture", "aquacultured" is on the lable it doesn't automatically mean that it wasn't harvested from the wild (or harvested and fragmented)....so you can't automatically equate that as meaning less is pulled from the reefs... 



> I was commenting on the evidence that was given supporting a poster's thought that dart frog hobbyists were generally conservation minded. I don't think that most of the people (other that UE) who are exporting frogs are terribly conservation minded. I don't think that the people who buy frogs that were smuggled into Europe and then imported here are conservationally minded. I don't think that people who keep frogs that were never legally exported from their home country are conservatonally minded. I think a lot of froggers are conservationally minded until their dream frog becomes available and then they "forget" to ask those important questions.


Since I've seen this happen frequently over the years, I don't think it to be true either... 




> Again, small is a relative term. I am comparing the size of the dart frog hobby to that of the reef, python and gecko hobbies. The reef hobby because the OP asked and the python and gecko hobbies because they were some examples where breeding for a variety of colors exists when it is frowned upon in our hobby.


They are apple and orange comparisons. As was noted above, the killifish hobby is probably the closest to the dendrobatid hobby and they are worldwide.... Both of the gecko and python "hobbies" are driven in no small part by the pyramid scheme of making money with the latest designer (as is the corn snake group) combination. The closest we get is when a new population with a different color pattern is imported. A better comparision would be the locality specific rosy boas or milk snakes... (and the price of a number of those has been stable for years (example, specific locality costal plains milks). 



> 10,000 frogs a year is a lot of frogs and may be more than a wild population can handle. I am sure that many of them never make it into the trade or out of their shipping container for that matter, and even if they did, I am sure that the number of CB frogs sold in the U.S. each year is probably many times that.


I'm going to disagree with you on these points. First off, the frogs do arrive alive...conditions have improved since the 1980s, and early 1990s.. We can see when a new batch hits the market, the resellers have them up on kingsnake.com... a short period later, we see stabilized animals offered for sale here (often labled strictly reptiles....)... 
Second, the inference that more than 10,000 captive bred frogs a year is sold into the hobby is going to be hard to support since that effectively means that more than 20,000 dendrobatids are sold in the USA alone... with close to half of them being auratus..... 

Keep in mind that the median longevity of many dendrobatids is probably around 5 years now so half of the frogs sold should be alive in 5 years so we can look at a pretty rapid progression of frog numbers between imports and captive bred assuming your numbers are correct... And I'm going to ask again, where are those frogs? Dendroboard is the largest dendrobatid site with close to 15,000 members.. so if only 10% of the hobby is represented by Dendroboard, we would be swimming in dart frogs..... 
So we are faced with three potential paths
1) the hobby is much larger than you estimate
2) the mortality rate of *all *frogs in the hobby is exceedingly high and not represented by median life estimates (which are based on lifespans in institutions..)
3) the number of captive bred frogs was grossly overestimated (since we have hard numbers for legal imports).... 

Some comments 

Ed


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## hypostatic (Apr 25, 2011)

Baltimore Bryan said:


> You know, I think part of it is just that a lot of people don't even know about poison dart frogs. Unless you watch rainforest shows on Discovery Channel, or go to a good zoo/aquarium, you may not know much about them. It's not too surprising to hear that others keep fish, but people are amazed when I tell them about keeping dart frogs. They ask, "Are those real? Are they poisonous? Where do you get them?" So maybe they just aren't widespread enough for the average person to be interested in them.
> Bryan


I concur. Keeping fish is considered normal, and most people who don't know better think that keeping saltwater fish is pretty much the same as keeping goldfish; not to mention most people out there don't even know that corals are animals just like us!

Keeping reptiles is a different story however. They're weird. And icky. why would anyone want to keep those? I mean, ball pythons and geckos are much more popular than dart frogs, but they're still no where as popular as saltwater fish and corals.

I think one reason people don't keep them is that they certainly find them weird. Like, seriously, who _actually_ thinks amphibians are cool? Weirdos like us, that go to whole CONVENTIONS about them. The average person doesn't care for that. If they want a pet they'll go to a pet store and get something they recognize, like a dog, or a cat, or a fish.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

hypostatic said:


> I concur. Keeping fish is considered normal, and most people who don't know better think that keeping saltwater fish is pretty much the same as keeping goldfish; not to mention most people out there don't even know that corals are animals just like us!


 
That is no small part due to the fact that unlike keeping reptiles and frogs there is a history of keeping fish as a pet in Western culture since the Victorian age..(in the Victorian Age some herps were kept since terrariums were the vogue but outside of naturalists and scientists it fell out of fashion unlike fish). In some Asian cultures we can consider it to be for much longer..... 

Some comments 

Ed


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## Groundhog (Dec 17, 2006)

hypostatic said:


> I concur. Keeping fish is considered normal, and most people who don't know better think that keeping saltwater fish is pretty much the same as keeping goldfish; not to mention most people out there don't even know that corals are animals just like us!
> 
> Keeping reptiles is a different story however. They're weird. And icky. why would anyone want to keep those? I mean, ball pythons and geckos are much more popular than dart frogs, but they're still no where as popular as saltwater fish and corals.
> 
> I think one reason people don't keep them is that they certainly find them weird. Like, seriously, who _actually_ thinks amphibians are cool? Weirdos like us, that go to whole CONVENTIONS about them. The average person doesn't care for that. If they want a pet they'll go to a pet store and get something they recognize, like a dog, or a cat, or a fish.


But this is changing, and fairly rapidly. When I was young, virtually only two types were into herps: science "nerds" (a term I don't like) and tough guys (bikers, lifters, metalheads, etc.). Virtually no yuppies, frat boys, people of color, broads. (Okay, maybe some boy scouts, but we were seen as dweebs.) I accepted it--understood that herping and nature shows were my own personal hobby; to socialize, I played softball, danced and sang and played r & b. Even horticulture was personal; not too many young people into epiphytes, or even flowers. Now, I go to herp shows and I see older people/younger people/families, all ethnicities, and chicks (many quite easy on the eyes). I wonder if one person had the most to do with the positive PR: Mr. Steve Irwin. Or maybe just cable tv and/or the internet. 

Now while the herps certainly live longer, better lives than 25-30 years ago, there is a downside; they become fashionable living accessories and toys. Certainly a problem for burms, iguanas, sulcatas, crocodilians, etc. Maybe you're on to something; PDFs are not really cheap, require knowledge and attention, and cannot be played with. As such, they may not lend themselves to too many impulse purchases. Before anyone jumps, this is not quite synonymous with "knucklehead" purchases; it is here that we may see some overlap with reefers. 

The point of my original post was to learn *what separates the serious PDF entusiast*. I do not say amphibian enthusiast, cause the dudes who created the 'Fantasy' frog certainly enjoyed their "creations." As for axolotol fans, I have not really given much thought; maybe ceratophrys and ambystoma lend themselves to selective breeding in ways that do not affect their natural populations. (They get $#@! by other human activities, thanks...) 

For myself--and I don't mean to bore anyone--I have always been fascinated how people can have hostile perspectives on essentially the same thing. Let me clarify my curiosity. Oh, I understood how a biologist cannot hang with a creationist--but Steve Gould couldn't get along with E. O. Wilson? I understood that a PETA person can't hang with a furrier--but also a pet owner who loves their pure-breed? In the latter case, do they not both "like" animals?

I really do not know if I can engage the question of who "cares" about their charges more, a pdf keeper, a cat rescuer, or the owner of designer ball python morph. Hell, for all I know there are people who are purists about pdfs and have "caramel shemale" balls, or designer dogs (with their associated health issues). Or there may be a hobbyist who feels it is "apples and oranges" (another term I eschew--they're both fruit) to compare captive "specimens" to domesticates. In other words, we are obligated to be ethical to "wild" animals but we can play Frankenstein with dogs and goldfish, and certainly our livestock. Hell, I make the world's best Philly cheesesteaks,* but at least I will watch _Food Inc._ and *seriously* think about it.

As Ed would say, some thoughts...

*Will take on any brother on South Street, any place, any time


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

phender said:


> (many old time reefers don't) .


I found this funny and edited it out of my post by accident and didn't realize it until after the time to edit had passed... 

I'm not sure what you mean by old time reefer but I had my first nano reef back in 1986 in a ten gallon AGA aquarium... and I was breeding peppermint shrimp in it to feed to my sea horses.. .... I had my first salt water tank back in 1976......  

Ed


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Groundhog said:


> science "nerds"


I fully acknowledge I was and still am a science nerd... Much better than being referred to as a yahoo ala Gulliver's Travels.... 



Groundhog said:


> As for axolotol fans, I have not really given much thought; maybe ceratophrys and ambystoma lend themselves to selective breeding in ways that do not affect their natural populations. (They get $#@! by other human activities, thanks...)


Point of fact, all of the axolotl color patterns are not from the hobby.. they were all produced to study one or more of the following, cell migration, pigmentation, genetics,..... and I'm quite sure I'm missing a few since I'm getting tired... 




Groundhog said:


> I really do not know if I can engage the question of who "cares" about their charges more, a pdf keeper, a cat rescuer, or the owner of designer ball python morph. Hell, for all I know there are people who are purists about pdfs and have "caramel shemale" balls, or designer dogs (with their associated health issues).


I think the question you may want to look at more closely is the impact of cookbook husbandry as a established culture since that tend to promote rigidity versus flexibility in meeting the needs of the animal... 




Groundhog said:


> Or there may be a hobbyist who feels it is "apples and oranges" (another term I eschew--they're both fruit)


Which doesn't mean that they are the same thing... one is a modified berry and one is pome... One was called the chinese apple.. one was just apple... 



Groundhog said:


> to compare captive "specimens" to domesticates. In other words, we are obligated to be ethical to "wild" animals but we can play Frankenstein with dogs and goldfish, and certainly our livestock. Hell, I make the world's best Philly cheesesteaks,* but at least I will watch _Food Inc._ and *seriously* think about it.
> 
> *Will take on any brother on South Street, any place, any time


We club together with several people and purchase grass fed/finished beef, raise our own chickens, and are looking at clubbing together to get a pasture raised pig.... (and we have venison in the freezer along with some quail...)... and that is before we get to our home canning etc... (recent trials include a delicious maple sugar applebutter...). 

The best Philly Cheesesteaks are not found on South Street..... try PUDGE'S STEAKS & HOAGIES ON LINE.... 

Some comments 

Ed


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## phender (Jan 9, 2009)

Ed said:


> I found this funny and edited it out of my post by accident and didn't realize it until after the time to edit had passed...
> 
> I'm not sure what you mean by old time reefer but I had my first nano reef back in 1986 in a ten gallon AGA aquarium... and I was breeding peppermint shrimp in it to feed to my sea horses.. .... I had my first salt water tank back in 1976......
> 
> Ed


Well, I beat you by a couple years on each count. My first salt water tank was in 1974 and my first reef was in 1983. I was breeding ocellaris clown fish and selling the babies to local fish stores in the late 80's and early 90's. I had an article on clown fish host anemones published in _Tropical Fish Hobbiest_ in 1991 and was called "a pioneer in host anemone husbandry" by Joyce Wilkerson in her book _Clownfishes_.

Folks like you and I learned to keep reef animals without metal halide lights, high efficiency skimmers, calcium dosers, phytoplankton, etc., etc. Although my tanks are more high tech than they were in the 1980s,(T5 lights and a better protein skimmer), they are still very low maintenance.


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## phender (Jan 9, 2009)

Ed said:


> I'm going to disagree with you on these points. First off, the frogs do arrive alive...conditions have improved since the 1980s, and early 1990s.. We can see when a new batch hits the market, the resellers have them up on kingsnake.com... a short period later, we see stabilized animals offered for sale here (often labled strictly reptiles....)...
> Second, the inference that more than 10,000 captive bred frogs a year is sold into the hobby is going to be hard to support since that effectively means that more than 20,000 dendrobatids are sold in the USA alone... with close to half of them being auratus.....
> 
> Keep in mind that the median longevity of many dendrobatids is probably around 5 years now so half of the frogs sold should be alive in 5 years so we can look at a pretty rapid progression of frog numbers between imports and captive bred assuming your numbers are correct... And I'm going to ask again, where are those frogs? Dendroboard is the largest dendrobatid site with close to 15,000 members.. so if only 10% of the hobby is represented by Dendroboard, we would be swimming in dart frogs.....
> ...


Hi Ed,

To tell you the truth, I'm not really sure what the point of our discussion is anymore except just to contradict each other. I sometimes can't even tell when you are agreeing with me or refuting me.

My guess that there are more CB frogs sold in the U.S. than imported frogs is based on the fact that I have never seen an imported frog for sale (other than pumilio) at any store or reptile show here in SoCal. I have seen 100s of CB frogs for sale. Maybe I am way off.

You say that the dart frog hobby is bigger than I estimate, yet all I have said is that it is smaller that the other hobbies mentioned, which I think (I'm not sure anymore) you agree with.

Are you saying that there are more than 20,000 dart frogs sold every year or that there is no way that many are sold?

You ask where did all the imported frogs go. Well......

If there are 15,000 members on Dendroboard, is it too much of a stretch to think that maybe 2 out of every 3 members lose 1 frog from their collection per year that needs to be replaced? That would take care of all the imports right there. If there were 30,000 more people not on Dendroboard, that would take care of 20,000 more frogs. That doesn't even count people adding to their collection, which we know is unavoidable.  If everyone on Dendroboard and off adds one frog to their collection each year (I think I bought 5 new frogs this year, but don't plan to continue that trend) you would need 45,000 more frogs. Thats a total of 75,000 frogs bought and sold in the U.S. only, with only 45,000 people keeping frogs. That would be 4 froggers for every 10,000 households. That would mean there are 8 froggers in my city. I personally know of 1 other in my city limits. These figures are based on the assumption that the average dart frogger loses an average of 2 frogs over a 3 year period and adds an average of 1 frog to his/her collection every year. Maybe that is way off, but I don't think those assumptions are unreasonable. 

I don't know where you got that Dendroboard members make up only 10% of the dart frog hobby. Is that some standard Internet Forum Members/Actual Nationwide Participant coefficient? I am not trying to sarcastic, I know that you know a lot of facts and figures to which I will never be exposed. If it is, that seems a little high in our case. That would give us 150,000 hobbyists in 115 million households in the U.S.. That would be 1.3 for every thousand homes or 27 people in just my city. That seems a little high to me.


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## phender (Jan 9, 2009)

Sorry we went off on a tangent. I do find the original question fascinating though.

I didn't get into dart frogs because they are not selectively bred, but I have no desire to do so. Most the orchids in my window sill are hybrids, but all the orchids in my vivariums are species. Since starting dart frogs, I have also started growing begonias. I do have some hybrids but most are species at this point and I am trending that way. I am even starting to have more and more species broms in my vivariums.

A thought just occurred to me, maybe the reason dart frog keepers don't like hybrid frogs is because the hobby isn't just about the frogs, it is about creating a little piece of nature in your home. I keep hybrid orchids and begonias, but I don't put them in my vivariums. That wasn't a conscious decision on my part, but that's how it has worked out. Do the herp hobbies that seem to prefer selectively bred animals also strive to keep their animals in natural environments? I don't know for sure, but I get the feeling they don't. For them it's about the animal. For us its about the whole package. Why would you want to build a little piece of nature around something that didn't occur in nature?

I know that most of our vivariums are far from what our frogs find in nature, but that is because of ignorance, lack of space, etc., not because we aren't trying. 

Just thinking out loud,


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## Taari (Nov 6, 2012)

I'm pretty new to PDF's, but I've been keeping orchids for a couple years now. Orchids have tens of thousands of variations and there are more hybrids than you can shake a stick at. But there are many people that focus their whole collections on species plants (plants that are naturally found in the wild). I myself have several species plants, and alot of hybrids too. Generally the plants commonly sold in grocery stores are the most frequently hybridized, such as phalaenopsis, dendrobiums, and cattleyas. But it's still quite easy to find species plants of all of these. I have a Phal. equestris in my terrarium, and a dendrobium peguanum in my collection. Some species of orchids are incredibly difficult to grow, and hybridizing and selective breeding makes them easier, more vigorous, hardier, disease resistant, etc. 

I am a firm opponent of genetic modification, but selective breeding is pretty benign with one caveat: that the original, wild-type strains be preserved. PDF's are gorgeous, facinating creatures just the way God made them and I'd be devestated if any of them became extinct or unavailable in the hobby because hybrids are more favorable. But I don't believe that hybrids in and of themselves are inherantly bad. Yes, some of them can get pretty rediculous (there are some very rediculous looking orchid hybrids out there), but so long as the people creating them are responsible about it, I don't see a problem.


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## epiphytes etc. (Nov 22, 2010)

Taari said:


> I'm pretty new to PDF's, but I've been keeping orchids for a couple years now. Orchids have tens of thousands of variations and there are more hybrids than you can shake a stick at. But there are many people that focus their whole collections on species plants (plants that are naturally found in the wild). I myself have several species plants, and alot of hybrids too. Generally the plants commonly sold in grocery stores are the most frequently hybridized, such as phalaenopsis, dendrobiums, and cattleyas. But it's still quite easy to find species plants of all of these. I have a Phal. equestris in my terrarium, and a dendrobium peguanum in my collection. Some species of orchids are incredibly difficult to grow, and hybridizing and selective breeding makes them easier, more vigorous, hardier, disease resistant, etc.
> 
> I am a firm opponent of genetic modification, but selective breeding is pretty benign with one caveat: that the original, wild-type strains be preserved. PDF's are gorgeous, facinating creatures just the way God made them and I'd be devestated if any of them became extinct or unavailable in the hobby because hybrids are more favorable. But I don't believe that hybrids in and of themselves are inherantly bad. Yes, some of them can get pretty rediculous (there are some very rediculous looking orchid hybrids out there), but so long as the people creating them are responsible about it, I don't see a problem.


 I uses to feel the same way. However, after spending more time in this hobby, and seen some common frogs become hard to find, I've had a complete change of heart. I, myself, have made the same comparison to orchids. There is a huge difference, though. Frogs can only be reproduced sexually. That means we need all the "pure" genes we can get to keep these species going. There will be no more anthonyi/tricolor imports, for example, and one morph has been lost to the hobby already. We simply cannot afford to lose anymore genetics if we want the species to last long term. For every hybrid or line bred frog produced, we have lost the space and time for a pure species/morph to be cared for and bred.


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## Taari (Nov 6, 2012)

I see your point, and I hadn't considered the difference in that orchid hybrids are mericloned while frogs have to be bred sexually, and many species of frogs only produce 4-10 eggs at a time.


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