# Considering buying new frogs? Check out the blacklist.



## Afemoralis (Mar 17, 2005)

As a spin off to the smuggling thread going on in the Science and Conservation section of the board, I thought it would be good to mention the recently posted "blacklist" of frogs known to be smuggled. Evan et al. did a nice job on putting it all together.

Check it out:

http://www.dendrobates.org/smuggling.html 

I firmly believe that most of us won't buy illegal frogs if we know they are illegal and detrimental to the wild populations and habitats. Here is a fine starting point on that information.

Cheers,

Afemoralis


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## mattmcf (Sep 24, 2006)

very interesting article.


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## frogman824 (Aug 10, 2005)

That is interesting, too bad there isn't anything else that could be done to prevent illegal smuggling. Anyone know the punishment that one is given if one is caught?


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## Jordan B (Oct 8, 2004)

Typically not more than a fine.


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## christina hanson (Feb 16, 2004)

Dendrobates lamasi - Red, orange, and green morphs

Is the green form the "Panguana lamasi" that are so well known in the hobby?

Christina


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## kyle1745 (Feb 15, 2004)

I do not believe the current "green legged" to be illegal. Someone please correct me if I am wrong as these have been in a hobby for a bit now.

Also I think the list may need a bit of clarification, as I believe they are referring to the newer fantasicus, and not the ones current in the US hobby. granted again correct me if I am wrong here.


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## joshsfrogs (May 6, 2004)

> Dendrobates lamasi - Red, orange, and green morphs
> 
> Is the green form the "Panguana lamasi" that are so well known in the hobby?


That was my question after reading. The Red and Orange are the color on the back (I've seen pictures of the red and orange lamasi (very nice looking frogs)). So, I'm wondering if the green morph is a morph with green on the back (in place of the yellow) as opposed to the "green-legged" a lot of people have.


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## joeyo90 (Nov 5, 2006)

the pics make me sad because of how inhumanly they treat these frogs


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

All the lowland lamasi (aka panguana) are what is being referred to on the list. These animals showed up in the hobby from Peru after Peru stopped shipping frogs out... these frogs have only been in the hobby a handful of years... it seems like longer since they are so popular, but its due to their breeding habits (like rabbits) so they've become established much faster than most.

Standard fants are fine and have been around for a long while... its the other forms that are suspect (baneded/yellow may be on this list), and the morphs being referred to specifically are forms such as lowland and what not (basically everything but standards and banded) that were discovered by science within the last couple of years... definitely in a period of time in which the only legal exportation of dendrobatids was thru UE and INIBICO, neither of which had released them, or even have released them to this date, with the exception of lowland which was just released by UE thru SNDF.


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## ETwomey (Jul 22, 2004)

The standard yellow lowland (Panguana) lamasi are not what I was referring to. There is morph that has a lime green dorsum rather than yellow. It is very difficult to know which morphs have been smuggled and which are legal, because CITES papers to not indicate morphs nor localities. So most of the detection of illegal morphs comes from people working closely with the frogs in the field, e.g. Mark P. For the fantasticus, it is hard to say what is legal and illegal. Although, reviewing the database right now, I can see plenty of fantasticus that have gone from the EU to the US, but none that came from Peru. Anyways, even if there were legal shipments in the past, we know for a fact that some morphs were discovered as recently as 2005, yet they have already appeared in Germany. We also know for a fact that during this time, no legal exports of this morph have taken place. The morph I am referring to is the orange/blue morph, which is now in Germany. Arrived late 2006. 

Evan


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## thekidgecko (Oct 30, 2006)

Sucky thing is, when PETA sees this kind of stuff they jump on it to try and kill anything/anyone related. (Us, cough cough)


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## sbreland (May 4, 2006)

Hmm... this presents an interesting dilemma. I was browsing a certain website which is a sponser here, and a well known breeder, as well as a distributor for the INIBICO project and he has listed in his coming soon section orange lamasi. What is our position on that in relation to the blacklist since he is well known, well respected, and I would say generally trusted? I have had no dealings with him but have heard nothing but good and suspect that he is very much on the up and up, yet he has listed frogs soon to be available that are on "the blacklist". Just curious if a revision of the list needs to be made, if there are any exceptions to the list that need to be made open, or whatever else needs to be said about it. Let me make it VERY clear that I am in no way making ANY accusations but rather just citing an instance for the blacklist that may need to be revised or at least addressed to avoid any confusion.


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## steelcube (Mar 17, 2004)

kyle1745 said:


> I do not believe the current "green legged" to be illegal. Someone please correct me if I am wrong as these have been in a hobby for a bit now.


Kyle,

I think the correct term is... questionable.  :wink: 


---


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## bbrock (May 20, 2004)

sbreland said:


> Hmm... this presents an interesting dilemma. I was browsing a certain website which is a sponser here, and a well known breeder, as well as a distributor for the INIBICO project and he has listed in his coming soon section orange lamasi.


I would not think of the black list as a static document. Marcos had suggested a black, gray, and white list for TWI. In this case, if the legal importation of orange lamasi happens, then that group may need to be moved to a gray list meaning that there are animals in the hobby that came in illegally prior to the later legal importations. The implication would be that if you want to keep your kharma clean, you need to insist on paperwork verifying the legal exportation from the range country.


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## rjmarchisi (Feb 16, 2004)

sbreland said:


> Hmm... this presents an interesting dilemma. I was browsing a certain website which is a sponser here, and a well known breeder, as well as a distributor for the INIBICO project and he has listed in his coming soon section orange lamasi.


I have seen this as well and am curious what the outcome of this "blacklist" will be. Will all frogs be required to have papers, or will trusted breeders continue to be trusted. Only time will tell.

rob


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## ETwomey (Jul 22, 2004)

The main point of this list was to get people thinking about these issues, particularly when it comes to buying certain frogs. Like Brent said, some frogs might be on the 'graylist', which means that it is hard to know their legality status for sure. To the best of my knowledge, orange lamasi were not well documented (or documented at all) prior to late 2005, so seems to me very unlikely that they were included in any legal shipments. But, it is possible. While we can probably all agree that frogs definitely on the blacklist should not be purchased, buying 'graylist' frogs would be more subjective. Personally, if I wasn't completely sure whether frogs I was buying were legal, I would probably refrain from buying them. Unfortunately, most species could be included on a graylist. Look at D. pumilio - many morphs have been exported legally, but probably just as many have been smuggled over the past several years. Does legal export of one morph of a species whitewash all illegal morphs of that species? Pragmatically, yes. But keeping informed of what is going on in the field will hopefully ameliorate this problem.

-Evan


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## sbreland (May 4, 2006)

That seems logical. I just kinda wondered that since they were placed on the tenetative blacklist that they probably never came out of Peru legally and since they never came out legally then it didn't really matter how trustworthy the person that had them were... they were wrong. Glad to hear at least on this particular forg that there is a gray area and one of our respected breeders does not have a negative shadow cast on him.


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## bbrock (May 20, 2004)

sbreland said:


> That seems logical. I just kinda wondered that since they were placed on the tenetative blacklist that they probably never came out of Peru legally and since they never came out legally then it didn't really matter how trustworthy the person that had them were... they were wrong. Glad to hear at least on this particular forg that there is a gray area and one of our respected breeders does not have a negative shadow cast on him.


But remember that these shadows cast different levels of darkness. There are almost certainly frogs in the US that were imported legally from Europe but not exported legally from the range country. People can argue until they are blue in the face about whether these animals are really legal in the US but if there were CITES export/import permits issued to transfer them from Europe to the US, I think the lawyers are going to have a difficult time proving someone is a criminal for buying them. I'm not saying it is impossible, just difficult. But legal or not, you have to consider the origins of the animals and decide whether it passes an ethical standard. 

There is just no way around the fact that there is a lot of gray area and wiggle room. The problem with this is that it makes it easy for people to rationalize their purchasing decisions and reduce the overall ethical standard of the hobby. I think Evan and Jason's approach is the correct one by weighing the propensity of the evidence and determing the likelihood that a frog, or group of frogs, were recently smuggled. I think we can all at least agree that we don't want to support ungoing smuggling activities. I think we would also agree that we don't want to encourage future smuggling activities. The blacklist is a place to start.


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## naja_naja (Sep 8, 2006)

whats that frog when you first open the link thats light blue that thing is awesome looking


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## sbreland (May 4, 2006)

If you are talking about the chrome green Bassleri...on the list.


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## naja_naja (Sep 8, 2006)

sbreland said:


> If you are talking about the chrome green Bassleri...on the list.


yeah its probably that


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## congo (Jul 12, 2015)

I feel so bad for those frogs...


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