Most definitely, illegally sourced. I wonder how these have ended up in Europe where the Australian Govt. will invariably make it impossible for the species to be shipped / transported abroad .... (???).
I notice that's in German. Is that listing in Germany, or in the former Soviet Bloc? I know that slow lorises are available in parts of eastern Europe, and I know of at least two Czech companies which I'm pretty sure illegally smuggle rare cacti out of Latin America, given that they sell species they couldn't have acquired legally.
No, it is Russia based trader advertising on a well-known German vivaria surplus and wanted site. The Hamm Boerse is a large and well-known specialist reptile / amphibian et cetera trade fair. The next event is this December.
And on the plus side, this might set up a breeding stock outside Oz. The problem IMO is not the low scale export of endangered species (legality is ecologically irrelevant, because the impact is from the scale); rather 'erpers are too obsessed with breeding forms when they could help maintain a conservative breeding stock, so the opportunities become lost. Serious interest is rarely there IMO or anurans in particular ought to benefit, seeing the lack of interest from most zoo collections, and the decline of many wild anurans. Before anyone gets irate remember how many now rare birds - and even passenger pigeon - were once more common as breeders in private collections. The total lack of access to certain wild species is no better for conservation than it is for aviculture, and the export policies of OZ and NZ are hardline and out of line. As with birds so with reptiles, frogs etc.
Collecting of endangered species is not an issue as long as it is done on a small scale? interesting reasoning seeing as most collecting begin on small scale and then increase as the demand does. There is many cases of amphibians and reptiles being virtually gone from the wild just a few years after beeing described due to illegal collecting for the pet trade. Seeing as many of these species are already threatened any collecting what-so-ever will no doubt have an impact. You are incorrect saying that serious interest is lacking from many zoos to work with declining amphibians. I have visited several breeding centres for amphibians in Colombia and Ecuador, set-up or largely sponsored by zoos. Many of the same institutions are also involved in research into the reasons for these declines.
Several good points that seemingly attempt to justify - or at least mitigate - the crime of wildlife trafficking, and that fail utterly. Who knows how many pygmy blue-tongues died along the way, or what proportion of the wild population were stolen (yes, stolen) to make this sale possible.
I see some people have a kneejerk defence of legislation just because it was set up to protect wild populations. Legislation can be counterproductive, so when there are so few indigenous Aussie reptiles outside the country, so someone in Russia fills the demand underhand. (But as I said there is no statistical difference between a small scale legal trade, and a numerically identical illegal one, anyway. People think what - Australia should get even stricter although such exports are usually prevented, or the animals should be siezed and killed by authorities, which would be their usual fate?) And the same folks will get excited over breeding programs for Sumatran rhinos, vaquitas etc after they became dead clades walking, because genetically diverse populations were not established in advance of crisis. I repeat again, the extinction of passenger pigeons in private collections was a tragedy, and the absence of any founder population at all, has the same effect when populations crash. And yes, zoos are still biased toward megafauna over ie. small squamates, birds and anurans, so private collectors/breeders do need to become involved on behalf of smaller vertebrates that don't pull crowds. Heavy handed regulations such as Australia's are part of the problem when they stifle the foundation of captive populations, and actually create the problem of illegal export, as seen in the OP.
You say people have a kneejerk reaction, oh well. Yeah these legislations are there to protect wild population of endangered species from amongst other things collecting from the wild There have been several cases in recent years in this part of the world where collectors have moved in and caused local extinctions/severe depletions in populations of already threatened species (geckos from NZ seems to be particularly tempting for these people). Interesting enough there is no reassurance population of any of these species in Europe, which you seem to imply is the main reason people keep smuggling these species. There is huge differences between legal and illegal trade in reptiles, most species legal are either commercially farmed or so common in the wild that trade is considered sutainable (within certain limits for many species). Whilst most species illegally traded are endangered and strictly protected. Very few people who illegally trade in endangered species do so in order to set up captive reassurance populations, they are interested in making a quick buck on rare species as they usually sell for high prices. The wellfare of the animals smuggled is of low concern as evidence in the high mortality rates, which is painfully obvious given the poor condition of many animals seized from the illegal trade.
No one said illegal and legal trade are equivalent. The act of collecting is equivalent for the wild stocks, and no one said that the main reason people keep smuggling these species is to set up a reassurance population. Just that there is no chance of that, with closed exports.
I would agree you have a point there. I would also agree that a stringent conservation policy with no export / import allowances in itself cannot be considered an effective conservation measure. Further, I know that for certain species they will not allow captive-breeding to take place even those provisions can be made under legislation inside and outside CITES and have been demonstrated to be beneficial to creating assurance conservation breeding programs to actually build up populations ..., where these otherwise would have been further reduced to the crisis point where no recovery is even likely. As far as the serious and specialised aquarist and reptilian/amphibian breeders' associations' segment, I would concur they do make a valuable contribution to improving husbandry capacity in many rare species as well as having considerably more breeding success than most zoos. I am not sure if we could actually make any informed judgement on the scale of their contribution versus the total trade in species exported / imported within and outside CITES legislation. I am not even sure if any good statistics are kept outside the TRAFFIC network for all threatened or non-rare species to back up any claims of what impact trade both legal and illegal is having on wild populations (where this relates to fish, reptiles or amphibians). I am quite sure though that illegal trade, even those that eventually end up in the specialist interest group segment, is certainly not helping wild populations. There is so many species that once discovered and determined rare became even more so because their collection value shot up and people just wanted to have them (lik f.i. a certain colorful gecko from Tanzania and the bowsprite tortoises from Madagascar).
This is simply not true. There are plenty of zoos and research facilities in Australia that can and do develop a legal, sustainable and ethically sourced insurance population. Australian institutions are currently doing the same for Western swamp tortoises, Tasmanian devils, greater bilbies, numbats, dibblers, Eastern barred bandicoots, helmeted honeyeaters, orange-bellied parrots, Southern corroboree frogs amongst others, so I reckon we can manage the pygmy blue-tongues just fine without 'help' from Russian smugglers. I agree with you that preventing exports of (captive-bred, legally-held) Australian fauna is counter-productive, in the same way that drug prohibition doesn't work. But that doesn't justify what has happened here.
Agreed and certainly touche ... and one of my original points for checking up and over the trader in the first place. BTW: his website is no longer operating. I would seriously hope the end result may be an increased interest in conservation assurance breeding and colonies for this seriously threatened species. Certainly, its status remains precarious to date with only 16 small populations (est. at max. 5,000 individuals) in an area of ... 2.03km2 N from Adelaide. All currently known populations occur on private land. The South Australia Govt. has established a National Recovery Effort. Captive-breeding is only considered a non-essential side initiative. BTW: Curiously so, the IUCN Red List 1996 listing Endangered B1+2c ver 2.3 (yes it is again over 20 years old ...) observed only: I) It needs updating and II) Previously listings: 1994 – Endangered (E) / 1990 – Indeterminate (I) / 1988 – Indeterminate (I) .....!!! For the IUCN Red List the assesors are / were in all cases the Australasian Reptile & Amphibian Specialist Group.
Not sure what you mean by the 'TRAFFIC network', but maybe this will be reliant. Captive Reptile Mortality Rates in the Home and Implications for the Wildlife Trade
