Opinions on Laws.

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Martialis
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Re: Opinions on Laws.

Post: # 15691Post Martialis
Sun Jan 01, 2017 7:12 pm

shaky33 wrote:Let's give a hand of applause to batspiderfish. Defending ant laws like the king he is. :D :D
*claps*
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SpeciesK

Re: Opinions on Laws.

Post: # 16291Post SpeciesK
Mon Jan 23, 2017 1:40 pm

You guys sound worn out. I'm sorry people who come here are so frustrating for you. I think anybody who deals with the public is usually miserable. :cry:
Where would non-myrmecologists learn to identify ants on their own? I can safely say the subject has never come up in my lifetime. :)

KingKyle26

Re: Opinions on Laws.

Post: # 16293Post KingKyle26
Mon Jan 23, 2017 2:34 pm

SpeciesK wrote:You guys sound worn out. I'm sorry people who come here are so frustrating for you. I think anybody who deals with the public is usually miserable. :cry:
Where would non-myrmecologists learn to identify ants on their own? I can safely say the subject has never come up in my lifetime. :)
http://www.antwiki.org/wiki/Ant_Identification is a good place to start

Martialis
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Re: Opinions on Laws.

Post: # 16294Post Martialis
Mon Jan 23, 2017 2:55 pm

SpeciesK wrote:You guys sound worn out. I'm sorry people who come here are so frustrating for you. I think anybody who deals with the public is usually miserable. :cry:
Where would non-myrmecologists learn to identify ants on their own? I can safely say the subject has never come up in my lifetime. :)
Keys :) THey're actually widely available.
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larynx
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Re: Opinions on Laws.

Post: # 16295Post larynx
Mon Jan 23, 2017 2:57 pm

I have to believe that the members of this forum are smart enough to realize why moving ants out of there natural range is a bad thing after seeing how RIFA has taken over since their introduction to the southern US area.
If someone lacks the intelligence to see this im not sure what to tell them except....
Whether you agree with the laws in place or not, it is still a rule that we try to abide by here ant AntsCanada, and with GAN. If someone wants to keep ants not from their area so bad then they should have no problem jumping through the hoops to get permits. And if they arent willing to go that extra mile to get the permits, do you really think they are dedicated enough to keep the ants safely without letting them escape...nope.
The permits and inspections you have to get to keep a lion legally are very intense. In the years i spent as a zoo keeper i met hundreds of people who wanted a lion or tiger of their own, and had plenty of money to afford it. These same people weren't willing to go through the hoopla of permits and inspections. Can you imagine the amount of lions escaping or attacking if people didn't have to jump through hoops to have them? :lol:

Secondly, i dont think anyone is frustrated with the people who come here for knowledge. Its when someone comes in with pre existing notions that what they know is right and only answer. Too many people these days rely on google for the one right answer, and dont do actual research across multiple sources.
The scientific method isn't about finding the right answer, its about finding all the wrong ones until you are left with the only one that could be right.
Those are my opinions and i digress. :mrgreen:
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Serafine

Re: Opinions on Laws.

Post: # 16473Post Serafine
Fri Jan 27, 2017 7:09 am

SpeciesK wrote:You guys sound worn out. I'm sorry people who come here are so frustrating for you. I think anybody who deals with the public is usually miserable. :cry:
Where would non-myrmecologists learn to identify ants on their own? I can safely say the subject has never come up in my lifetime. :)
There's a lot of ant identification keys available on the internet and in printed form. However while finding out the general family or genus isn't that hard identifying the exact subspecies can be very difficult when you have to count antennae segments which simply isn't possible with live ants unless you put them in the fridge for a few minutes (not possible with tropical ants) - in many cases it's even entirely impossible without genetic tests (the dozen or so species of Tetramorium species in Europe only differ in the shape of their male genitals and genetic code).
larynx wrote:I have to believe that the members of this forum are smart enough to realize why moving ants out of there natural range is a bad thing after seeing how RIFA has taken over since their introduction to the southern US area.
If someone lacks the intelligence to see this im not sure what to tell them except....
Whether you agree with the laws in place or not, it is still a rule that we try to abide by here ant AntsCanada, and with GAN.
RIFA wasn't spread by antkeepers and regarding how ridiculously low safety measures for trade goods still are they will spread further without any addition help from hobbyists. A fertile queen just needs to land on a train or a truck to cross (multiple) state borders and there's nobody giving a ***** about it.
The most people illegally keeping RIFA as pets found them in their backyard and often enough it is literally the only ant species there, as it has already eliminated most native competition in a wider area.

And I agree that there are laws and you have to keep them but as long as nobody is doing anything to reduce the spread via train, truck and plane this is obviously pointless anyway. But then, the US still has places that are mostly untouched by humans and are worth saving (although I doubt the new US government cares in any way about any "invasive species" that has more than two legs).

In Europe we don't have such laws, so it is perfectly legal to keep (and talk about keeping) exotic ants here and while I do not encourage it (I find it kinda cruel to send ants between continents, especially via air mail which stresses the crap out of them and some ants are just not built for our climatic conditions especially regarding humidity) there's not much nature left to save in Europe anyway and we have so many exotic species around that are tolerated - canadian goose, grey parrots, multiple sorts of parakeets, rheas, sunfish, wallaby kangaroos, nutrias, chinese ducks, neon fish, tons of turtles (red-eared sliders are the 2nd most common reptile in central Germany, clearly dominating all water-base ecosystems and it isn't even proven that they can actually reproduce here) and don't even get me started about this massive battery of exotic garden plants that are currently making their jump "over the fence" like dandelions once did - some new ones can't really screw up things any more than all of these already did.

And before we get to banning exotic ants we should ban trade with a ton of other animals before, like exotic birds, amphibians and reptiles. Ants aren't too demanding and if you buy the right equipment there's not too much you can do wrong with the more resilient species (most Lasius, Tetramorium, Messor, most Camponotus, the more common Formica) but I have BARELY EVER seen anyone who could provide acceptable conditions for turtles and parakeets. These animals are far more demanding, far more intelligent and equally threatening to our ecosystems, so we should bother about them first.
At least over last months most german federal states have completely banned circus shows with exotic animals, I guess that's a start.




Addition:
This is from an investigation regarding the status of the "plankton biome" in german rivers (blue species are native, red ones are exotic). Not much left to save there (and it doesn't look that much better for fish species).
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Batspiderfish
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Re: Opinions on Laws.

Post: # 16477Post Batspiderfish
Fri Jan 27, 2017 7:30 am

Again, conservation is not handled as hopeless. We take measures to prevent aiding the dispersal of nonnative species by restricting transportation of animals which have no business being here. There is no logic in making things the slightest bit easier for invasives while the rewards of doing so are so insignificant.
If you enjoy my expertise and identifications, please do not put wild populations at risk of disease by releasing pet colonies. We are responsible to give our pets the best care we can manage for the rest of their lives.

SpeciesK

European trade problems?

Post: # 16704Post SpeciesK
Sat Feb 04, 2017 3:47 am

:?: I am curious about the European trade in obviously North American species, such as species names like pennsylvanicus. Since the species can't just happen to show up in someone's collection accidentally, how is it explained since you can't export them? :) Or is there no problem with that sort of thing in Europe? I was curious and found an ant selling site in Germany, I think, and they sold ants from all over the world at outrageous prices. :o Almost all of them were not available at the moment since its winter, I guess, but they advertise them all anyway. So, assuming they all are sold just within Germany (or wherever it was), does their being from places that don't allow exporting them cause any problems for them? Or does it not matter according to their laws? :?:

Mowteam

Re: Opinions on Laws.

Post: # 16725Post Mowteam
Sat Feb 04, 2017 4:44 pm

I think the laws around importing and exporting ants across state borders should be eliminated. In its place there should be a law that says you can't import or export ants across biome borders. So a person in southern North Carolina could exchange a colony with a person in northern South Carolina because they are in the same biome. Someone in southern Arizona could not trade an ant colony with someone in northern Arizona because they are very different biomes. By implanting this new law it would be better for ants because it would prevent people from moving a desert ant to a grassland or forested area eve though they are in the same state.

Martialis
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Re: Opinions on Laws.

Post: # 16728Post Martialis
Sat Feb 04, 2017 6:15 pm

Mowteam wrote:I think the laws around importing and exporting ants across state borders should be eliminated. In its place there should be a law that says you can't import or export ants across biome borders. So a person in southern North Carolina could exchange a colony with a person in northern South Carolina because they are in the same biome. Someone in southern Arizona could not trade an ant colony with someone in northern Arizona because they are very different biomes. By implanting this new law it would be better for ants because it would prevent people from moving a desert ant to a grassland or forested area eve though they are in the same state.
So we should just let somebody from Virginia sell fire ants to some guy in New York? Or some person in Alabama selling argentine ants to a person in Illinois or Kentucky? None of those are found there.

Here's a map of the US biomes to prove my point.

From ecowest:

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