Rhampholeon spinosus

[Motherlode Chameleon]

From Understory Enterprises's website (The distributor of CRARC frogs):

"Encounters with this frog (Agalychnis/Hylomantis lemur) in the rainforest are very rare, but one place that this species has been established and can be found in adundance is within the CRARC reserve in Costa Rica. Habitat restoration, and augmentation through the addition of artificial breeding sites throughout the CRARC reserve has allowed the once fragile population within the reserve to stabilize, grow, and even expand their distribution within the reserve. Artifical breeding sites, consisting of plasctic tubs, now consistently support large numbers of tadpoles, and breeding adults are commonly observed at these sites."

http://www.understoryenterprises.com/other-frog/hylomantis-lemur

And information on the CRARC:

"To help Brian with his research efforts in Costa Rica, and in situ conservation projects within the CRARC private reserve, Understory is returning to the CRARC a 50% donation from the sale of all captive produced animals sold by Understory which originated from the CRARC lab. This program has been designed to ensure some financial liquidity for Brian to allow his research and conservation work to continue, while allowing hobbyists access to new and exciting species from a legal origin. What this means is that half of the gross revenue of all the frogs which are bred at Understory, and that have originated from the CRARC will be channeled directly back to the CRARC. Even if the animal is F9, CRARC will receive its due revenue. All expenses in maintenance, care and marketing as well as logistics will be assumed by Understory. In this way we can use our resources available in Canada to produce animals to help satiate global demand for Costa Rican species, while allowing Brian the time to continue important research and conservation efforts in the field, thus freeing him from some of the many hours involved in raising dozens of often delicate amphibians."

http://www.understoryenterprises.com/costa-rica

The sure fire way to ensure conservation is to give the resource a value. Make it valuable and even people on the fence will care. Why do people need to make a donation when this model is working exceptionally well for this and many other species. Hobbyists are no longer just taking animals from the wild in the countries using this model. They are funding conservation directly. I can assure you that this has raised significantly more money than just sitting there and asking for donations.

I am a biologist and work directly with managing wildlife on a day to day basis. I see both the success and failures/works in progress. One of (if not THE) greatest success in T&E species management is the recovery of the American Alligator. This is a species that went from threatened to sustainably commercially harvested in less than 20 years. Why?...It's sustainable exploitation literally funds its conservation and now management. If biologists in the '70s sat around and begged for donations to save alligators, do you think there would be such a thriving resource today? I, for one, am thankful that some people thought outside the box and developed a highly successful plan for management not terribly unlike what is being done with amphibians in Central/South America and can be done with other species that are conducive to being produced in captive conditions.

I am for creative or entrepreneurial ways to solve problems. Plus I think programs such as these should have the resources and finances that they require. However whoever said anything about begging? I am just not a big fan of making pets out of species that are Endangered or Critically Endangered species and are prospectively down to their last 100 or 200 specimens. I think it is unhealthy for the Endangered or Critically Endangered species to be made a pet. The Americas are not the wildlife trade market that Africa, Madagascar and Southeast Asia has. However, if these were Plowshare Tortoises (Astrochelys yniphora) or Radiated Tortoises (Astrochelys radiata) in Madagascar and Madagascar (even if it was the Durrell Trust) was openly selling them off people would be in arms. However I just have to stay with giving a program like this grants, corporate grants and donations instead of selling off the species they are supposed to be saving before they are down listed to a less threatened status. The Costa Rican Amphibian Research Center is accepting donations.

Best Regards
Jeremy A. Rich

 

[Chase]

Here is the thing I think you're missing with the whole argument right now. They would be exported as F1!! So, they are not wild caught, they are not straight from the forest, they are again... F1. I'm not exactly sure what your deal is with them, are you suggesting to just throw them (the F1 that would be exported) back into the wild? I think it is very clear they're trying to do something to help them. By exporting just F1, they're allowing for more generations in the wild to grow and breed and such.

As said before, the small numbers of F1 being exported are better than the THOUSANDS of field collected specimens that used to be exported.

And as Chris said, they (K. multituberculata and K. matschiei) are classified as endangered due to their limited range, not due to low numbers.

Chase

 

[Chris Anderson]

I know this an old thread, but being that this topic arose two years ago and is still a problem, it is quite disturbing. It is quite shocking the numbers that are being exported.

Chris- do you know of any current changes being made to CITES?

Chase

Chase - At this time there has not been any change. CITES has still not adopted the taxonomic change of this species from Bradypodion spinosum to Rhampholeon spinosus. This continues to cause confusion for many about the CITES status of this species, which is still listed as a CITES II species.

That said, a taxonomic checklist of the family with the most current taxonomy of the entire family was recently published (http://www.senckenberg.de/files/con...2/01_vertebrate_zoology_65-2_glaw_167-246.pdf). This checklist was produced at the request of the Nomenclature Specialist of the CITES Animals Committee and eventually should be adopted as standard reference for CITES purposes. It is possible that it will be submitted for this purpose at the upcoming CITES Animals Committee meeting, but it may have been published too recently for it to make the agenda this year. Once adopted, this should take care of any confusion.

Just as an update, the nomenclature changes stemming from the aforementioned taxonomic checklist of the Chamaeleonidae, including the taxonomic change of this species from Bradypodion spinosum to Rhampholeon spinosus, has been officially added to the agenda for the upcoming CITES Animals Committee meeting (being held from 30 August-3 September 2015). With any luck this will be adopted, resulting in CITES officially recognizing this species as Rhampholeon spinosus. This would mean that it could no longer be claimed that no Rhampholeon sp. was CITES listed, thereby eliminating any doubt as to the CITES status of this species.

The document for this agenda item with the proposed taxonomic changes can be seen here: https://cites.org/sites/default/files/eng/com/ac/28/E-AC28-21-01-Annex6.pdf

Chris

 

[Chris Anderson]

I know this an old thread, but being that this topic arose two years ago and is still a problem, it is quite disturbing. It is quite shocking the numbers that are being exported.

Chris- do you know of any current changes being made to CITES?

Chase

Chase - At this time there has not been any change. CITES has still not adopted the taxonomic change of this species from Bradypodion spinosum to Rhampholeon spinosus. This continues to cause confusion for many about the CITES status of this species, which is still listed as a CITES II species.

That said, a taxonomic checklist of the family with the most current taxonomy of the entire family was recently published (http://www.senckenberg.de/files/con...2/01_vertebrate_zoology_65-2_glaw_167-246.pdf). This checklist was produced at the request of the Nomenclature Specialist of the CITES Animals Committee and eventually should be adopted as standard reference for CITES purposes. It is possible that it will be submitted for this purpose at the upcoming CITES Animals Committee meeting, but it may have been published too recently for it to make the agenda this year. Once adopted, this should take care of any confusion.

Just as an update, the nomenclature changes stemming from the aforementioned taxonomic checklist of the Chamaeleonidae, including the taxonomic change of this species from Bradypodion spinosum to Rhampholeon spinosus, has been officially added to the agenda for the upcoming CITES Animals Committee meeting (being held from 30 August-3 September 2015). With any luck this will be adopted, resulting in CITES officially recognizing this species as Rhampholeon spinosus. This would mean that it could no longer be claimed that no Rhampholeon sp. was CITES listed, thereby eliminating any doubt as to the CITES status of this species.

The document for this agenda item with the proposed taxonomic changes can be seen here: https://cites.org/sites/default/files/eng/com/ac/28/E-AC28-21-01-Annex6.pdf

Chris

I thought I would post another update to this situation. As mentioned in my previous post, the CITES Animals Committee met in Aug/Sept and during this meeting considered a number of nomenclature changes, including some to the Chamaeleonidae. This included officially adopting the nomenclature change from Bradypodion spinosum to Rhampholeon spinosus. I'm pleased to say that the Animals Committee recommended the adoption of the new nomenclature for the whole family Chamaeleonidae, thus adopting of the changes outlined in previously referenced document (AC28 Doc 21.1 Annex 6). As a result, this species is now officially regarded as Rhampholeon spinosus for CITES purposes. As soon as online documents are updated to reflect these changes, it will no longer be indirectly suggested that there are no Rhampholeon species included on CITES appendices, as R. spinosus is a CITES Appendix II species and will be listed as such under that name (rather than listed as a CITES species under the previous classification). This will help make it more difficult to unscrupulous exporters, importers and dealers to illegal import and export this species without proper CITES documents.

The summary of this decision can be found here: https://cites.org/sites/default/files/eng/com/ac/28/Com/E-AC28-Com-10.pdf

Chris