Oven Baked Tarantula

[Lisa Baines]

and obviously (well i presume) this species of tarantula isnt endagered there if they can cook the amount they cook each year in and out. so i wouldnt really see it as ironic really... meh... just me tho

lol sharks were once abundant, but because they have been over fished some are getting pretty rare. Just because they are selling them doesn't necessarily mean there is an abundance of them. history tells the same story over and over again... when man gets greedy and has money signs in his eyes, all species of animal in a given area will be decimated

and lmao @ colin... rhino burgers! can you imagin trying to get the horn out from between your teeth hahahaha! sorry *blush*

[Chris Sainsbury]

lol sharks were once abundant, but because they have been over fished some are getting pretty rare. Just because they are selling them doesn't necessarily mean there is an abundance of them. history tells the same story over and over again... when man gets greedy and has money signs in his eyes, all species of animal in a given area will be decimated

Hi
I find it very hard to even start to compare sharks to spiders in this case. Sharks for one are quite a large apex predator that lives for quite a long time and because of this the shark population to begin with is relatively small in comparison to other fish. They are also eaten quite widely across the world so the demand is also a lot higher.
With these spiders and other insect food items on offer to the vast majority of the western world, they are more likely than not just seen as a novelty product which in no way would even begin to even start to make up part of an everyday staple diet for almost anyone. With the amount collected every week in Cambodia for consumption which has been going on for a couple of thousand years now, I really don't think this product even scratches the surface of the overall spider population.


With a percentage of the costs going towards conservation projects I personally think is not that bad an idea even if it does sound a little ironic. I used to think it was a shame that tigers weren't bred solely for the fur and bone trade, that way the ones in the wild could be left alone. Only thing that I hit a snag on was, that the wild ones were the ones they wanted due to the fact they were wild so I kind of stopped thinking this now. I also thought that a good way for zoos to make some good money was to saw of the rhino horns and sell them for that traditional market, after all they grow back after time being as it is only compact hair but I suppose the wild factor plays a part in this also. Still it could have provided a bit of a solution and made both parties a little happy.

Bit of ramble soz.
Cheers
Chris

[Craig Mackay]

I know it sounds a little ironic but by putting money back into the conservation of the species it can ensure the long term future of them (in theory) which would allow them to take from the wild without damaging the wild stock. This could be things like setting up protected areas that they're not allowed to collect from etc. I can't really see how its all that different from collecting large numbers of specimens from the wild to sit in our tanks for the rest of their lives. Do we contribute the same amount of money to protect them in the wild? However, it just says that the money goes to protecting Cambodia's wildlife not the species of tarantula specifically. It's a bit vague so we don't know if any of the money goes to protect the tarantulas. If the money's well used then it's not really such a bad thing to sacrifice one tarantula from an abundant wild stock to put money towards protecting entire ecosystems in my opinion.

Also, Chris raises some valid points but I think if you create legal ways for people to get the tiger fur, rhino horns, elephant tusks etc then the demand will likely increase and then put even more pressure on the wild when supply can't meet demand.

[Lisa Baines]

yeah the shark thing was a generalisation hun, didn't really need to go in depth with it all , I could have picked a number of animals and that was the first that popped into my head. As in, like so many other animals, over harvesting them will wipe them out, same with these tarantula's. I was comparing a lose generalisation of a situation not the actual species!

Hopefully this craze will be a short lived thing anyway with little popularity, leave the tarantula's to be eaten by the people who need them as a staple part of their diet