Sad state of affairs

[Mark Harrison]

Does anyone know what can be done to halt the horrendous conditions in which some pet stores/garden centre's keep their Tarantula's (in particular). Whilst checking out my local small pet store for live food and the odd and ends that go with keeping tarantula's i saw they had 2 A.Genticulata for sale, curious i saw they were keeping two together in the same tank

There was only the one hide which wasnt even big enough for a large sling to hide under and about 1-2inch of substrate with a very small water dish. Both spiders were about 3-4inches in length (possibly larger) and the cage was no bigger than a medium pet pal. On closer inspection one of the t's was missing the front part of its leg, and looked to be in moult (albeit in a rather unusual position)..the other tarantula looked like it was nearing moult as well. I felt that i should in the politest way possible mention that they were being kept wrong and the spiders would benefit from new housing. Obviously the manager didnt take this well, i told him that i ment no offence, but i was acting on the tarantulas best interests..

I showed him my BTS membership card to show him that i wasnt just a busybody and that i had some (although limited) knowledge of housing tarantulas correctly. He didnt want to know and suffice to say i have been told that my custom is no longer wanted. I know the RSPCA has no interest in Inverts as we have all found some pet shops to keep their charges in dire care. Is there anything we can do to limit or stop these awful conditions the tarantula's are having to endure? It seems such a shame as they were beautiful looking specimens

[lynn mawdesley]

If they cant afford to house them seperatley they shouldnt be selling T's gggrrrrr!
I know only to well how managers of these kind of shops can be when offering friendly polite advice its very frustrating!
Hopefully there is someone that can do something about it

[Mark Harrison]

Lynn, if i could have afforded it i would have bought both tarantula's but they were £60 a pop and i couldnt afford it

[lynn mawdesley]

I know mate i would be the same, but its a lot of cash to fork out in these hard times at the mo as you say

[Matthew Bagley]

Try the local council , cant' remember the job title but the guy that issues pet shop licenses . S/He's got the power to affect the shop I believe . If nothing else he can threaten not to renew their license , which I believe has to be done every year . Just hope who ever does the job cares and knows his stuff .

[mary walters]

Trading standards issue the licences.

I had our local spid seller over conditions and was promptly offered a Sunday job, which I took even though I was working 6 days lol.

[James Box]

two spiders in the same enclosure is a fairly obvious mistake, he is going to end up with one fat one and then feel a right twit.

the RSPCA...well best to keep them on cats and dogs, methinks. no offense intended to them, there have been numerous cases, despite them trying their best and being a volunteer organisation, where instead of calling numbers given to them by BTS members or the society itself, when faced with some kind of arachnid problem, they have opted to "humanely" stomp on the poor creature.
so that doesn't help, plus it perhaps draws their attention to our hobby which perhaps won't be the best, given they know their mammals and their requirements, but spiders have entirely different needs and requirements...
ie, a dog may need a garden, but a spider needs a secure home, which does not have to be huge.

i have been to shops where T's have been on display in what i at the time considered to be appalling conditions (still stand by that, when it comes to spiders that need humidity being completely dry with a dish with cricket gel in it, which given the spider's body language was not enough for its contentment), but i was brought up short by young Peter Lacey, who reminded me that shops have to display the animals, and a spider down a hole may be overjoyed by this, but the shopkeeper will probably not sell it any time soon.

there is a balance, and what alot of keepers (in this case my self included at the time) have to remember is that many spiders do restrict their own environment in the wild, some rarely leave their burrows, for example.
one person i know kept many in small containers, and the spiders did everything a happy spider does, including breed. the rationale was that the spider felt it was already safe in its burrow!..."oh, and what's that? dinner coming to me? i barely have to move to catch that! NOM NOM" <-if i can be forgiven a little anthropomorphisation to clear up a bigger case of anthropomorphisation!...which sadly i feel that involving councils and the RSPCA would end up doing.

also, i have found lots of my spiders not using hides, and in fact being perfectly comfortable til i bother them.

same goes with substrate depth...i've never seen my genics even trying to dig, they rarely use their hides, and they've done fine in the larger hatchling tubs. they are comparable size to the ones you describe.

as i see it, the crimes this chap is guilty of is putting two spiders together in one tank (duh lol) and not wanting to hear about it...though can understand, if i was a shopkeeper, i might be a bit angry if someone came to me flashing cards etc, despite meaning well.

bit long winded i guess, but there are many threads on this board now complaining about shops, i just think it needed a little balance...but i am in 100% agreement about those genics in the same enclosure, that was quite dim putting them together lol, makes me wonder if he's got a computer at home, or ever bothered to read a book... lol!

personally i feel that getting animal rights people, the government, the RSPCA or anything like that involved could cause alot of people trouble. i agree it'd be great to stop ignorant keepers, but the fact we have a pointless DWA list with harmless creatures on it and not so harmless creatures NOT on it goes to show how much effort the government puts into this sort of thing...not to mention the level of understanding they clearly don't have.

do you want them to start visiting keepers to make sure their spiders have X amount of space, and a temperature of Y etc, and are being fed to a strict schedule, etc, all with almost no understanding of what an invert needs? i think that would be bad news for many!

[matthew spooner]

Try the local council , cant' remember the job title but the guy that issues pet shop licenses . S/He's got the power to affect the shop I believe . If nothing else he can threaten not to renew their license , which I believe has to be done every year . Just hope who ever does the job cares and knows his stuff .

im afraid the conditions in which tarantulas are kept would not bother the council. we as a club are looking into doing an arachnid trade show in the area. i did some investigating into what we needed to do and e-mailed teh council. as they are invertebrates they do not come under the animal welfare act and therefore you do not need a pet shop licence to trade in them. the licence that this shop in question carries is to cover the sale of vertebrates. therefore as long as the vertebrates are being properly cared for, they cannot revoke or refuse renewal etc of the licence. i hate it when shops miskeep animals like this. it means that whoever buys those Ts is going to asume that is the correct care for them and they will never be looked after properly unless purchased by an already established keeper. lets hope somethign happens to sort this out

[James Freeman]

Kick his head in, i hate people like that, a waste of space

[chris carter]

Could there not be a naming and shaming section on the website? or could that lead to legal issues.

There are plenty of rogue pet shops out there that are often quite rightly complained about on the forum, but what about the good pet shops perhaps it would be a good idea to have a section on the website where pet shops with good practices could be named to help other forum members find a good service.

Pet shops in kent,especially the ones we deal with are very good, Vanishing world in herne bay, Jays exotics in Ashford & Precious pets in Sheerness to name but three, they have our caresheets, & flyers and we advertise them as recommended Pet shops at our roadshows in return our members get 10% discount. On the other side of the coin if we found a kent pet shop mistreating thier aracnids and they did not accept our advice we would not hesitate to put them on an unreccomended list at the roadshows i am happy to say we have no pet shops on a unrecommended list at present.

We have over 5000 people attend our roadshows throughout the year and some of them want to own an exotic pet of thier own, we give them advice and supply Tarantula's and set ups ourselves and send them to a recommended petshop for amphibians and Reptiles. Many of our members who were introduced to the hobby by the club first found us at the roadshows.

Chris

[steven simcock]

Every town has a bad pet shop who sell animals they don't know how to look after. There is a shop near me that stinks and the t's are put in tanks with wood chips as substrate and i saw a pet shop the other day selling meerkats i mean come on what member of the public has the space that that kind of animal needs.

[Mark Harrison]

as i see it, the crimes this chap is guilty of is putting two spiders together in one tank (duh lol) and not wanting to hear about it...though can understand, if i was a shopkeeper, i might be a bit angry if someone came to me flashing cards etc, despite meaning well.

I see your point james, i personally felt that i was doing the shopkeeper a favour. The better condition the spiders are in, and the more content they look the more likely they are to sell? yes? I suppose he saw me as a irritating know-it-all (despite me trying to not be) and more of a problem than a possible advisor.

do you want them to start visiting keepers to make sure their spiders have X amount of space, and a temperature of Y etc, and are being fed to a strict schedule, etc, all with almost no understanding of what an invert needs? i think that would be bad news for many

I just personally believe that any pets in your charge should be looked after correctly whether its a pet shop or in the home. Yet i do see your point James and how much trouble that would cause for keepers who care for their tarantula's and their welfare. I would love more tarantulas to be affordable and for everyone to get the same excitement and happieness everyone on here gets from their pets. As i believe this would benefit Tarantulas in the wild and captivity.

two spiders in the same enclosure is a fairly obvious mistake, he is going to end up with one fat one and then feel a right twit.

I am sad to report that one of the spiders has died

Kick his head in, i hate people like that, a waste of space

Sadly james that would be the worse thing to do, but i can see why your angry, people like this need educating not a pasting.

[Mrs Linda Street]

The vast majority of pet shops and garden centres in the UK today have 3 things in common.

1) They generally keep T's in poor conditions. 2) A lot are incorrectly named. & 3) They all charge silly high prices.

[James Box]

i guess my point is really that people that don't know anything about inverts, but assume they need the same thing as cats or people, might go poking their noses in, making life difficult for keepers who do generally look after their animals as well as possible, in accordance with the creature's needs.

definitely, a content animal would be pretty obvious, the ones i saw at a shop in dry conditions and no space to dig looked a bit unhappy...but there is a balance between trying to sell a happy pet hole and trying to sell a spider that is stressed and on edge because it can't find a place to feel secure.

[Nicola Dolby]

Sadly this is often the case in many places as you say, but there is the age old problem of how to improve things. Beating people up, whilst I understand your anger, is only going to get people arrested and give the shop owner the sympathy vote. Also Mark you simply cannot educate people who are not interested in being educated. At the end of the day many of these shop owners only look at their profit margins, though there are some good ones around (my local pet shop are a very approachable bunch). The reason cats and dogs always get good treatment is because the law says they must, pure and simple. And there is the solution. We all have an MP, if enough people contact their MP's it might start the ball rolling toward a change in the law. Then you would see other organisations like the RSPCA come on side. Just a thought that might offer a solution without someone getting arrested