ebay bugs

[Ben George]

Dont know if any of you have seen this -

http://stores.ebay.co.uk/RARE-INSECTS-OF-THAILAND-AND-AFRICA_W0QQssPageNameZl2QQtZkm

Just wondered what your thoughts are.

[Ray Gabriel]

and some people say it is over collecting for the pet trade that endangers invertibrates in the wild

Ray

[mary walters]

EBAY

Why is nothing done to stop this trade, I have just looked at the site and was absolutely disgusted with what I saw, i'ts a wonder there are any Minax left in the wild if the hundreds offered for sale DEAD ARE ANYTHING TO GO BY.
Sorry but I abhor anything that involves killing any animal, no I'm not vegetarian, I tried it and it made me ill.....

Mary Walters

[Ian Foxon]

It is hideous. Sadly there is a link from this very site to people selling this stuff. "bugsdirectuk"
I for one wouldn't be upset to see it removed.

[Phil Rea]

Sorry to resurrect the thread, but he guy's selling Haplopelma minax by the hundred! He's got 2 auctions on there one with 2 available, and the other with 3 available. 500 spiders altogether

Are these wild caught? It's bad enough if they're captive bred, but if they're wild caught then that's something else.

His e-bay shop is called 'Rare insects of Thailand and Africa'. It's no **** wonder they're rare

The auction is here if anyone's interested.

[Mike Shaw]

It's bad enough that they eat spiders by the thousand let alone selling them by large amounts aswell.
Its not uncommon for people to travel upto 90k to their nearest market to buy a delicacy fried T(By the bin liner full).Personally I find this disgusting.
Perhaps we could set up a worldwide petition to make T's Illlegal to collect for retail.
I know it's a bit idealistic but who knows.
Mike

[Leon Lane]

That ebay account belongs to Joseph Rogers, who is the guy who runs Bugs Direct UK. He used to sell nearly all live stuff but now mainly deals in deads it seems.

[mary walters]

Can't we do something to halt this trade? As a society for the GOOD of T's can't we have an online petition or something?.
Mary

[Kim Pennell]

That ebay account belongs to Joseph Rogers, who is the guy who runs Bugs Direct UK. He used to sell nearly all live stuff but now mainly deals in deads it seems.

Hi All
Leon is correct they used to sell a lot of live material. It now seems this has changed. Mark will be removing the link to this site in the next few days.

Mark has traveled to both Thailand and Malaysia and has mentioned to me many times about the devastating trade in dead pinned out insects in these areas and has witnessed it first hand.

As mentioned above, this hobby of ours gets a great deal of flack from those opposed to keeping exotic pets. Yet nothing is said about the dead insect trade which has a greater impact on the wild populations. Often even closed countries were live specimens are restricted and cannot be easily exported, have no restrictions in exporting dead insects, go figure that one.

The term rare, is often a selling point and marketing poly. They would not have so many insects for sale at such low prices if this was the case. Let alone eat fried h, minax down the Koh San Road market day in day out for the last countless hundreds of years.

There is often a great fuss made over a few wild caught tarantulas and often high prices for new species, which grabs headlines and thus create wild of the cuff stories in the press about multi million pound smuggling rings of super rare tarantulas.

Yet these few spiders are often bred and then bred again, they become very common and easy to get hold of, the price drops and half the time the interest too. Then the demand for wild caught is pretty much zero. You cannot breed dead pinned out spiders.

Regards
Kim

[Mark Pennell]

It is hideous. Sadly there is a link from this very site to people selling this stuff. "bugsdirectuk"
I for one wouldn't be upset to see it removed.

Hi Jagged
I am removing the link to this site, but remmember this in the future, it cleary states on the links page:

"The BTS are not responsible for the content of any sites listed here. If you see something inappropriate on any site listed here contact the webmaster."

So a simple email to me would have seen quicker action on the removal of this link which was originally set up as they have live acrachnids for sale in the beginning.

I don't have the time to check all the links once they have been originally vetted by me before being listed.

Anyway I'll best get on a remove it.

Cheers
Mark

[Phil Rea]

I realise that h. minax aren't exactly rare, and that the word rare is used as a marketing point in this case. It was more of an observation of the irony of the title

The term rare, is often a selling point and marketing poly. They would not have so many insects for sale at such low prices if this was the case. Let alone eat fried h, minax down the Koh San Road market day in day out for the last countless hundreds of years.

[Adam Smith]

I forget which show it was but a good while back on sky 1 I saw a clip of a woman in Thailand holding a live haplopelma Lividum and ate it alive which really struck me and shocked me which is rare for me. I understand different worlds and cultures, to eat spiders its onet hing but to see someone eat as live tarantula was most upsetting. Furthur more is it true that Bugsdirect Uk dont sell live tarantulas and scorpions and is purely framed insects. Having a framed tarantula is one thing but 100 dried loose H minax is extreme, no doubt they'd be bought for dining purposes. As for bugsdirect no longer selling t's im guessing sales werent too good, not surprising with the prices sometimes.
On an upside I have found a good website for reptile (pets in general) siupplies and crickets you pay for but free postage unlesss supply bought so £2.95 for crickets is what you pay without 5 or 6 pound on postage.

https://www.everythingforpets.com

[Graeme Wright]

Bugs direct uk will also be getting there link removed from my web site.

it's due to people like them that species become endangered in teh 1st place

[Adam Smith]

G Wright, I often browse through your website and on the For sale section the database is empty. Is that because there arent any available at the present times?

[Graeme Wright]

G Wright, I often browse through your website and on the For sale section the database is empty. Is that because there arent any available at the present times?

Correct