Tanzania export closed !?

[batmancumming]

i think at least for the time being, this is a good thing. i remember watching a video on exported animals from Africa and there were many chams being shipped in unfit conditions. dehydrated, under nourished, overcrowded etc. they showed cages literally full of them and they all looked sickly and many were laying on the ground dead it was sad. i hope they can come to find better ways of transporting animals out of the country before they allow this crap to continue

 

[Texas Panther Man]

So you have never heard of a Chameleon being smuggled illegally?

It's all about supply and demand. Im sure if they had not got caught and the next demand was 1000 Chams. It would be a plane full of smuggled Chams being flown out !!

Best way to maderate this situation is to nip it in the butt on ALL fronts.

Your naive if you think this ban will have an affect on smuggling animLs.
read the book Lizard King. Smugglers face very little if any true jail time even when caught red handed. The bans going to put the legit exporters out of business

 

[JonRich]

Your naive if you think this ban will have an affect on smuggling animLs.
read the book Lizard King. Smugglers face very little if any true jail time even when caught red handed. The bans going to put the legit exporters out of business

By banning all legal exports? Is that what you mean by nip it in the butt. Well Criminals are still going to export no matter what the law says. So yea makes a lot of sense to ban the actual businesses that legally spend and depend on this.

Yea outlaw exporting all together from Africa, that will make a poor country even poorer. IF they want to sell their animals for cash to live thats them. Yes regulating is nice to preserve the well being of species, but to outlaw is a joke and not anything we should have a say in which Im glad we don't. Thats like them telling us to stop having so many factories and selling weapons

You must know what it feel like to run a country and try to please EVERYONE ,while at the same time "do the right thing"!!

Looks like Prime Minister Mizengo Pinda is doing EXACTLY what is needed to correct the corruption within the government. I take it you didn't read much past the title?

The heart of the problem is not weather to regulate the legal trade vs the illegal trade. It's making sure you have responsible and loyal people overseeing what's actually being exported out of the country.

"""Natural Resources and Tourism minister Ezekiel Maige suspended the Director of Wildlife, Mr Obeid Mbangwa, to pave the way for investigations into the smuggling out of the country of 116 and 16 live animals and birds""""

^^^^ in order to address this . I feel there needs to be a halt in ALL activities involving these people (ie: the export of ANY wildlife).

"two other senior wildlife officials had also been suspended. He did not name them on the grounds that doing so would interfere with investigations"
"The animals were smuggled out of the country by a syndicate comprising Wildlife Department officials and foreigners"
^^^ SMH!

"Prime Minister Mizengo Pinda said measures would be taken to plug loopholes being used to export animals illegally"

Some of these loopholes sometimes involve "legal" dealers, (ie: misslabeling of species. Endangered animals being exported under manifests of related less endangered species)

"MPs challenged the government to explain the fate of the animals and birds "
How are they to explain an issue that has not been properly investigated?



I understand the point that the sale/export of the nations wildlife will allow for revenue to enter the country, But at what cost IFF the people put in place to uphold the trade/export laws are corrupt????? In the long run it only hurts EVERYONE!! A ban while they are conducting a proper investigation the the least they can do IMHO!


So you feel a NATION'S wildlife holds less priority over 180 dealer licenses for ONE YEAR while a proper investigating is conducted. All for what?? someone wanting an exotic pet, a new exibit at a zoo, maybe a canned hunt, some bush meat, or worse having it die in transit due to poor husbandry during transport?

Now who is really being naive here?

 

[sandrachameleon]

...So you feel a NATION'S wildlife holds less priority over 180 dealer licenses for ONE YEAR while a proper investigating is conducted. All for what?? someone wanting an exotic pet, a new exibit at a zoo, maybe a canned hunt, some bush meat, or worse having it die in transit due to poor husbandry during transport? ...
Now who is really being naive here?

zap!

We dont really need to export (or even own for that matter) reptiles. Better management of wildlife could help with populations. Then, I imagine it would eventually be easier to get animals that can only be obtained as "F1" imports.

truly.

 

[eisentrauti]

This thread shows just that there are many hypocritical people around with NO knowledge in this business. Closing the import doesnt save animals. It will change the trappers work from a legal to an illegal basis, cause many will work then in the future for smugglers. How naive can someone be to think that an action like this will save the animals future ???
Poor natives who got at least some $s for catching animals will now maybe change their business to slash and burn forests.

The same with Madagascar: People behaving like the 1000 (or are it really that many ?) chameleons smuggled out of this country are dangerous for the populations. Bullshit ! Turning forests to fields or slash and burn them kills populations.

What will help are constant quotas, with numbers round 50-1000 specimen / species. This way mass animal trade will be downsized extremely, the prices will rise in Europe and the USA and the persons in the exporting countries will still have an opportunity to earn money that way.
The number of parsoniis in the wild is estimated 4-40 Millions ! So there wont be an impact if there would be a quota for 500animals /year. The price will still be high, smuggling will be uninteresting and some natives of Madagascar have another chance to make good money

 

[pssh]

If proper measures are taken and acted upon, it is indeed possible to slow down smuggling dramatically. Of course it will never stop as long as there is demand, but it can be controlled in a more efficient manner. In turn, it could save populations and species.

It is not impossible to do. Of course it would require changing the whole infrastructure, but it can be done.

 

[eisentrauti]

If proper measures are taken and acted upon, it is indeed possible to slow down smuggling dramatically. Of course it will never stop as long as there is demand, but it can be controlled in a more efficient manner. In turn, it could save populations and species.

It is not impossible to do. Of course it would require changing the whole infrastructure, but it can be done.

Small quotas for nearly all species if they are WC (20-1000 specimen) and legal ways to export real CB juveniles from all species. And I bet smuggling will be destroyed !

 

[antithesis123]

Seems heads of Dept were involved in the "smuggle".

They may very well have been shipped in plain sight with "proper" paperwork. No1 took notice because it seemed like a normal export, a LARGE one, but within guidlines.

I worked in Africa for about a year in shipping ANYTHING can be exported and there's a line of eager people waiting to be payed off!!

But a giraffe? Ha!

 

[eisentrauti]

I worked in Africa for about a year in shipping ANYTHING can be exported and there's a line of eager people waiting to be payed off!!

But a giraffe? Ha!

yes, I think the only problem was that some persons with influence didnt get their piece of the big "cake"...

 

[JonRich]

This thread shows just that there are many hypocritical people around with NO knowledge in this business. Closing the import doesnt save animals. It will change the trappers work from a legal to an illegal basis, cause many will work then in the future for smugglers. How naive can someone be to think that an action like this will save the animals future ???
Poor natives who got at least some $s for catching animals will now maybe change their business to slash and burn forests.

The same with Madagascar: People behaving like the 1000 (or are it really that many ?) chameleons smuggled out of this country are dangerous for the populations. Bullshit ! Turning forests to fields or slash and burn them kills populations.

What will help are constant quotas, with numbers round 50-1000 specimen / species. This way mass animal trade will be downsized extremely, the prices will rise in Europe and the USA and the persons in the exporting countries will still have an opportunity to earn money that way.
The number of parsoniis in the wild is estimated 4-40 Millions ! So there wont be an impact if there would be a quota for 500animals /year. The price will still be high, smuggling will be uninteresting and some natives of Madagascar have another chance to make good money

There have been many places where Eco tourism plays a much better and manageable role on that country/island's Wildlife and economy. Why can't it be done here.. As with everything education is key.

Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day/ Teach a man to fish and he will never starve (granted all the fish are not exported)

Most of these ground level trappers are just trying to support their families. The Gov't should propose a plan to set up some sort of Eco tourism utilizing these people in the process (since they often know/understand the Wildlife better ). Show them that , yes you can make more money trapping- but eventually the resource will run out!! But if they maintain it for people to want to pay to come view these animals in their natural environment it will be still sustain and in the long run be much more rewarding.

But that is in an ideal world, which we do not live in! In the end the negatives of human nature will prevail. I have personally seen this over my lifetime ,coming from the small island of Trinidad where Eco Tourism is nowww being looked into to help the economy since the island's oil reserves are being depleted and will soon run dry.

I think WE all as exotic pet owners will be a bit bias with this topic... Abuse your resources and don't properly manage it and IT TOO WILL RUN DRY! You'd be suprised as to how small a percent of exported animals actually go towards "saving" their wild counterparts!

for that reason :I wave my white flag:

 

[JonRich]

I have a documentary I have been working on for the past 4 years. I am still in the process of haveing a few legal rights cleared so I can release it outside of an academic setting. Once this is done I will be sure to send you a copy.

This is from the ground level, from the people's mouth, side effects of abuse of ones Natural resources and at what point do we say "stop, this is enough"

 

[eisentrauti]

Yes, thats a very good point ! I bet many or nearly all dream of visting the natural habitats of their animals. So in combination this can probably help many persons in those country.Everything is better than especially Madagascar is doing at the moment

 

[antithesis123]

The best way to keep African animals alive is to get them out of Africa.

There is so little control there over wildlife. Some of the Parks are well regulated with snipers and armed guards but Africa is a tragedy. Corruption is government policy in every country I've been to over there (only 8) Good for them if they can try to manage some exports but I have to agree more with eisentrauti that

"the only problem was that some persons with influence didnt get their piece of the big "cake"... "

Africa is like a bucket of crabs with no lid. All the crabs want to get out where people are civil but as soon as one tries the others pull it back down.
Seriously, it's the most fertile place on the planet and people starve there and live in squalor (with a few exceptions ofcourse)

 

[mphelps]

I agree in general with Eisentrauti's perspective, but I find it hard to believe that there are 4-40 million parsonii in the wild.

The range of between 4 and 40 million sounds suspicious. For a long-lived animal which reaches sexual maturity slowly, I would be ecstatic if there are a few 10s of thousands in the wild.

Is there solid data out there for the number of parsonii in the wild?

 

[eisentrauti]

I have this number from a document from the CITES comittee. The big range follows from extrapolation of smaller areas where the animals were counted more or less exactly.
To get come back to my point: Even if it are "only" 4 Million adults, a quota of 200-500 animals wont have a noticeable influence on the population. The demand is still much higher than this quota, so the prices will stay on a high level - on a level where nobody buys such an animal just because it is "cool looking" or "impressive for display purposes". The majority of those animals will end in the hands of people already keeping parsoniis or having much knowledge with chameleons, so I bet that already such a low quota will have a huge influence on the keeping/breeding of this species in captivity

And not to forget, it will destroy the black market on small / juvenile parsoniis, at least here in Europe. Cause nobody will buy illegal animals in suboptimal condition if its possible to buy healthy imports which cost just a bit more

 

[lindseymeder16]

what kind of chams come from tanzania? i'm assuming not popular ones in captivity??

 

[kinyonga]

Melleri, Fischeri, B. tenue, Deremensis, Fuelleborni, Werneri...just to name a few...come from Tanzania.

 

[Monties1982]

what kind of chams come from tanzania? i'm assuming not popular ones in captivity??

Some of the chameleons from Tanzania would be Usambara Giant Three Horned chameleons, Mt. Meru Jackson's chameleons, Fischer's type chameleons, Meller's chameleons, Flapneck chameleons, some pygmy chameleons including Bearded pygmy chameleons, and Sternfeld's chameleons (commonly confused with Rudis chameleons).

 

[Thezillaman21]

im not sure its its true but from what i had read somewhere is that the animals were suppose to be on the cargo plain and that someone highjacked the plain. idk if its true or not i just wish they wouldnt of taken this band it makes getting some chams almost impossable now.