Releasing A chalcodes into the wild

What do you guys think? Lets say I took males and maybe a few females (decent sized T's)

( A chalcodes ) to be exact...and I gave back to the desert


As humans we take so much, but what if we gave some back?


Please list consequences/potential problems

They've been in captivity a year or two? The ones I have are most certainly wild caught....

Would they do okay back in the desert? Is there potential to spread disease or something that wasn't there before?

Give me your feedback please, as I am considering this as an experiment...but I would want to consider all options first

Maybe we build some artificial burrows?

I would be interested in releasing about two dozen...

Once upon a time i read a similar discussion related to this topic on these forums, and it could supposedly be bad. Releasing long term CB spiders back into the wild could cause diseases and such .. I could be slightly wrong, but it was SOMETHING to that effect.
I will TRY to dig it back up and post the link here.
I feel it WOULD be a nice thing to do, but honestly, I dont even know if they would survive. I wonder if spiders in captivity lose some of their natural instincts after a while?

Conservation work, especially attempting to re-establish wild populations should be left to the experts, and only the experts. I don't think that can be emphasized enough. If you really want to help wild populations, I'd contact the experts first and only work under their supervision. In all likelihood, the greatest impact that anyone can have on any species is to promote the maintenance and slow the destruction of natural habitats, not reintroduce individuals.

Some potential problems include placing in inappropriate range, unaccounted intraspecific variation, inappropriate gene flow between different varieties/species as a result of it, competition with other native species, introduction of diseases from captive populations, misidentified tarantulas, or tarantulas of hybrid ancestry. There are many things that need to be considered, and I don't think two dozen individuals will have a noticeable effect on the future of natural populations.

arachnidsrva said:

What do you guys think? Lets say I took males and maybe a few females (decent sized T's)

( A chalcodes ) to be exact...and I gave back to the desert


As humans we take so much, but what if we gave some back?


Please list consequences/potential problems

They've been in captivity a year or two? The ones I have are most certainly wild caught....

Would they do okay back in the desert? Is there potential to spread disease or something that wasn't there before?

Give me your feedback please, as I am considering this as an experiment...but I would want to consider all options first

Maybe we build some artificial burrows?

I would be interested in releasing about two dozen...

Click to expand...

Are you serious?:? Who ID'd the WC ones you have as A. chalcodes? Where were they collected? Where are you planning on releasing them? It dose not matter that they are originally WC, they have have been exposed to captivity living and pet trade food sources. God only knows what disaster you can spread by carelessly releasing them now. Please don't experiment with wild life, and leave it to the pro's as mentioned above by jayefbe

later, Tom

it's a cute idea ... but probably will stay that way. maybe i'll write a short story about it... or maybe just a picture book... without pictures because i cant draw or paint.
or maybe it stops here : /

the disease part / the diet they've had from cricket farms was my biggest concern.

it's a neat idea when you think in terms of the males atleast getting a chance to mate in the wild... but if they're passing bad seed then it will remain as a cute idea forever and nothing more.

i couldnt find the particular thread i was speaking about, but jayefbe and tom covered it pretty well.
Plus, gave additional potential problems that i didnt even think of, that are frankly blatantly obvious. Im glad that you chose to just give up on the idea, even though it came from good intentions

someone get a professional in here - for i have a dream

Why not breed them, then release the slings into the wild at 2nd or 3rd instar?