- Joined
- Jun 8, 2004
- Messages
- 434
I'm sure most zoos don't employ arachnologists. I went to the houston zoo last weekend and the only spider in the WHOLE ZOO was a brown mystery T in the children's zoo labeled only as a "Desert Tarantula". It was probably an Aponophelma sp. It was about their size.
Anyway, that got me wondering...with the # of tarantulas on the CITES list why aren't zoos making more of a (visible) effort to captive breed and bolster wild populations? They do this with other endangered animals, granted they're almost exclusively warm-blooded vertebrates.
But doesn't that seem like it would be something zoos would be interested in doing to help educate people about disappearing habitats, etc?
Anyway, that got me wondering...with the # of tarantulas on the CITES list why aren't zoos making more of a (visible) effort to captive breed and bolster wild populations? They do this with other endangered animals, granted they're almost exclusively warm-blooded vertebrates.
But doesn't that seem like it would be something zoos would be interested in doing to help educate people about disappearing habitats, etc?