[quote="Roadrunner"]There are already unknown hybrids in the hobby. Dwarf, surinam, brazilian yellow heads are all crosses I heard people making because they didn't know the difference and thought all were just cobalts. Standard leucs are an amalgamation from different imports. Bicolors. Auratus. A lot of the old lines were mixed because no one knew. [/quote]
There is some truth to this, and most people will freely admit we can't be 100% certain , or %100 prefect, but again here you are with the "Throw the baby out with the bath water" argument. Having something that we feel is close means something to a lot of people in this hobby. If it doesn't to you that would be fine, except those who mix lessen the probability that something is close more and more. We can't stop you from keeping frogs, we can't even stop you from mixing but your action can destroy our ability tondo what we want. How can you not see that as an ethical dilemma?
[quote="Roadrunner"]Your captives are no closer to the wild than any hybrid. You need predators and diverse weather conditions, parasites, diseases and other things to make an animal "like the wild counterpart". Most don't even let the frogs raise their own tads. The idea of "wild-type" is no where near wild type. It only serves to make sure that you will always be going back to the wild when trying to keep them "wild type". Pretty counter to the conservation ideal most say they subscribe to.[/quote]
Again a gross exaggeration, and more of the baby/bath water argument. Most of our captive populations breed fairly true or represent most of varability found in their wild counter part population.
Oh and many people do let the frogs breed in tank and morph out. I've done it with azuerus, and gl lamasi, and it's pretty much imperative for pumilio. Removing eggs, tads, or froglets to decrease mortality is a far cry from designer frogs. Starting to notice a trend here of you blowing minor imperfection or changes and trying to make them seem on par with something's radically more..
well, radical I guess
You conservation argument has had several holes shot in it by me and others, but here we go again ...
You don't think the designer people will jump on anything new, especially if it might be profitable? ...naive at best.
The simple truth, right or wrong, whether because it is something new, something unique, to increase diversity, replace lost CB populations, or some franken frogger things they can use it to gain fame and fortune. is if WC frogs are offered, WC frogs will be bought...
You expect the WC frog market to just dry up one designers are common place?.. naive at best.
You expect all the people that do care about, and want to keep an actual blue azureus and more enjoyment and meaning in that then some mutt, to just pack up and quit the hobby and not try to rebuild what the disigner crowd bred out of existence?... naive at best.
Simple truth is if wild frogs are offered and they new, cheap, or serve a purpose then WC frogs will be bought. Designer frogs do no more for conservation. Its a thinly veiled attempt to justify/rationalize something considered taboo by many and sell it to the unimformed who don't k ow better, or people willing to grasp at straws to justify their selfish desire no matter what it may cost others... Fail.
[quote="Roadrunner"]I'm sure that some of the animals we get in imports are intergrades in less than hospitable environments between "populations". It doesn't take thousands of years, it happens all the time somewhere in the world. And I'm sure some populations of darts are 2 populations connected by intergrades at various points in their range.[/quote]
I'm sure they are too, but few mixed couplings a year under the pressures of natural selection that are tempered by those frogs mixing back into the larger population is a hell of a lot different then a guy pumping out hundreds or thousands and making conscious decisions forcing certain frogs together.
Lots of small changes happen sure, and occasionally you get quick significant change but overall, the evolutionary processes that lead to major lasting change do tend to take hundreds, thousands, or even millions of years. And as you pointed ou many of the means by with natural selection and thus evolution occur are absent or mitigated in captivity, so the changes we make can a have much quicker and significant consequences. Seem that preserving natures progress and only purposefully making cautious changes when needed might be the more prudent long term pla, instead if throwing all our frogs into a blender to make new ones.
[quote="Roadrunner"]The idea that anyone "owns" this hobby is pretty entitled to say the least. It's everyone's hobby, whether you like hybrids or not. To say that people are ruining it for you because they are exploring the hobby as they wish and you don't have to buy anything from them, well that's tantamount to being against homosexuals because you don't like what they do. No one is asking you to buy or create hybrids. If you own old lines you may have hybrids and not even know it. Does that make you enjoy them any less?[/quote]
No one does, but seems like asking someone to respect what was and help insure it it endures rather then taking actions that put it at risk and may possibly destroy what was and the enjoyment and meaning people were getting from it is a perfectly acceptable and ethical expectation.
Your homosexual argument is flawed. What they do doesn't run the risk of breeding all the girls I might hook up with out of existence. Now if you said they were forcing people to have sex with them or destroying the capability to have straight sex then your argument would actually resemble the issue and the position designer frogs may put us in.
We can't stop them, but doing what they want to do puts what we have a d are doing at risk... potentially rendering it impossible, while as long as two different varieties of frogs can breed together the chance for your world of frankenfrogs gets to exist. Do you really not see the difference there and the ethical implications?
We have the moral high ground because we can't destroy your way of life, all we can do is bitch about it... but you just doing it at all puts our way of life at risk to end and possibly never be again... a thanks!
[quote="Roadrunner"]What if the Paru Sylvatica were moved by the locals on their fishing trips as stowaways, on purpose to bring luck with them or to have a new source for darts, etc. Will you not buy animals from those populations because the locals hybridized them?[/quote]
Maybe not, especially if I'm sure that happened, but if people do and then try to keep them as representative as possible not only do they preserve as much as possible of that variety, they also preserve the result of those events a d the impact it had on the species at that moment in time. Thing like that have meaning to some people, a designer free for all could destroy that incarnation of living history. Again because some don't care about what we have and what we want they are willing to risk its very existence to get what they do want... Seem pretty damn selfish, immoral, and unethical to me.
[quote="Roadrunner"]
I can see starting a studbook or something to keep things pure but to just expect people all to do this hobby the way you want them all to is pretty conceited, esp. since the rest of the reptile and fish world has no problems with it.[/quote]
Conceited to expect people to show respect for what came before when it means so much to so many and their actions in danger it? ...Wow... but ya it would be nice if we had a better management plan. I'm just not convinced that the fact we don't, entitles others to torpedo what we do have to suit their selfish desires. Like I said on DB that sounds a lot like the "look at how she was dressed! ...she was asking for it!" defense.
[quote="Roadrunner"]Besides that, there are not enough people in the hobby to keep half the morphs "pure" out there. I couldn't care less how you approach it but if you really want to keep things pure and keep hybrids out your ONLY CHANCE is to start studbooks or a tracking system. Or only buy from people with wc breeding pairs, although that's not very conservation oriented.
What we've been doing isn't perfect. I even admit that we may have to do some thoughtful and cautious mixing to preserve a frog and will likely have just accept it as less representative then it used to be, but it will still be something that holds more value to is then a random mutt. There is a big difference between a designer free for all, and thoughtful, cautious, and necessary adaptation to circumstances. That gulf becomes even wider when you consider the difference between one or a few forcing vast and rapid change on an unwilling community, vs a community acting on some degree of consensus to preserve the integrity and viability of a particular frog pop... Again one seems a hell of a lot more ethical then the other, and I submit that as further evidence we have the moral high ground.
And if all those holes I just shot through all those arguments aren't enough to sway the majority who cared enough to read, then there is always this...
FTW