the pet revolution!!!!!!!!!!

[koreascarabs]

i have been dreaming about this for a very long time and i think most of you guys have dreamed about his too. before i moved to korea i was in desperate need of a rhino beetle. i was taking care of enough cotinis texana to last anybody their lifetime. i searched, hunted and surfed the web but didnt find a single thing except for some more cotinis texana!!! i tried every pet shop to see if they sold beetles there but not a single beetle! sad sad sad...i was stuck in California trying desperately to find a dynastid or a lucanid where in Japan people were buying A.dichotoma in VENDING MACHINES and getting their favorite stag beetles at their local depaartment stores, they were even getting their hands on some chalcasoma and dynastes species! so during that time i was wondering where the heck is america in the pet trade industry! in Japan people are buying what some other people in america need to travel cross country for in vending machines! i decided someone has to bring the rhino beetle and stag beetle into the pet trade in America. if we could just educate the people and make the beetles look appealing to the crowd then it could be a big boom in the pet industry! i was reading a book about extreme pets and when i flipped to the creepy crawlies section i found the following:giant millipedes, monarch butterflies, silkworms, even madagascan hissing roaches! but not a single beetle. so i was wondering if people could increase their breeding stock and their collections then maybe we could publicize beetles in America! and then we could be able to buy beetles at our local department stores! an A. dichotoma vending machine

 

[tikiman]

I never knew they were THAT BIG!! I mean the trend

 

[koreascarabs]

in the oriental countries rhino and stag beetles are a BIG business. hundreds among thousands are bred(is that how you spell it?) and caught each year to be put on sale. in japan and korea we have annual beetle fights where kids and adults from all over the country gather to fight their beetles and win the grand prize. and in some other countries adults gamble in gideon beetle fights and some people lose hundreds of dollars because of the fights!

 

[Beetle-Experience]

There are a few major things holding us back or this would have been done long ago (believe me):

1. USDA - It is currently illegal to ship most insects between states without a license from them. The best bet we have would probably be to convince them to de-list a hand full of the larger, native beetles (D. granti, D. tityus, Strategus, Lucanus??). We would be limited but would at least have something.

*Now, it seems like there are a few bio-supply companies that are allowed (?) to sell live bess beetles somehow. These are most likely wild caught and are just as harmless as Lucanids or Dynastids would be if they escaped.

b. The other option here might be for them to allow us to take tests to become certified, like they do for some other pets. I've always been amazed by the fact that I could much more easily own a pet chimpanzee or a dang lion than a C. atlas.

2. USDA again - Substrate: It would also be illegal to ship beetle rearing substrate between states as it would be considered "soil" and would require yet another license. This is a lot smaller of a problem because I think most of us would be able to create our own substrates, but it would stop people in larger cities. I always thought it would be nice to pop down to the local pet store, pick up a beetle or two, then stop by the substrate section and grab a few bags rather than creating it all by hand each time only to have grubs devour it all in a weeks time.

Although not a great substitute but there may be a few "loopholes": If you take the current USDA rules at face value, the same ones that allow for the importation, breeding and sale of exotic tarantulas, centipedes, roaches and scorpions without a containment facility, we SHOULD be allowed to import exotic ground beetles (like the giant African tiger beetles) and Dung beetles - and sell them just like the tarantula guys do.

Steven

 

[Beetle-Experience]

Two other things that have bothered me for years:

1: Although we aren't allowed to ship/sell Dynastes between states - bunches of people from other countries flock to AZ each year to collect our D. granti and ship them back to pet stores. It would literally be easier for me to buy a D. granti if I lived in Japan.

Dynastes granti sale

D. granti sale

2: People import exotic plants and sell them all the time. Every single time I go collecting in the woods I have to chop through non-native species like privet and tallow, that were imported by nurseries.

 

[koreascarabs]

answers to problems(hope these would be reasonable)

1.each state could sell their own native species and plus the beetles move to different states to, i found a male D.granti back in Claremont,California but unfortunately the dog got to it and gobbled it up before i could stop it.

2.for the substrate we could just collect dirt from our backyards and sterilize it, or buy topsoil from any of our local botany shops.

I just dont get it. What damage could these beetles possibly do? They are sapsuckers so they wont go chomping down on anyones wheat or corn,their larvae are just as important as earthworms by making the soil rich and by breaking down leaf litter and rotting logs, and they would serve as a nutritional food source for any hungry reptile or mammal.

The most damage they could do is to fly into peoples hair or give them a little pinch if a person teases the beetle and then sticks his or her finger right between the beetles horns or pincers. You can find D.Hercules at a zoo if you look in the insect area but they wont let people keep native beetles as pets. So why the heck the USDA find these gentle giants harmful i dont know.

 

[Kaidin]

hmmmm... let me guess .... could it be by chance that .... it IS actually a HUGE business, and all the DA (and perhaps even CITES and similar) BS - are merely a means to keep this trade under control ? I mean - for example that's what's actually going on in reality under the name of so called "war on drugs" (or even on bigger scale - like "war on terrorism") - it is about control, particularly and especially not really the restrictions or limitations, but more precisely the sort of monopolistic firm grip on this very huge and very profitable trade. (some people call this whole issue a "corporate fascism" or some similar words, but that is already politics).

so, I bet that actually all the trade in exotic and rare (incl. endangered etc.) species - it is all the part of the bigger plan, and restrictions / limitations are merely a show-off, to BS the masses into believing that all such efforts are for the sake of preserving bio-diversity etc. in reality though - talking in business terms (and surely all the guys who are really in control are first of all operating in terms of money, and thus are amoral or even often immoral) : if you place certain restrictions / limitations, then you create the BEST atmosphere for monopolistic control, not to mention that in such a way you increase the demand (or desirability) for the things limited (ala "forbidden fruit ..."). this is an old dirty trick.

yes, some brave chaps are really giving their lives for fighting poachers etc. but oh so miraculously somehow never any such cases were solved - because they always involve highly positioned & powerful ppl.

so, in the end - all the "small folks" are simply following the system one way or another: either do not bother to get through all those limitations in normal legitimate way, or some may try to do it in so called "illegal way" - which anyway has been arranged, warranted, maintained and protected by the very same people (who are in real control).

I guess it is just in Japan those kind of people has figured that it would be more profitable to expand this business and market, and thus developed this insects-pets trade to such an extent that there are even these vending machines for Kabuto-mushi !