Alert: Potamotrygonidae under consideration for CITES listing.

[abortedsoul]

If wild populations of rays are potentially at risk, there is no reason why captive breeding would be banned, only importation of wild rays.

I agree, and I think the next step would be to find out which rays are at risk.

On a side note...

Holy crap! I heard that there was a sighting of you somewhere in Mexico, but I didn't know that you had an MFK account and like stingrays! That must be why they are so flat; the noodley embrace must be tight on them. What is your favorite type of stingray?

I've married two couples in your great, nutritious and delicious name (in full pirate regalia, of course). I knew I had a good reason to believe!

 

[moreliaray]

Guys just to help put this in perspective. I have been keeping and breeding snakes for over 20 years. All boas and pythons are in the Appendix II category. It has certainly not impacted the captive breeding of these species at all and anyone who has gone to a reptile sow and seen the thousands of boas and ball pythons can attest to. As long as the animal is not in a threatened status in the countries of origin it will not even stop imports from coming in. It simply allows the countries to assign quotas limiting the numbers being shipped out. The only risk would be if say Brazil refused to assign a quota or acknowledge the CITES decision and in that case the US would not allow any animal to enter the country until they did so. There are definitely pros and cons to an animal being listed in CITES but I don't see a real negative impact of this in this case. It might actually help to encourage breeding of the "cheap import" species. I seriously doubt it will drive up the prices of leo's or other more expensive rays.

 

[amazongirl]

I think there are a lot of misconceptions about what a CITES listing would mean, which Matt is doing a good job trying to correct.

CITES listing would probably mean that the price of a ray will be a bit higher. There would be more permitting involved to bring a animal across borders. It might lessen the amount of wild caught cheap stingrays in the aquarium trade. I personally wouldn't be too distressed about this as it is my belief that most of these animals do not live long. Is this elitist? Maybe it is but I can live with that. Different animals have different reproductive strategies. Freshwater rays take a while to reach sexual maturity and they do not produce a lot of young. Animals with this reproductive strategy and more vulnerable than an animal that can reach sexual maturity in several months and produce thousands of offspring in a relatively short period of time. Besides, keeping a ray in a way that has a good chance of the ray doing well is an expensive undertaking. If the price of the ray is more, it will weed out those people who think it will do fine in their 20 gallon tank.

CITES is concerned with trade of plants and animals. This could help protect rays from the commercial fishery which has a potential to grow and have a big impact on their population.

CITES II listing will not mean that people cannot breed rays or that all rays have to be chipped.