Buying WC Tortoise from reputable breeder??

[goldie]

So I purchased a wc tortoise from Tortoise Supply. I did a little research and from what I have read.. a lot of people are against it. I purchased captive born from Tyler and I love them! I have a a great set up outside and all three are going to be apart. I bought tons of weeds from carolina pet supply and filled their pens with large shaded areas with rocks and many other things.. so question is why does it seem bad to purchase wc?? I am not breeding but just love them and they have become my hobby and passion!

 

[Schlomo]

Here's a good article on why you should buy captive bred tortoises instead of wild caught:

http://www.tortoisereserve.org/research/Bred_Torts_Body2.html

Here are some conditions a wild caught tortoise has to endure:

Packed in snack boxes to be smuggled:

Crammed into crates:

 

[african cake queen]

hi, a better person can answer your question. i learned the hard way. got wc at a reptile show.i feel bad because they were snatched form their home in africa.they should still be there. i have pancakes and knew very little before i got them. now i have to live with it. torts. go thur alot when they are stolen from their homes and shipped to where ever. then there are many vet. bills. most i think, die from being kept in poor places while being sold.had got a pair at the show few years ago and my male momo died at the vets.i feel very bad about that. i wish they didnt sell wc anything. too each his own right? lindy

 

[goldie]

So sorry for your loss! The article is educational..the reason I bought him.. is because I felt bad. I wanted to provide him with a good place to free roam and give him some kind of open place to feel more at home. I know he will never feel that way but I am hoping with great care he will make it. I know Tortoise Supply takes good care of their tortoise so I am hoping he will be in good condition. He is my first wc tortoise and will be my last..

 

[african cake queen]

So sorry for your loss! The article is educational..the reason I bought him.. is because I felt bad. I wanted to provide him with a good place to free roam and give him some kind of open place to feel more at home. I know he will never feel that way but I am hoping with great care he will make it. I know Tortoise Supply takes good care of their tortoise so I am hoping he will be in good condition. He is my first wc tortoise and will be my last..

we all learn. my pair of cakes are fine now. fat and happy and in tortoise love. i want another female , but cb is the way i will go when i am ready. good luck with your guys and enjoy them. lindy. ps. the other pictures made me cry. so so sad.

 

[Schlomo]

So sorry for your loss! The article is educational..the reason I bought him.. is because I felt bad. I wanted to provide him with a good place to free roam and give him some kind of open place to feel more at home. I know he will never feel that way but I am hoping with great care he will make it. I know Tortoise Supply takes good care of their tortoise so I am hoping he will be in good condition. He is my first wc tortoise and will be my last..

I think the tortoises I ended up adopting are wild caught. Given the right care and environment, I'm sure your tortoise will be happy. Food shows up magically and don't have to worry about predators? Can't beat that. It's just that so many of these tortoises end up in the wrong hands of people who don't know how to care for them and it provides an incentive for people to continue to capture and smuggle them - too many die before they end up at their destination.

 

[Yvonne G]

In my opinion, there's nothing wrong with buying a wc tortoise from a reputable dealer. I'm sure that Tyler from Tortoise Supply doesn't buy smuggled tortoises. He is a member here and is above-board in his tortoise dealings.

Trouble with buying wc tortoises from just anyone is that you don't know how the tortoise got here. Chances are that tortoises like Russians, Greeks, etc. are here legally, but chances are pretty good that wc stars, radiateds, etc probably are not.

Just my opinion...I have no facts or science to back myself up.

 

[goldie]

I agree the pictures are devastating to look at! I really agree about Tortoise Supply, I would not have bought wc for anyone but I trust the source. I am hoping with the 400 dollars I spent on plants and supplies.. hours of burning in the hot sun and prickly pear sticking to my entire body my new kid will be happy in his enclosure. lol

 

[ALDABRAMAN]

In my opinion, there's nothing wrong with buying a wc tortoise from a reputable dealer. I'm sure that Tyler from Tortoise Supply doesn't buy smuggled tortoises. He is a member here and is above-board in his tortoise dealings.

Trouble with buying wc tortoises from just anyone is that you don't know how the tortoise got here. Chances are that tortoises like Russians, Greeks, etc. are here legally, but chances are pretty good that wc stars, radiateds, etc probably are not.

Just my opinion...I have no facts or science to back myself up.

Our opinion also.

 

[dmmj]

I have a love hate with buying WC, of course I don't want to deplete the wild populations, but without WC then most of us would have not any tortoises. And of course with WC specimens you have health issues also to contend with.

 

[TylerStewart]

Here's a good article on why you should buy captive bred tortoises instead of wild caught:

http://www.tortoisereserve.org/research/Bred_Torts_Body2.html

Here are some conditions a wild caught tortoise has to endure:

Packed in snack boxes to be smuggled:

Crammed into crates:

Just so it's clear, there's a large difference between what these photos show and what actually happens.... These are smuggled tortoises in the images, which are worse than wild caught tortoises. Anything we have or offer is imported legally. They ship in large flat wooden crates with many dividers separating tortoises into groups of 2-3 per area. There's newspaper between them and they aren't stacked at all (the wood boxes are only maybe 6" high). We get them in and immediately start hydrating them and treating them for potential parasites that they likely do have when they come in. We have had very, very little issues with wild caught tortoises. I would say by the numbers, we don't lose any more WC animals than we do captive bred ones over the course of a year. Like was said, they can come in with health issues; a huge majority of which are parasite related. By hitting these early on which very few vendors do, you eliminate a huge part of the problem. Even if you don't clean them out completely, reducing the load and taking the stress off early on helps out a lot. We don't guarantee our WC animals are completely parasite free, but we offer the same guarantee on them as we do on anything.

At the end of the day, if someone new is getting a tortoise and is deciding between a 4" WC Greek or a 2" CB baby Greek, I bet that one of the WC Greeks (started off right) has just as good of a chance of being alive in 3 years as the baby does.

 

[dmmj]

thanks tyler I think people often confuse legal importation with illegally smuggled ones.

 

[TylerStewart]

thanks tyler I think people often confuse legal importation with illegally smuggled ones.

Yeah, for sure they do. There's many websites out there that intentionally make it sound like the legal importation brings in tortoises in the same conditions as the smuggled shipments are in. The previously linked site is one of them. The majority of the photos and "horror stories" that are used in this propaganda are decades old. Nowadays, if legal shipments are not packed right, they can't even get into the country.

 

[african cake queen]

hi ,do wc come with papers? i thought they stopped shipping pancake torts. how do you know if they are legal? just want to know. thanks lindy ps. i was not bad mouthing anyone. just feel sorry for wc.

 

[Schlomo]

Just so it's clear, there's a large difference between what these photos show and what actually happens.... These are smuggled tortoises in the images, which are worse than wild caught tortoises. Anything we have or offer is imported legally. They ship in large flat wooden crates with many dividers separating tortoises into groups of 2-3 per area. There's newspaper between them and they aren't stacked at all (the wood boxes are only maybe 6" high). We get them in and immediately start hydrating them and treating them for potential parasites that they likely do have when they come in. We have had very, very little issues with wild caught tortoises. I would say by the numbers, we don't lose any more WC animals than we do captive bred ones over the course of a year. Like was said, they can come in with health issues; a huge majority of which are parasite related. By hitting these early on which very few vendors do, you eliminate a huge part of the problem. Even if you don't clean them out completely, reducing the load and taking the stress off early on helps out a lot. We don't guarantee our WC animals are completely parasite free, but we offer the same guarantee on them as we do on anything.

At the end of the day, if someone new is getting a tortoise and is deciding between a 4" WC Greek or a 2" CB baby Greek, I bet that one of the WC Greeks (started off right) has just as good of a chance of being alive in 3 years as the baby does.

My apologies if that seemed like it was directed at you. I was replying more to the why is it bad to purchase wild caught tortoises - Reading the whole post again - i missed the "reputable dealer" part and focused more on the "why does it seem bad to purchase WC".

I've personally seen a few warehouses in Florida where they imported exotic animals and these conditions were very similar to what I saw (not the smuggling, but the 100s of small tortoises crammed into crates) - although this was over a decade ago. What I saw has kind of stuck with me to this day and is the first thing that pops to mind when I read "wild caught".

I'm a bit curious though as I am sort of new to the tortoise world, you seem to have a good selection of captive bred tortoises - is there any particular reason you supplement that with a small selection of wild caught tortoises?

 

[dmmj]

The cramped conditions happen here in LA also, you can go to downtown LA and see russians crammed into small enclosures, waiting for buyers to come by, you can pick up a russian for like 10 buck, but you gotta buy like 30 of them at a time.

 

[goldie]

I am sorry to create such a stir just throwing it out there since I got so much crap from people when I said I was purchasing a wc tortoise. I would only purchase from a place I know would provide me with an excellent tortoises. My first tortoise was a hatchling I purchased from you Tyler and he is flourishing and so awesome. I am actually excited about caring for The Butcher(wc name) to arrive..I am ready to take over the care and provide my torty with the excellent care you provided. I just wanted to know why people were giving me so much crap for it.. but yes post was reputable breeder so a very trusted source..so thats why I was confused as to why people were still against it.

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opps and I didn't mean anyone here(crap)and when I say wc I just mean not captive since that is the first thing people ask me. okay I will take my foot out of my mouth now! lol I will post pics when The Butcher arrives tomorrow

 

[Schlomo]

I am sorry to create such a stir just throwing it out there since I got so much crap from people when I said I was purchasing a wc tortoise. I would only purchase from a place I know would provide me with an excellent tortoises. My first tortoise was a hatchling I purchased from you Tyler and he is flourishing and so awesome. I am actually excited about caring for The Butcher(wc name) to arrive..I am ready to take over the care and provide my torty with the excellent care you provided. I just wanted to know why people were giving me so much crap for it.. but yes post was reputable breeder so a very trusted source..so thats why I was confused as to why people were still against it.

---

opps and I didn't mean anyone here(crap)and when I say wc I just mean not captive since that is the first thing people ask me. okay I will take my foot out of my mouth now! lol I will post pics when The Butcher arrives tomorrow

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People that were giving you crap were probably like me in that the term "wild caught" immediately made me think of those images I linked to earlier. I didn't even notice the reputable dealer part so i probably inserted my big feet into my mouth too. Anyways, I'm sure you'll give the Butcher a great home.

 

[natty01]

im in the uk and recently bought two horsefields tortoises from a reptile center . i specifically asked if they were captive bred because i didnt want a wild caught one and id heard about the horrid way they are transported . i was told yes they were captive bred. that put my mind at ease. later on i asked where they came from and he said checkoslovakia i was like what ? i thought you said captive bred , he said yes captive bred in slovakia , i was a bit pissed that i was buying imported tortoises but brought them home anyway.

now my mum is going nuts . she is convinced that you cant legally import tortoises and that mine are stolen from the wild and sent here illegally . she is really mad at me because they dont have paperwork , i told her that horsefields dont need paperwork but she is far from convinced and is sure that i have been conned .

the man said they come here as babies and go to a dealer who raises them until they are bigger and ready to be sold on to homes.

has anyone else in the uk been told this

 

[ascott]

"I" personally believe that a wild caught is a wild caught.....which means to "me", these little ones were once in the wild....someone went into the wild and collected the wild caught tortoise. It is what it is. No matter how one wants to word it. Wild caught means the tortoise/turtle had to be caught in the wild....no way around it.

I understand that there is a COMPLETELY different way in which to ship them, you have the horrid cramped disease ridden smuggling way to move the wild caught tortoise vs. the labeled humane way of boxing/shipping them. Regardless of which method the tortoise/turtle are shipped, they are and always will be wild caught, snatched from their natural and native lands. Others are snatched up out of the wild intended for human consumption.

"I" do not support wild caught, especially for food or pet, just don't. There are sooooo many tortoise and turtles that are sitting in horrid conditions, some are lucky enough to make it to a rescue and others are, well, just lucky to die early instead of "surviving" in disgusting conditions for years with no hope of a rescue.

I know that as humans we want what we want and we can clearly explain away, excuse away...ration with in our own minds...our methods used in getting what we want. After all, we do have thumbs---so that allows us to do what "we" feel is aok.

I am not stating my beliefs here in an effort to bash, slam, belittle, **** off, alienate nor disgruntle any breeders on the forum, or any where else....I simply am compelled to state my beliefs here as every one else has....