53 replies to this topic

[MichiganAnts]

 

my stance is its ok to ship so long as its native to your area and the other persons area and its not across state lines.

I agree with this actually. Your not "apparently" supposed to ship them even in the mail. But, I can ship other insects. Also, larger businesses are allowed to ship ants for those gel ant farms that I had as a kid.

 

 

you can ship workers anyplace.. its queens that get you into trouble

Everyone can ship ants across US state borders as long as there are no queens in the package. Gamergates might be a loophole though.

you can ship queens within state lines. and yes gamergates are the magical loophole

[Barristan]

Edited by Barristan, March 31 2017 - 12:30 PM.

[XZero38]

Why did this post even get started? If you are supposedly seeing this activity why not bring it up to the forum mods?

[Cindy]

Honestly law exists for a reason but many people will choose not to adhere to it. Imo if the law is broken out of ignorance it's not so bad because people can learn from their mistakes, but if it is deliberate w/ repeated offenses then it's super bad because it sets a bad example for other people to follow. The whole point of having these laws is to prevent invasive species from wiping out native colonies / protecting native species in their natural habitat. These laws might seem silly (like, I agree that people should be able to ship native species within the same state) but there is good reasoning behind them and I'd respect them.

[Barristan]

The whole point of having these laws is to prevent invasive species from wiping out native colonies / protecting native species in their natural habitat.

 

That's not the reason why it's illegal. it's illegal because ants are considered plant pests. That's the reason why you are allowed to ship all kind of exotic snakes (and other animals) across borders since they aren't plant pests

[Cindy]

 

The whole point of having these laws is to prevent invasive species from wiping out native colonies / protecting native species in their natural habitat.

 

That's not the reason why it's illegal. it's illegal because ants are considered plant pests. That's the reason why you are allowed to ship all kind of exotic snakes (and other animals) across borders since they aren't plant pests

 

Sorry I was just giving an example of ecological harm 

[Jaaron]

 

I get the whole deal about not shipping exotics, but isn't it a bit silly that you can't legally ship between two states where the ant is native to both?

It seems a bit silly, but there could be some issues that come along with the ants. Different pathogens/parasites.

The reason the state boarders are easier is because nobody is going to be able to tell were you got the queen from, so it's simply no crossing state lines.

Now with the ants, the species you have in your location are resistant to the pathogens found in that area, and they'll carry them with them. Now, when they show up a state away were the native species have no natural defense, it causes an issue and can kill off mass populations. Similar to all the sickness "white man" brought with them when they invaded north america and Hawaii, along with countless other lands. Mass population decline because the natives had no natural defences for the diseases and viruses that were subsequently shared.

 

I totally hear you and understand. I'm just coming from the perspective of tristate living between OH, KY, and IN where masses of people and fauna cross back and forth every day, so it feels a bit tricky to make illegal that which occurs daily by nature or that which I could legally do by simply driving across arbitrary lines. By law, I can legally have a queen shipped 250 miles from an arguably different biome, but not 50 miles from within the same geographic region. Regional or distance rules would make far better sense than the use of state borders, though I'm sure some would pretend that such a thing would be too complicated. I dunno. 

 

For instance, take a look at California. So I can ship a queen six biomes away, but I can't ship one from Cincinnati to Louisville. 

Edited by Jaaron, March 31 2017 - 1:38 PM.

[Martialis]

@Serafine

 

The first two of your illegal ant posts made me laugh.

Also I'm pretty sure a mated gamergate counts as a queen.

Edited by Martialis, March 31 2017 - 1:19 PM.

[Serafine]

 

The whole point of having these laws is to prevent invasive species from wiping out native colonies / protecting native species in their natural habitat.

 

That's not the reason why it's illegal. it's illegal because ants are considered plant pests. That's the reason why you are allowed to ship all kind of exotic snakes (and other animals) across borders since they aren't plant pests

 

Because exotic snakes are totally not dangerous to the environment. Someone should tell the people of Guam.

[XZero38]

 

 

The whole point of having these laws is to prevent invasive species from wiping out native colonies / protecting native species in their natural habitat.

 

That's not the reason why it's illegal. it's illegal because ants are considered plant pests. That's the reason why you are allowed to ship all kind of exotic snakes (and other animals) across borders since they aren't plant pests

 

Because exotic snakes are totally not dangerous to the environment. Someone should tell the people of Guam.

 

what about florida and the anacondas they have out there that are not native?

[soulsynapse]

if you ship velvety tree ants, argentines, solenopsis or any other highly invasive pest ants you should be thrown in jail for criminal negligence

 

here's a beginner primer on why importing highly invasive species is one of the worst things you can do for the environment

 

[soulsynapse]

The problem with ants is that they can breed out of control. That is why other types of exotics that aren't protected aren't as big a deal to ship.

 

This really should be simple by the way. Do you want the ant hobby to not be limited to only argentines and solenopsis? Then you should be against shipping non native ants.

Edited by soulsynapse, March 31 2017 - 1:56 PM.

[Barristan]

The problem with ants is that they can breed out of control. That is why other types of exotics that aren't protected aren't as big a deal to ship.

 

This really should be simple by the way. Do you want the ant hobby to not be limited to only argentines and solenopsis? Then you should be against shipping non native ants.

 

As I already told you in Chat. In Germany we have ant trading since 2000 and not a single new invasive ant species has been introduced by it. Compared to other risk factors like trading of goods/plants the risk by ant trading is negligible.

Make a fundraiser collect money and bring a case before a court so that a judge may decide if ants can really be considered as plant pets.

[dspdrew]

This same tired discussion comes up every couple months after we get a substantial build-up of newbs. It's nothing new. It starts as a question, turns into a bunch of squabbling and misinformation, and then ends up locked. If there is any actual planning or coordinating of illegal activity, the thread gets deleted. At least this one is in the right subforum for once.

[Serafine]

Didn't the Australian GOVERNMENT import cane toads to kill NATIVE beetles that ate their EXOTIC crops?

 

If they hadn't imported EXOTIC PLANTS they wouldn't have had an issue in the first place.

Edited by Serafine, March 31 2017 - 4:18 PM.

[Alabama Anter]

This is not a point that I am making but some food for thought. Almost ALL invasive ants in the US were ironically brought in by trade (aka government) Solenopsis invicta was brought in in Mobile Bay, Alabama in a Banana Shipment. Argentines were brought in a tree shipment (I'm pretty sure about that.) And there are way more. So not EVERY dam ant is because of $&@" hobbyists.

[Mdrogun]

While I understand your concern, the ant hobby is not going to go anywhere if people aren't allowed to purchase and trade ants. Could you imagine if the fish hobby had the same rules as the ant hobby? Most people aren't going to go and collect fish from their local pond for their fish tank. I do not partake in shipping ant colonies, but if it were legal, I would. I think that a good rule of thumb, if you choose to ship ants, is to only ship colonies to people in places where the ants could not survive in the wild. This way the native populations will not be damaged if the colony escapes. Furthermore, the escape of a single colony is unlikely, if not impossible, to establish an exotic species in an area. Scientists recently discovered that there were 9 to 20 original Solenopsis invicta queens that were transported into the US. A single colony likely wouldn't be able to produce healthy alates with such a small gene pool.

[Antking117]

This is just going in circles. This thread needs deleted for sure. No one is making progress, if anything put it in sandbox so that you all can continue fighting, but no one has really made progress against the other. This is unneeded. You know who you are if you do the illegal activity, and you know who you are if you do what is right. We understand that many factors can mess up an environment. Let's leave it at that and move on having fun catching ants, raising them, and letting the alates fly. After all, that is why we ALL are here arn't we?

[Teleutotje]

It's funny (not because it's April 1!)... Every time a discussion like this starts certain humans (or certain groups of humans) must show up and "claim how much they know" about "introduced" ants and how "harmless" they are... and when you read their posts you notice how much they DON'T know. Fact: Introduced ants (be it foreign populations of local ant species, sister or cryptic species, or completely unknown species for the region, if they are harmless or invasive pests) are all possible threats to local ant populations and all plants and animals in the region and yes, even in Europe, trade in ants across borders should be forbidden. History and science show what foreign/invasive species can do. What they (those "let all the ants come in"-lovers/fanatics) say is mostly what they want to believe and not clearly based on facts. But if we say only this (or tell more about the facts they claim are true) all we get at those discussions is swear words and shouting. So, for me, I want to participate in this discussion but I'm not going to do, Why? Wait and see how some react on this post...

[Serafine]

The European ecosystem is [censored] anyway. We didn't just eradicate any natural predators to a degree that we NEED to control wildlife population via hunting, we also introduced hundreds of exotic species and they um up to a level that exotic ants can barely make it worse than it already is.
 
 
You want a clean, preserved European ecosystem?
Good, first step, all parrots, parakeets and guinea pigs must be banned. If you want a bird as pet, just raise a sparrow or a crow.
Next, get used to wolves and bears which are slowly coming back after we stopped killing every single one trespassing central european ground.
 
Then we need to kill all the exotics we already have here. While raccoons and Nutrias might be difficult to kill off, it shouldn't be too hard to blast all those grey parrots out of the skies of Worms. Killing the Nandus in northern Germany shouldn't be too hard either. Chinese ducks are most likely easy targets as well. And there needs a massive eradication campaign against those parakeets all over Europe (including the northern UK).
Oh, and of course the american mustangs must die as well cause these horses are clearly not native to the american continent.
 
And don't even get me started on EXOTIC PLANTS IN EVERY DAMN GARDEN. We need to get flamethrowers and lay waste to pretty much every single village garden before these plants make the jump over the fence (which they are already starting to do in rapidly increasing numbers).
 
 
Oh, and good luck purging the european rivers and sees from exotics. That train departed decades ago.

 
 

History and science show what foreign/invasive species can do.

History and science have also shown that PRETTY MUCH EVERY SINGLE EXOTIC SPECIES has either been INTRODUCED VIA TRADING GOODS (mostly smaller mobile animals like insects, rodents, snakes) or where WILLINGLY IMPORTED BY GOVERNMENTS (mostly the lesser mobile species like cane toads in Australia, great nil persh to the Victoria sea, horses to pretty much every place where they exist)
 
Oh, and did I mention that pretty much every single agricultural plant is an exotic species?


test

Edited by Serafine, April 1 2017 - 10:16 AM.
Removed profanity