# Selling smooth newts



## FishForLife2001 (Sep 23, 2014)

Hi all,

Only a quick one. Essentially I need clarification on whether smooth newts can legally be sold. Mine are captive bred from WC adults- I cannot find anything saying how many generations need to be kept before they can be sold/traded.

My original plan didn't involve selling any anyway, so it isn't a problem if not, but I have been approached by someone wanting to buy some excess. 

Cheers.

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## Caleb (Oct 21, 2009)

It's a bit of a grey area. Official advice in the past has gone both ways, some saying that F1 animals are 'captive reared' rather than captive bred, some saying that F1 and F2 are both 'captive bred'.

Everyone seems to agree that F2 animals (offspring from parents which were not wild-caught) can be legally traded.

It's perfectly legal to give them away, so you could do that if you're feeling generous...


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## el Snappo (Mar 4, 2017)

Wouldn't English Nature be the ones to give a definitive answer ~ in writing. _Not_ over the phone?

As Caleb says; It _is_ a grey area. And these things often depend, for final clarification, on a court case. Ye don't want to be a Test Case, do ye, Fish?


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## FishForLife2001 (Sep 23, 2014)

Thanks for the replies Caleb and Snappo. I have contacted Natural England via email for further advice. 



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## colinm (Sep 20, 2008)

In reality I don't think it will be a problem as I cannot see a market for them. You are probably better releasing the young in your garden .


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## el Snappo (Mar 4, 2017)

Oh well. Weekend now, Fish my man. Be extremely interesting to see how long it takes for EN to sort out and send you an answer to ye very basic question.

Frankly? I love, and have long thrived on, this sort of thing! It's great fun! I've had some cracking chats with the likes of MAFF and DEFRA. 

Even had a pumped up idiot wearing an astonishingly close proximity to a Police uniform, accompanied by a Real, Warranted Police Officer enter my property one time. Demanded that the gavver confiscate certain of my property. Which he did. 

Ten minutes later, I've turned up at the front desk. Questioned the poor soul before me about points of statute. Demanded he get the books out. Stood there and quoted chapter and verse, by rote, as he ran his finger over the pages I'd long since memorised. Walked out with my property, five minutes later!

Hendon never prepared them for citizens who'd spent years, poring over the various Acts in the statute books. I was about seventeen at that time, by the way. I didn't digitally film myself and put it on YouTube. Long before all that was even dreamed of. Nor was, or am I, one of these " Free Men " head jobs.

No. I simply like truly _understanding_ 'Laws'. And, my constant, life long quest for such Understanding has, time and again, shown me that those entrusted with the enshrinement, even Enforcement of those laws ..... Often just don't know what they're bloody talking about!!!

Ye've asked the proper authority a simple, fundamental question now, Fish. Absolutely correct thing to do. Now, they must answer. And that answer will stand up in court.

Genuinely be fascinated to see what they say


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## firebelliedfreak (Nov 3, 2008)

if they are CB from WC british animals, they would NOT be legal to be traded. 

They must be 5 generations captive bred, I can't find the link to the legislation, but this applies to all our native amphibians.


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## FishForLife2001 (Sep 23, 2014)

firebelliedfreak said:


> if they are CB from WC british animals, they would NOT be legal to be traded.
> 
> They must be 5 generations captive bred, I can't find the link to the legislation, but this applies to all our native amphibians.


Do you have a source for this, that number seems rather pointless? 

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## FishForLife2001 (Sep 23, 2014)

el Snappo said:


> Oh well. Weekend now, Fish my man. Be extremely interesting to see how long it takes for EN to sort out and send you an answer to ye very basic question.
> 
> Frankly? I love, and have long thrived on, this sort of thing! It's great fun! I've had some cracking chats with the likes of MAFF and DEFRA.
> 
> ...


I did receive an automated email very quickly confirming that I would receive a reply within 10 days.

With the amount of muppets in the various animal keeping hobbies it doesn't surprise me how easy it can be to get on the wrong side of the law, however annoying it may be for the responsible ones. Does this make it fair? Not sure.

Hopefully I will get an answer, whatever the outcome I will keep this thread updated.


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## ian14 (Jan 2, 2008)

firebelliedfreak said:


> if they are CB from WC british animals, they would NOT be legal to be traded.
> 
> They must be 5 generations captive bred, I can't find the link to the legislation, but this applies to all our native amphibians.


The usual rubbish still being regurgitated as fact I see. The reason you cannot find the link is because it doesn't exist.

The relevant legislation is the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1986, a piece of law I'm quite well versed in given my job.
It states that it is illegal to sell wild native species. Provided that the specimens were bred in captivity, they can be sold.
There is "x" generation captive bred referred to. 
HOWEVER - the Act is rare as it involves a reverse burden of proof. All specimens are considered wild unless you, the seller, can prove otherwise. In other words, if I am investigating this, I don't need to prove they are wild as the Act assumes they are. It is for you to prove they are captive bred.
So, if you have wild caught adult females that lay eggs, having already mated in the wild, the subsequent young are deemed wild. However, if you have a wild caught pair that mate in captivity, then their young are deemed to be captive bred.
The issue is how you can prove, beyond all reasonable doubt, that the young you are selling are captive bred.


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## FishForLife2001 (Sep 23, 2014)

Excellent reply Ian, thank you. Will wait to see what Natural England says as well though I have my answer...not sure how, or if I can prove that they are captive bred. 

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## ian14 (Jan 2, 2008)

FishForLife2001 said:


> Excellent reply Ian, thank you. Will wait to see what Natural England says as well though I have my answer...not sure how, or if I can prove that they are captive bred.
> 
> Sent from my 9001X using Tapatalk


And herein lies the problem. 
If you have video footage of the newts mating and laying then great.
If not, then that's the end of it.


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## Matt Harris (Aug 21, 2007)

To sell wild Smooth Newts legally you could apply for a licence from the SNCO. There did use to be a general licence which would cover you for sale without applying for it. I can't speak for England, but in Wales they found that no-one downloaded the General Licence form over a 2 year period, so they took the view that it was obsolete. Therefore in Wales at least you have to apply direct to NRW for a licence to sell native widespread herps - perhaps it's the same in England with NE?

As above 'Captive Bred' and 'wild' are not defined in the parts of the WCA which relate to native herps. As I've posted previously, in relation to birds there is part of the law stating that to be considered as bred in captivity, a bird's parents must have been in captivity when the egg from which it came was laid. Maybe this can be extrapolated to herps?

In considering any licence application, or if you want to re-home native newts, I would have thought that a major consideration would be the likelihood that they are carrying the B.sal. pathogen; https://www.arc-trust.org/chytrid-fungus

If you keep non-native species you would want to be sure that there hasn't been any risk of cross-contamination, especially if any captive-bred newts are to be released back into the wild.


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## firebelliedfreak (Nov 3, 2008)

ian14 said:


> The usual rubbish still being regurgitated as fact I see. The reason you cannot find the link is because it doesn't exist.
> 
> The relevant legislation is the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1986, a piece of law I'm quite well versed in given my job.
> It states that it is illegal to sell wild native species. Provided that the specimens were bred in captivity, they can be sold.
> ...


thanks for the clarification, I remember seeing a document about the 5 generations requirement. But it must have been keeper produced then.


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## ian14 (Jan 2, 2008)

Matt Harris said:


> To sell wild Smooth Newts legally you could apply for a licence from the SNCO. There did use to be a general licence which would cover you for sale without applying for it. I can't speak for England, but in Wales they found that no-one downloaded the General Licence form over a 2 year period, so they took the view that it was obsolete. Therefore in Wales at least you have to apply direct to NRW for a licence to sell native widespread herps - perhaps it's the same in England with NE?
> 
> As above 'Captive Bred' and 'wild' are not defined in the parts of the WCA which relate to native herps. As I've posted previously, in relation to birds there is part of the law stating that to be considered as bred in captivity, a bird's parents must have been in captivity when the egg from which it came was laid. Maybe this can be extrapolated to herps?
> 
> ...


As I said previously, the parents must be in captivity prior to breeding. This means that the breeding, from mating to birth/laying has been truly captive.
The general licence is virtually unknown, which could explain why it has never been used.


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## FishForLife2001 (Sep 23, 2014)

ian14 said:


> And herein lies the problem.
> If you have video footage of the newts mating and laying then great.
> If not, then that's the end of it.


I may have some photos but I doubt they will be sufficient evidence. At a push perhaps but I would rather not risk it. 

My main goal with this was to breed them for my enjoyment, so it doesn't matter anyway. I can house plenty and there are various local ponds and waterways for the excess. 

Thanks again!

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## FishForLife2001 (Sep 23, 2014)

Thanks for the help everyone. My question is answered, and I will post any email response here out of interest. 

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## soundstounite (Sep 6, 2009)

Fish, do heed Matt's words about B.sal. tis not so safe now to breed a few and pop them back like it once was sadly,do you realise what B sal is bro?

These ruddy diseases are exterminating the very creatures we adore,we have to be so careful now,sadly

Beyond that I'd also love to see the reply and have found the thread and the replies both enlightening and damn good reading cheers all:2thumb:

stu


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## FishForLife2001 (Sep 23, 2014)

soundstounite said:


> Fish, do heed Matt's words about B.sal. tis not so safe now to breed a few and pop them back like it once was sadly,do you realise what B sal is bro?
> 
> These ruddy diseases are exterminating the very creatures we adore,we have to be so careful now,sadly
> 
> ...


To be honest I don't know much about the disease. I do want to release some newts but if this cannot be done safely obviously I won't. Is there any way of being absolutely safe, something like quarantine? 

I did get a reply actually, forgot to post it, sorry. I agree, this has been an excellent thread- plenty of clearly knowledgeable people offering their thoughts- thanks again.



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## FishForLife2001 (Sep 23, 2014)

Dear 

*

Thank you for your email.

*

The sale of wild smooth newts is prohibited, by virtue of them being listed on Schedule 5 for the purposes of S9(5) of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981.

*

In order to be able to sell captive bred specimens of smooth newt lawfully you will need to be certain that you can provide enough evidence that the individuals in question are in fact captive bred. This may be very difficult to achieve in reality and should you decide to do this we advise that you seek your own legal advice on the matter.

*

Natural England advise a note of extreme caution about releasing any of these smooth newts back into the wild, for risk of disease transmission. Chytrid is spread via release/escape of captive amphibians.

*

Regards

*





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## soundstounite (Sep 6, 2009)

Buddy chytrid is a fungus that effects amphibia, it is causing the biggest global loss since the dinos. I think we have lost something like 30% of the worlds species of phib to it,whether that is completely accurate or no is not really as important as knowing it is having devastating consequences with whole species being wiped out. Its first form was Bd this affects frogs and toads,more recently another form has sadly been found this is affecting salamanders and newts,and is the Bsal that Matt refered to in his excellent post. Rather than me waffling on have a good dig it's worth you doing this. Sadly we also have RV ranavirus here which is also damn nasty especially it seems the UK strain. another you really need to be aware of. 

The spread of these diseases could have the potential to come from us keepers,I guess ,but I don't know if that has ever been proven??

Frankly if one digs into this and looks at the global market for frogslegs and the species used within that trade that are known carriers(not necessarily affected) and the sheers number of individuals in this trade,( it is huge, mate). The scale is unreal,then I feel it's a bit harsh that we (keepers) are often implicated. when there are hundreds of thousand of phibs being moved around our planet for folks to eat and it has been proven and documented that frogs carrying diseases are part of this trade.


That said we need to be squeaky clean methinks to present a united front as phib keepers that we ain't guilty and do everything possible to prevent contaminating the wild pops that live around us. So a base template does exist of bleaching all waste water,until clear and double bagging or incinerate all solid waste,so we keepers allow nowt into the environment to harm the wild phibs we also care about so much.

You can test for Bd I presume also for B sal ,but can't confirm this. Actually QT should really start when you bring something in to your collection,most of us don't but at the very least keeping new stock separate for a few months being fastidious about cleanliness and always caring for them last after your other stock is worth pondering. Mate many of us don't have a way of total isolation but something is better than nothing, I feel, if we just plonk new phibs in a viv and something bad happens we can never be sure if the viv was comtaminated or the phibs were ill. But many do this without thought


With regards to the waste aspect that base template above is damn easy to do,it's just hassel really,but put that in place thoughout herpdom and English natures wouldn't have that footnote in your letter and we could all sleep at night!! Plus the folks that don't want us to do what we do won't have another rod to bash us with.

We have a blue bucket in the bathroom blue for bleach all waste froggy water goes in there, bleach gets added we leave until it clears then flush it down the loo,I have a woodburner so the solid waste is easily delt with 

Fish go do some reading on all this it's really important to have a handle and there is greater knowledge out there than I'm giving you here as a starter.

hope this helps a little and all the luck with your newts

stu


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