Hello from Atlanta GA

[Tony]

It is unfortunate that more dart froggers can't accept the fact that just because something doesn't fit their personal preferences and the accepted template in their portion of the hobby it is no Casus bellum on much of the rest of the frog hobby.

Have you ever stopped to consider where all of the major advancements in the hobby are coming from? Where the most experienced, educated, and knowledgeable people in the hobby congregate? Which part of the hobby has the highest number of captive bred frogs available, often with bloodline and locality data? The answer is the dart frog community. Despite your repeated attempts to characterize me as an arrogant dart frogger, the primary focus of my collection and my real passion is Central and South American tree frogs. My goal in the hobby is to establish as many tree frogs species in captivity as I possibly can, and to do it with the accuracy and dedication that I have learned on the dart side. "The rest of the hobby" is a disorganized mess of casual owners, people who want to turn frogs into the next corn snake or leopard gecko, and a few true hobbyists who have the vision and the ambition to bring the respectability of the dart frog hobby to other frogs. If I can do my part to rally those few people and accomplish something positive I don't care how many fantasy frog owners I upset along the way.

[SethD]

Have you ever stopped to consider where all of the major advancements in the hobby are coming from? Where the most experienced, educated, and knowledgeable people in the hobby congregate?

That is pretty subjective since most of the "advances" in the hobby dart frog hobbyists make are relevant primarily to dart frogs. As far as the dart frog hobby being where "the most experienced, educated, and knowledgeable people in the hobby congregate" sure there are plenty of knowledgeable people there. There are also plenty of knowledgeable people in other areas too though I agree the dart frog hobby is larger than the "other frogs" portion of the hobby.

Despite your repeated attempts to characterize me as an arrogant dart frogger, the primary focus of my collection and my real passion is Central and South American tree frogs..... "The rest of the hobby" is a disorganized mess of casual owners, people who want to turn frogs into the next corn snake or leopard gecko, and a few true hobbyists who have the vision and the ambition to bring the respectability of the dart frog hobby to other frogs. If I can do my part to rally those few people and accomplish something positive I don't care how many fantasy frog owners I upset along the way.

You know I think most of that portion of your post speaks for itself. I know you have a lot of tree frogs right now. I also know from reading your posts in other forums that you have been spending a lot of money lately and got most of them within the past six months. As far as that is concerned more power to you. However if the vast majority of the "primary focus of your collection" was acquired within the past six months and by your own admission in the amphibian section of the gecko forum you had your first clutch from a "leaf breeding species" on 09/19/2010 I still consider you more of a dart frogger than a tree frog focused hobbyist. That is not to say you won't grow into one and its not to say your not capable now either, I don't know about that and I am not putting you down for that, but it is to say that you seem to have acquired most of your attitude and positions from the dart frog hobby and now seem to be trying to imply that you have not. As part of the "disorganized mess of casual owners" I suppose, I would rather have new people who may or may not know a lot, but who are willing to learn, willing to use logic, willing to work through things themselves, and don't have their nose so high in the air and think so highly of themselves that they are perfectly happy to step all over anyone and everyone, call them idiots, and view them as rabble purely because they have a difference of opinion on some issues.

[Jeff Kennedy]

Well said Seth

[Tony]

There are also plenty of knowledgeable people in other areas too though I agree the dart frog hobby is larger than the "other frogs" portion of the hobby.

Not even close, look at the pet stores, kingsnake ads and import numbers, the "other frogs" outnumber darts by a huge margin, but most of them disappear into the disorganized mess and die instead of being cared for by dedicated hobbyists.

I also know from reading your posts in other forums that you have been spending a lot of money lately and got most of them within the past six months. As far as that is concerned more power to you.

I got my first exotic frogs in 1993, a pair of wild caught red eyed tree frogs which lived under my care until 1999 along with a number of other frogs. I had to take a break from the hobby from 2000-2006 while I served my country, and rejoined the hobby in late 2008. Guess what frogs were the first in my new collection? Red eyes again, followed shortly by Phyllomedusa hypochondrialis. A little over a year later they are thriving and breeding for me, and my collection is growing now that I have the means to pursue what I have wanted to do since I was a kid with his first frogs 17 years ago. Sucking on mommy and daddy's teat instead of serving your country and making your way on your own does not make you a superior frogger, just an immature man-child.

[SethD]

Sucking on mommy and daddy's teat instead of serving your country and making your way on your own does not make you a superior frogger, just an immature man-child.

Dendroboard Dart froggers, they are so smart, witty and lovable.

[Tony]

Dendroboard Dart froggers, they are so smart, witty and lovable.

When you don't have a relevant response, avoid the topic and make jokes.

[EpicFrogMan]

Most of you dart frog tree frog owners are sounding like a bunch of arrogant self proclaimed know it alls. This Tony kid comes to the horned frog section calls the whole Horned Frog community a joke, Bashed Philippe Vosjoli who has written more books and owned more animals than this guy will ever in his lifetime and the moderator didnt even care..talk about BIASED anyone??

Tony you have no impact in the herp world regardless of what you are doing up in boom**** Oregon. Your opinion = Garbage

[Tony]

Tony you have no impact in the herp world regardless of what you are doing up in boomcrap Oregon. Your opinion = Garbage

Thanks for yet another thought-provoking contribution Napoleon. Now run along back to your trailer park.

[Kurt]

Most of you dart frog tree frog owners are sounding like a bunch of arrogant self proclaimed know it alls. This Tony kid comes to the horned frog section calls the whole Horned Frog community a joke, Bashed Philippe Vosjoli who has written more books and owned more animals than this guy will ever in his lifetime and the moderator didnt even care..talk about BIASED anyone??

Tony you have no impact in the herp world regardless of what you are doing up in boom**** Oregon. Your opinion = Garbage

First of all I doubt Tony is a kid. Second of all, I respect his opinion, as I do Seth's and Michael's. I find most people who keep pac-mans, Ceratophrys sp are the casual types, usually people that would that normally would be interested in and keep snakes. That is not to say all keepers of horned frogs are casual about keeping them. Like the White's treefrog, pac-mans are generally entry level type of frog to the hobby.

OK, now as far as some people "sounding like a bunch of arrogant self proclaimed know it alls." Yes, some of the dart froggers are coming off arrogant (dial it down a few notches guys), but so far I respect all of their opinions and find them to be indeed knowledgeable. You on the other hand, are coming off childish and insulting. Telling someone their opinion is garbage is not the way to win an argument. And this statement, "Tony you have no impact in the herp world regardless of what you are doing up in boom**** Oregon." just makes you come off as unintelligent and immature.

Moderators will step in when its needed. We are totally non-biased, we have to be to make this forum work. Of course we need to read the post or posts in question in the first place and it has become impossible for me to read them all. I used to, but the forum has become too large for me to keep up with everthing. If there is really a problem with someone's post you can report it and we will look into it. That being said, I don't remember receiving any complaints in my mail box on the subject. If there had been, one us would have looked into it and made a non-biased decision. After all, there are six of us, if there was truly a problem one us would've fixed it. If the moderators are unsure on what to do, they come to John myself for a final decsion or opinion on the subject. Again, not one moderator has brought this to my attention.

[Kurt]

Despite your repeated attempts to characterize me as an arrogant dart frogger, the primary focus of my collection and my real passion is Central and South American tree frogs.

Same here, my main focus are treefrogs particularly those of the Neotropical region. I also agree that man-made-morphs and hybrids are just plain wrong, maybe a little evil. Why do people feel the need to make wild animals into domestic animals? If you want something like that get a dog. What attracts me to frogs (and wild animals in general) is the fact that they are natural and untampered with, a slice of the wild. I want what I have to be just like I would find it in the great outdoors. I think that bringing hybrids into batraculture will eventually make the hobby more about domesticated amphibians and less about of the wild and mother nature, and I think that is just sad. Look at corn snakes, they're just about domestic animals at this point.

So people please stop tampering with the natural order. There are plenty of species out there to keep you busy. That's why I wrote the Meet The Frog Series. I wrote it to expose people to what is actually out there. Of course some of it is beyond the reach of most of us, but there are some in the series that are quite attainable. Just go to CalPhotos: Animals and be blown away by what you see.

[SethD]

What attracts me to frogs (and wild animals in general) is the fact that they are natural and untampered with, a slice of the wild. I want what I have to be just like I would find it in the great outdoors. I think that bringing hybrids into batraculture will eventually make the hobby more about domesticated amphibians and less about of the wild and mother nature, and I think that is just sad. Look at corn snakes, they're just about domestic animals at this point.

Normal corn snakes are available for those who want them, it is not that they have been lost, it is just that a lot of people like color morphs. If you are a "natural snake" fan there are still a enormous number of possibilities and your options have not diminished. It is just that other things are more popular. That is true of all species with a lot of morphs on the market. The morphs didn't destroy the natural part of the hobby, they just added to it. If it isn't an issue of just wanting everyone in the hobby to like only "natural" animals because that is what you personally like show me examples in the reptile or amphibian hobby where color mutations or what have you made "natural" animals wild colorations unavailable. They didn't do that, what they did was bring a lot of new people into the hobby and create new fans for that particular type of animal. To use your example, people kept corn snakes before all the mutations started, but the number of keepers exploded once more and more morphs became available. I wonder if some of the anti-morph anti-hybrid-anything sentiment in some people is more due to a concern that a lot of new people with view not exactly like theirs could enter the hobby. I guess it depends on your point of view if new people in the hobby is a good or bad thing.