Billy Gangemi, Russian Tortoises, HELP!

http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/foru...d.php?t=611628

Originally Posted by Mike (The M)

Oh, Nickolouse.

Lydia,

I've seen Billy at a few shows. I don't really know him personally, have bought a few things off him, all have done well, but I think one thing I got from him did not thrive. I'd buy from him again.

In the reptile hobby, this is not uncommon. Even captive bred hatchlings can be seemingly perfectly healthy, then just up and die. It's referred to as "failure to thrive."

It's already been covered, but importing Russian tortoises is a thing. Many species are wild caught versus captive bred because turtles are not always prolific. The return on establishing a colony, getting them breeding, producing babies, getting them to the point where they're ready to go, etc. is not cost effective.

OR, on the flip side, they're so prolific in the wild and readily available, that it's just easier to catch them. Try explaining to a novice, that a full grown Russian at $60 is not a better value than a baby captive bred at $130. The general public doesn't see things this way, and despite the moral outrage, that's what expos and this hobby are: a business that serves the general public.

All states have different laws and regulations around this, but when it comes to non-native species, typically, it's hands off.

One last thing: Russians are known to carry a herpes virus. There is nothing an importer/seller/purchaser can do if they have it. It can be fatal, and there's no outward detection, until symptoms appear, at which point, death is inevitable.

It sucks, but these things happen, regardless of who you're purchasing from.

This is helpful. Could you post it to the new, less negative, more informational post.. I have herpes questions, which sounds gross, but seriously...

Wow! This was a long read …

Some of my observations …

1. I see when you took the torts to the vet, but no mention of the date you bought them.

2. If torts are similar to any other species of reptile, a month is plenty of time for a new owners husbandry and/or lack of knowledge to cause the animals demise. So, the fact that William is offering a refund, despite the lack of communication before hand, is quite commendable.

3. Why did you not obtain his card or other information when you bought the torts? I always get the sellers contact info when making a purchase, I even did so when I first started.

Originally Posted by Andy_G

Truly not trying to stir the pot here...but your full name really belongs in your profile, just like everyone else...not just posted in a single post, that way it will appear under your user name whenever you post and people know who you are. That's why it's a rule. Nobody should have to search in order to find out who you are...therefore you are actually not complying at this time unless you are disclosing your name on every single post. I fail to understand why this is something you've decided to battle out and split hairs on with the moderation team of this site.

I can also understand why you are percieving that a lot of people are siding with the seller. I can tell you that those of us who have been in the hobby for a while are sick and tired of seeing animals get sick or die because someone didn't provide for them properly. Just like any market, this is very much one of buyer beware...I mentioned before that I feel he should have disclosed that they were WC, but as many pointed out, it's almost unreasonable to expect anything other than a WC in this case, and there's nothing wrong with this species being WC, either. You know that most (or possibly even all) of the blame goes towards you and I know that you already feel bad so I truly don't want to add to that...but some of the answers you are seeking from the seller aren't owed to you, nor would I expect or even suggest to him that he give you what you're asking for at this point, because your conduct towards him has generally been quite derrogatory and antagonistic, and not entirely justified.

I do hope that you've learned a bit from this and wish you all the best moving forward. Definitely start a discussion thread as you were planning to and hopefully you'll receive some guidance there.

Yes, moving forward with a deep breath and still gaining info. to help save our girl if possible. please forward any helpful info to the following:

http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/foru...d.php?t=611628

Originally Posted by Lucille

A discussion forum thread might be interesting.
As far as responses to this actual situation, one of the reasons that this site works so well is that readers read all of the responses, positive and negative, and judge for themselves the value and credibility of each response.

You cannot really pick and choose responses to try to engineer a perfect-for-you thread, and an effort to do so might be seen as manipulative, since those with valid negative responses bring valued opinion to the table and may actually contain information and thoughts that may be of value to you.

It is not my intent to taylor make a thread, but only to waste less time arguing and spreading poopy feelings around. Sometimes, I think, we need a restart with a deep breath.
Lydia

Originally Posted by Kfen

I am sorry your entrance into this hobby turned into a huge learning curve.

My opinion is the seller's offer of refunding or replacing the animals after a month was more than fair and the only thing he had to do. Of course it would have been better if he learned of your experience (or lack of) before selling them to you, but unfortunately for you that is not his job. No wild caught tortoise should be for beginners. Lesson learned.

What I did not see posted was it is not always a good idea to worm animals as soon as they are imported. Worming can take its own toll. Your vet should know this. Claiming the seller should have done this is unfair. If the animals were outwardly healthy and eating, it is advisable to let them acclimate, hydrate, and gain a little weight before worming. I am not a vet but I think giving your torts all that medication at once was risky, especially if they were indeed underweight. I would like to hear a second opinion from a vet who deals with reptiles.

Good luck with the remaining tortoise. There are lots of herp care forums out there to ask more questions.

I didn't know, and I'm concerned about this. In addition to other variables, their health did deteriorate more after meds began, so this might be the actual answer that I was seeking. May I copy this to the other board?

Lydia, in life, do you get to choose who gets to communicate with you? If you have a job, how does that policy work out for you? In the real world, you don't get to control who speaks on a public forum simply because you don't like how the conversation is going. I'm sorry that everyone didn't just lay out the red carpet for you and say the seller is the worst person on earth. I know you tried for that quite intensely. You simply started this thread, you're not in control of this thread or any other on this site. If you think that you are, let me know how that works out for you as well. But please, continue the "Only nice questions, please." policy. It makes you look like you can't defend your actions (which I'm pretty sure you can't).

Originally Posted by lydiacourtney

It is not my intent to taylor make a thread, but only to waste less time arguing and spreading poopy feelings around. Sometimes, I think, we need a restart with a deep breath.
Lydia

That is up to you. You need not argue when people respond and do not agree with you. You certainly do not need to march them to an 'only those who agree with Lydia' thread.
I believe your manipulations to be intentional. Your seller is remarkable in that he offered a refund after a month but you are on a crusade to hang him, when he is being a Good Guy about all this.
This was an opportunity to teach your daughter about life, death, researching pet care, and taking responsibility for one's own actions, which you have not done. Instead you have taught your daughter other, more unsavory lessons, but children see and learn from all we do.

Why not restart here, with an apology to your seller, and an effort to read and abide by the rules here.

Originally Posted by lydiacourtney

Those who want to be positive and inform me respectfully can meet me there. Those who want to criticize and blame (and yes, I see the hypocrisy in my own statement) can go their own way or continue to rail on me, here.

I have to admit that I'm sort of torn about responding to you again in any thread as you come off as seeking a reason that the whole problem must be the fault of the seller and that you aren't at fault in any way.

As I noted in my earlier post above, given the time between the sale and death, there isn't any direct link or proof that the fault is with the seller or with you, yet you have persisted in going after the seller at every chance. Given your pattern of behavior in this thread, I suspect that any discussion in a "neutral thread" is going to result in you cherry picking the information that supports your preconceptions consequently I'm going to avoid that discussion with the following sole bit of advice.

If you want to follow up on the topic of immunosuppression you may want to get a copy of Warwick, Clifford, Fredric L. Frye, and James Bernard Murphy, eds. Health and welfare of captive reptiles. Springer Science & Business Media, 2001..

some comments

Ed

Originally Posted by lydiacourtney

Additionally, Billy, you should know that I had only certain choices for tags, and the closest one to "wild caught" was "wildlife smuggler." So, sorry for the tag, but... I think unless you can tell the dealer you bought them from, which you refused to do, you may as well be admitting that wild caught is the case.

A quick note on this - tags, like auto correct, will offer suggestions as you start typing for the oft used options, however, you can simply type what you want the tag to be. You were not limited to whatever options pop up.