Tarantulas. The global arachnid trade is threatening the world’s most famous spider species, and it’s primarily driven by souvenir collectors. With their eight beady eyes and furry limbs boasting retractable claws, tarantulas are polarising creatures.
Jackie Peeler’s more than 40-year career managing creepy crawlies in zoos and museums, has shown her that people love and fear spiders in equal measure. “There’s a powerful connection when people can see something they may never see in the wild,” says Peeler, now manager of the animal care centre at the Boston Museum of Science. “Invertebrates and insects can be one of those things that people, even when they’re terrified, are still fascinated by.”
“Tarantulas are charismatic organisms,” says Chris Hamilton, an assistant professor in the department of entomology, plant pathology and nematology at the University of Idaho. The public apparently agrees. Today, researchers regularly see enthusiasts boasting collections of more than 100 species in online forums.
The tarantula trade has become a small but important part of the multi-billion-dollar illegal wildlife trade industry. However, t’s not just unlawful, experts believe that, along with climate change and habitat destruction, tarantula poaching could threaten some species to the point of extinction before scientists get a chance to study them.
“Tarantulas are especially vulnerable to poaching because they’re long-lived – some reach 30 years old – and females reproduce late and infrequently,” says Hamilton. “This is terrible for withstanding human interference (habitat destruction, pet trade collecting, or climate change) because of how long it takes to regenerate populations.” However, keeping tarantulas as pets doesn’t seem to be what’s currently driving the trade market. Some 43% of tarantula species are traded as souvenirs (for mounting and framing post-mortem).
In addition, there are seemingly endless ways to transport the small invertebrates, making regulating the trade market a complex and potentially impossible endeavour. In 2010, a German man sent hundreds of baby tarantulas packaged in multi-coloured straws via the US Postal Service. In December 2021, Colombian authorities at El Dorado Airport detained two people attempting to smuggle more than 230 tarantulas to Europe in one suitcase.
Only species listed under CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) are tracked. “Unfortunately, these represent just a very small fraction of the tarantula species in trade,” says Carol Fukushima, a tarantula taxonomist and researcher with Bisons Lab at the University of Turku in Finland. “Many are sold, and transported, without permits or records using methods like ‘brownboxing’, where specimens are shipped illegally, mislabelled, or transported as non-wildlife to avoid detection.”
Of the over 1,000 species of tarantulas that exist, only about 3% are currently listed as protected on CITES (meaning they’re actively monitored). The lack of official data on these arachnids makes it impossible to determine their vulnerability, and to develop corresponding conservation parameters.
There is a slight silver lining to the unregulated tarantula trade; some experts believe it could indirectly help bolster some populations due to the captive breeding that has resulted from the growing market. In fact, captive breeding might even help the trade become better regulated.
We have a long way to go to properly safeguard tarantulas the world over, but experts agree the journey begins with educating the public on what fascinating creatures they are, and why they deserve respect. The hope is this education will lead to behavioural changes among collectors, encouraging them to choose more responsible, sustainable methods for procuring tarantulas.
If you’re one of many people who get creeped-out by spiders, Jackie Peeler’s seen first-hand how quickly that can change given the right learning environment. One standout example happened to her at the Boston Museum of Science, where she met a little boy who was terrified of spiders but curious about one named Emily, sitting outside her burrow.
“I asked him why he was scared, and he went on and on about how they’re so foreign to him. We talked for five or 10 minutes about how important spiders are, how many different types of spiders there are, and where they all live in the world. We talked about why tarantulas had hairs on their body and what made them different. And he was absolutely amazed,” she says.
The little boy returned to the museum several times to check in on Emily, and make sure she was eating well.
