Your „forgotten species“ is not a forgotten species. In the 1970s and 1990s German enthusiasts and scientists visited the habitat of Neurergus kaiseri and in the 1990s two brought a few specimens legally to Germany. They bred the Luristan nnewt and got the first real information about its life. You can find information on this web site: http://www.salamanderland.at/

The Luristan newt is a very beautiful species and it is not wondering, that they were easily sold, when first imports arrived Europe. Buying is and was legal for Europeans and some of the enthusiasts had no or less knowledge of the Luristan newt. The greater was the surprise how easy this species can be kept in captivity. Today there are the first breeding success of the second generation (F2) in Germany. The Luristan newt is widespread in European aquariums now and more and more zoological gardens follow the private breeders by buying captive bred specimens. We have so many offspring, that first keepers are no longer interested in breeding the Luristan newt, because of the difficulty in selling the young newts. The price went done rapidly and a young (one year old) newt has a price of 30 € (45 $). For example one herp importer produced more than 200 Luristan newts last year. Most of them were sold to Japan and the USA.

If it would be right that only 1000 specimens are left in nature (and nobody knows the real number!) we would have many more captive bred specimens in Germany. Listing oft the Luristan newt on CITES list 1 will be the biggest nonsense. That will produce problems for all private breeders, who are responsibly for the captive bred specimens. There are not even one Luristan newt produced by a German zoo at the moment – they only have young specimens. Stopping the „export“ from Iran would be a big challenge and it is absolute necessary, but nothing more. The classification by IUCN as a critically endangered species was careless, because of lacking surveys in the field (real surveys and not that what is written about). And nobody knows, if the natural population became declined by the pet trade and it is unknown, if the population dropped during the last decade. All information and data in your article are speculative, because of lacking information. I hope it goes on better with the newt Neurergus microspilotus. This newt has a restricted distribution in Iran, too. And it is said, that this newt became endangered by pet trade, but there is not even one specimen in the hands of anybody. Robert Browne from the Zoological Society of Antwerp in Belgium is working on this newt and he is arranging a real field survey for our knowlegde of this newt and he wants to install a breeding population in Iran. All the castigators of keeping newts by privates should read the ACAP (Amphibian Conservation Action Plan). The ACAD claims for collaboration among different groups, including private persons, for rescuing endangered amphibian species.

Dr. Peter Janzen
Coordinator of amphibian breeding projects
in Germany, Austria and Switzerland
on behalf of the organization of German zoo directors
and the DGHT (German organization for the study of
reptiles and amphibians)

This species breeds very readily in captivity and should become relatively common as CB in the U.S. in the next couple years.