Rob Halgren ) wrote:
: Dave Sheehy wrote:

: I make my point about corals to dispel the notion that no types of
: animals can be propagated in the fashion you mention.
:
: Well, in this case you are actually separating individual organisms
: from a colony (if I recall properly, no guarantee of that...), so it
: isn't quite the same thing as dividing a plant, but I take your point.

You are largely correct. There are a few genera, commonly known as mushroom
corals, that are single polyps (i.e. individuals) that can be propagated
by taking pie shaped cuttings from a single individual.

: I seem to recall that flatworms can be split in half, if you are looking
: for a more exact analogy... And I'm sure there are some plants that
: can't easily be propagated (lots of cacti are very slow growers, for
: example). I don't have a problem with restricting trade in slow growing
: plants (or corals!). I think we both agree that the easily propagated
: things should be propagated and distributed to reduce collection
: pressure, however, which was my main argument.

I think we may have a misunderstanding here. Although cuttings are taken
from fast growing wild corals and sold commercially I'm talking about
cuttings taken from captively grown mother colonies that are sold
commercially. There are several slow growing (compared to other species)
corals that are very popular in the trade. It is to my mind even more
important to find ways to captively propagate these species for trade
purposes. I should think that this would apply to orchids as well. That is,
enable some commercial operation with the expertise to propagate the
more difficult species and offer them for sale.

: That raises the question of whether all orchid species are easily
: propagated. The answer is most certainly no! But many of the
: horticulturally desirable ones (the ones that get smuggled the most) are
: fairly easy to grow from seed with the proper equipment. Additionally,
: since a flask is an obviously artificial environment, sending such a
: flask is obvious evidence of artificial propagation. Should make plant
: inspectors happy.

Similarly, corals are grown onto substrates (e.g. concrete discs) that
make it obvious they have been artificially propagated.

Dave