Thoughts on Collecting

[snakeguy101]

I never said that they hadn't been crossed, I was correcting him on the fact that that florida panthers are not extinct..... yet.

I think it depends on who you talk to. I think that there might be a small handful of pure FL panthers out there but i think that as a whole, they are gone and hybrids are all that remain.

 

[MultispeciesTamer]

Just to jump in with a short. Take the Mojave desert area, now their are crows out their snatching up every little herp they can find. They get a lot of ppl out their without a license and they just keep going out and taking stuff. How fast do these things breed compared to how fast ppl snatch them along with the crows and other predators. You hardly see squat at some of these places anymore. Im not done lol, just for now. Ive got both sides, but this I just mentioned bugs me.

no ones stopping you from shotting the crows and controling the popultaion, people hunt crows all the time here in MI

 

[Lepisosteus platyrhincus]

^second.
A good shotgun, a good crow call, and a s*** load of ammo and u have a SUPPERBLY fun day!!

 

[snakeguy101]

^second.
A good shotgun and a good crow call and u have a GREATLY fun day!!

hahahaha!

 

[coreyweinkoetz]

That's what the officers in the park told me.
I am pretty sure they where referring to pure blood wild panthers left and athere was one hit by a jeep and one found dead by the pine something park the first camping area after the visitor center that was crazy enough being within a two week period

 

[coreyweinkoetz]

they told me it was really weird what was going on cause there normally found way west of there and they lost somthing like 10 in the last year
I don't really know much more than that on them I hate cats but I can say I was the only one obeying the 45 mile an hour signs all the hicks and there trucks where flying by me at 65- 70 no wonder there all getting killed left and right

 

[coura]

I have noticed that everyone on this site seems to be very anti- collecting and just wanted to get a better idea of your point of view.

I collect from the wild (in small numbers) and on occasion will keep/ sell/ trade what I have caught. Usually it would only be an exceptional specimen or a unique color morph that I would collect but I feel that on occasion, wild animals MUST be captured in order to introduce new blood into captive collections.

For instance, Texas rat snakes are very inbred which has led to a deformity where the eyes of many specimen protrude more than they should. This on its own may not seem too bad but if continued without intervention, the inbreeding could potentially become a serious problem. This is why new specimen should be caught from the wild to help spur on the captive population.

My favorite way of thinking about this is to imagine that if an animal becomes popular enough as a pet then it will no longer have any worries as far as extinction goes. "Conservation through Commercialization". An example of this would be bearded dragons. Not so many years ago they were declining in numbers in Australia when several hundred were illegally imported into the US. From then on, there have been no problems with this animal because it is now breed in captivity by more than just zoos but the common hobbyist as well. This means that even if there was some sort of disaster in the wild, there would be a sufficient amount of these animals in captivity to insure their survival.

Tell me what you guys think, I am open to both sides.
Not trying to argue, just trying to get a real discussion going.

I think you have some mixed up ideas on your post so lets figure them out.
First Im not at all against wild collecting, even for endangered species or species with a high degree of protection if the proper permits are obtained, the species is suitable to aclimation to captivity and the impact made on the wild populations is as low as possible (taking a hatchling insted of a adult). Hell MANY species have their continual existenc assured because they became established in captivity in THE PRIVATE SECTOR (zoos just take the credit for it and then call private keepers ilegal traders)most are endagered to extinct in the wild, from Fidji iguanas which are becoming very popular in europe, to many extinct in the wild or endagered asian turtles. Actualy its funny how cites and other laws regarding animals protection are actualy endangering some species furter by not allowing people to colect them to introduce new blood into their colonys or species that have no captive representatives at all, like some Cyclura. They are protecting them to death, cortesy of our tree hugging buddys
Now you also state that captive populations can become higly inbreed which is true (even to some species naturaly have a small genetic variability) but it doesant necessarily has to be that way, if the founder number of animals is big enough and the several keepers are serious enough to exchange animals between them to assure healty genetic crosses, a inbred crossing aint gonna kill nobody either if only made by a few generations but new blood is allways better. If that aint possible then at least non healty animals should allways be culled out, and that is in my opinion what is endangering the captive population of blue tegus. To anybody that doesant know the story these are decendant from a single clunch of siblings. The prob is that the albino mutation apeared on these and people were so escited because of it that they inbred them to a huge degree, if insted they only bred completly healty normal animals (they could produce albino tegus anyway by cross breeding the albino gene into for example the argentine black and white) we were left with a population of nearly identical healty twins insted of animals with deformed jaws and other congenital probs. You said that yourself on the bearded dragon example, to my knowlege no new blood was introduced, however most nowadays beardys are healty normal animals...of course if Australia hadnt so overkill laws regarding wildlife trade our population of dragons would cernatly benefict from some new blood. Only a fraction of the number of beardys that are run over by cars each year would sufice...
Now if somebody comes here and says"can I catch this reptile", I will unevitably recomend going for a cb one, the person just wants a pet and wild reptiles can be much more dificult to aclimate and care for then cb ones. Some species like many snakes and turtles unless for new morphs are so readbly avaible that there is simply no reason to catch them and furter endanger local populations. Of course if the person is experienced and wants like to start a breeding program then its diferent.

 

[snakeguy101]

I think you have some mixed up ideas on your post so lets figure them out.
First Im not at all against wild collecting, even for endangered species or species with a high degree of protection if the proper permits are obtained, the species is suitable to aclimation to captivity and the impact made on the wild populations is as low as possible (taking a hatchling insted of a adult). Hell MANY species have their continual existenc assured because they became established in captivity in THE PRIVATE SECTOR (zoos just take the credit for it and then call private keepers ilegal traders)most are endagered to extinct in the wild, from Fidji iguanas which are becoming very popular in europe, to many extinct in the wild or endagered asian turtles. Actualy its funny how cites and other laws regarding animals protection are actualy endangering some species furter by not allowing people to colect them to introduce new blood into their colonys or species that have no captive representatives at all, like some Cyclura. They are protecting them to death, cortesy of our tree hugging buddys
Now you also state that captive populations can become higly inbreed which is true (even to some species naturaly have a small genetic variability) but it doesant necessarily has to be that way, if the founder number of animals is big enough and the several keepers are serious enough to exchange animals between them to assure healty genetic crosses, a inbred crossing aint gonna kill nobody either if only made by a few generations but new blood is allways better. If that aint possible then at least non healty animals should allways be culled out, and that is in my opinion what is endangering the captive population of blue tegus. To anybody that doesant know the story these are decendant from a single clunch of siblings. The prob is that the albino mutation apeared on these and people were so escited because of it that they inbred them to a huge degree, if insted they only bred completly healty normal animals (they could produce albino tegus anyway by cross breeding the albino gene into for example the argentine black and white) we were left with a population of nearly identical healty twins insted of animals with deformed jaws and other congenital probs. You said that yourself on the bearded dragon example, to my knowlege no new blood was introduced, however most nowadays beardys are healty normal animals...of course if Australia hadnt so overkill laws regarding wildlife trade our population of dragons would cernatly benefict from some new blood. Only a fraction of the number of beardys that are run over by cars each year would sufice...
Now if somebody comes here and says"can I catch this reptile", I will unevitably recomend going for a cb one, the person just wants a pet and wild reptiles can be much more dificult to aclimate and care for then cb ones. Some species like many snakes and turtles unless for new morphs are so readbly avaible that there is simply no reason to catch them and furter endanger local populations. Of course if the person is experienced and wants like to start a breeding program then its diferent.

well said. I agree for the most part but I also think that if someone wants to go and catch a single animal and they know how to care for it then they should be able to because one specimen is not going to endanger a species that is common enough for an average person to go out and easily find, just so long as they don't take every single one they see...