I'm obviously not against take from the wild (since I breed snakes that descended from wild-caught stock), but I am against several different kinds of take. To list a few: commercial collection, taking subadults and adults (especially gravid females), species or "varieties" (in the Darwinian sense) with a small population or range, species that are endemic to a relatively small region, etc.



I am in agreement with you. I guess the tone of my response was that some people are against taking from the wild, in ANY quantity or of ANY species, but tend to forget where their captive-bred pets originated (and in some cases, they came from poached stock).



I'm wrestling with the whole notion of WC vs. CB, bag limits, white-list/black-list species, etc. There are a lot of restrictions out there which flat-out don't make sense (CA possession limits of ONE for some species?), and there are a lot of animals for which restrictions HAVEN'T been imposed, but should.



I'm getting away from the immediate topic here, but obviously one of the biggest concerns is money. It drives commercial collectors and/or poachers (they are NOT necessarily the same) to do what they want to do, but on the other side of the coin, it limits research in that there just isn't a perceived value for most states' wildlife departments to fund studies of nongame species (they don't exactly generate a lot of revenue for the departments by way of license sales, like game animals do).



I'm (slowly!) working on efforts to partner amateur herpers with state wildlife agencies to build the body of knowledge for herp species. What will come of it? Some ideas include increased land access and other herping opportunities, some species on restricted lists being opened to take (based on analysis, of course), some unprotected species being protected (based on analysis), and in general, better understanding of herp population dynamics, sustainable (or not) take, etc.
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Chris McMartin

www.mcmartinville.com

I'm Not a Herpetologist, but I Play One on the Internet

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