"Show me the records indicating that all the mexican rosyboa localities were derived from legal stocks."
>>>There are no exact records of localities because such details were not required at the time they were being legally collected.

"And if a small number of people are caught, how many are successful in smuggling."
>>>Not many. There is not a flood of fresh blood coming across the border. Where are all the locality thayeri, greeri, mex mex and Mexican alterna? They don't exist because few, if any, are crossing the border these days.

"Murder, Rape, Incest, etc.....What happens?"
>>>These are crimes with real victims and basicly every sane person agrees they should be crimes. As sane humans we have a moral obligation to hold illegal such acts no matter how hard or effective/ineffective enforcment is. Your comparision equates the rights of herps with the rights of humans. I don't think it was your intention but this part of your arguement is equivalent to an animal rights agenda. If you are saying it is morally wrong to collect herps I guess we will just have to agree to disagree.

"But there are already thousands of animals in this country and many of those have ancestries that are "questionable". With all the huge number of rosies produced in this country every year, why would we need to have people go down and collect more?"
>>>Most people who still want to collect Mexican rosies nowadays want to do it for sport. The majority of people who want to go collect rosies in MX do not have commercial intrests as their primary goal. They may want to sell their captive born babies too but their primary purpose is simply to go down there and have the fun of collecting a pair or two and breeding them. This is not really any different than the person who wants to catch and eat their own fish. Captive breeding has been highly successful at detering commercial collecting but it cannot and never will replace sport collecting.

"And would you be OK if I got a permit instead of you? Would you be happy just buying CB babies from me and being denied the opportunity to go down and collect your own?"
>>>As long as there was an equal opportunity for you and I to obtain a permit I would have no problems. This is already done for game species with lotteries and quotas and seems to work well. I think everybody would agree that a reasonable and data supported lottery would be much better than all out bans.

"I live near alterna country. It costs 10x as much to find an alterna as buy a CB one and finding them by traditional means is currently illegal. There are enough captive alterna around that I know people who feed picky babies to coralsnakes, etc., rather that make the effort to get them on pinkies. There are too many produced, IMHO. Yet this last May and June there were dozens of aspiring herpers down here in Texas trying to beat the odds.
If it didn't work for alterna (or Cornsnakes or Calkings) why would it work for Rosies?"
>>>Again you are not distinguishing between sport take and commercial harvest. All of those species, alterna, corns, calkings and rosies are offered for sale in far greater numbers as captive borns, than they are as wild caughts. Captive breeding has been VERY successful at reducing the numbers of wild caught alterna, corns, cal kings and rosies offered for sale. No offense intended but I have been hunting alterna every year since 1996 and I have never seen you or heard of you being in "alterna country" while I was there. I also breed them and am very familiar with both the wild caught and captive bred sides of the market. Please don't get the wrong impression, I am not putting you down. Your posts I have seen are very well thought out, probing and genuine. I am not saying you are being antaogonistic or trolling or anything like that,I just think I have alot more firsthand experience in "alterna country" and with the alterna market(and west TX herp market as a whole) in general than you do. I also live in or near cal king and rosy areas and have alot of firsthand knowledge of both species markets and collection rates.

>>>Just because a species is still collected doesn't mean the laws aren't working. The goal should not be to end all collection, rather the goal should be to ensure that whatever collection does take place, be it sport or commercial, takes place at sustainable levels.

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