Despite the sanctimonious claims of many dealers, breeders, and collectors, unregulated captive propagation of illegally obtained animals has done nothing, and will do nothing, to protect against the potential loss or local extirpation of Baja California or Gulf of California amphibians and reptiles. /quote

See, there's a couple of possibilities I can come up with here:

The breeders can't save the animals because the pet trade isn't the real threat.

The breeders cannot supply enough animals to the trade to make collecting economically unprofitable (unlikely--look at leopard geckos, anything Australian, etc).

Personally I'm inclined to agree with the first one. captive breeding doesn't stop habitat development. It doesn't stop the spread of introduced species. It doesn't stop people from killing reptiles (Rattlesnake roundups, use in traditional foods and medicine, etc).

I'm not going to claim that collecting for the pet trade *never* harmed a population. But by god I am sick and freaking tired of the pet trade seeming to catch all the blame for the problems of wild herps. I'm also sick of zoos pretending that no exotic animals make decent pets but that's a different topic (and one I have more experience with).
I'm particularly irritated that he's citing something that may or may not have been true 15 years ago (I would have been 11) as justification for blasting the pet trade now. And as far as blanket statements go that everything from Mexico was established illegally, that's based on no positive evidence. Rosies have been CBB since the 70s in at least some numbers, and at that time Mexico was still open to export I think. Even post then, there were permits issued for people to collect for "scientific" reasons and some of those might have wound up founder stock.


So as far as this statement " remember that the original populations from which these specimens came were most likely illegally taken" goes...A: the author is making major assumptions with that and B: at some point I think it ceases to matter where the distant founding stock came from.
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We wouldn't have 6 and a half billion people if you had to be beautiful to get laid.
6.6 African House snakes
3.2 reticulated pythons
.1 corn snake
4.2 Florida Kings
1.2 speckled kings
1.2 ball pythons
0.0.1 Argentine boa

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