Posted by:
JP
at Mon Jun 11 11:06:33 2007 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by JP ]
It seems several of the posters below have either no understanding or very little understanding about the ecological principals involved. They also have no understanding of whats actually going on with the wild populations in Africa.
They think that removing X number of hatchlings necessarily means a reduction of X number of individuals in the next breeding generation, when we know thats simply not true. As I mentioned before, in many reptiles that have been studied, removing up to 50 percent of a clutch of eggs can have absolutely NO IMPACT WHATSOEVER on the populations numbers in the future. It sure seems counterintuitive, but its true.
It works like this: Lets say the percentage of this years hatchlings that survive to breed are 10%. That means 90% die. In a managed population, even if you cull 50% right off the bat, the remaining 50% can have a much higher survival rate. You still can very easily get your 10% survival to breeding.
In fact, many populations suffer when they are no longer managed by a well planned harvest.
Now, I personally am not a big fan of the vast importation of wild BPs...I'm just saying the ecological prinicpals cited are flawed...
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RE: Irritated...... - JP, Mon Jun 11 11:06:33 2007