>> Some of these crossed animals "look" nice, but they usually just wind up causing a 100% distruction rate in other collections(maybe 98% would be more accurate..LOL!) a fact that many just don't seem to understand. This only proves yet AGAIN to be another animal that was "HONESTLY" represented by the seller/breeder!..LOL!
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>> I say this not to badger, or disrespect the original poster, but to prove ONCE AGAIN that this is what INEVITABLY happens, and will continue to happen, only in a MUCH greater scale in the future.

I don't think hybrids should be banned. I just think the more responsible position for people who care about herpetoculture generally is to not do it. And I agree some of them can be very beautiful.

Those personal feelings aside, I think your position's inarguable, if we define "destruction rate" to mean the rate at which our captive breeding populations can no longer be considered "pure" to a given species. Surely that's a bad thing?

Ten years from now, five years from now, maybe today, "pure" will be a term with legitimacy only to a tiny handful who have worked with animals obtained several decades ago, without ever introducing anything acquired from an expo or pet store or local breeder without portfolio. We'll go from feeling the need to specify and acknowledge that an animal has this-or-that percentage of something else, to that being the norm and feeling the need to be specific about an animal's genetic content only in those rare instances where it's "the real thing". And i think that's sad.

Plus, some of those animals are going to be released--accidentally or intentionally--into the wild, sometimes in areas where the "pure" species exists. So that wild population will be--forever--tainted. The significance of field work will be greatly reduced...may in fact have already been diminished to a state of insignificance for some purposes.

imho

terry

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