Posted by:
Jesperkosse
at Thu Mar 6 18:14:30 2008 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by Jesperkosse ]
Some time ago there whas a topic about these animals and in that topic the breeder who discoverd replyed with the following story about these snakes.
" Greetings everyone.I would like to respond to several threads written
> about the leucistic w. hognose from Colorado that were brought to my
> attention from a very good friend in the business.The threads I'm responding
> to were written over the last couple of years.First of all I'd like you all
> to know that I am the original founder of the worlds first Leucistic W.
> Hognose.On June 28th, 2003 federal agents from the Division of Wildlife in
> Colorado raided my house in Firestone Colorado and seized 98 snakes.About 88
> snakes were venomous and 10 snakes belonged to the ever so popular leucistic
> w. hognose group. Now the feds would love for everyone to believe that I
> collected a leucistic hognose in the state of Colorado illegally but the
> fact is that is far from the truth.About twenty years ago I started looking
> for a very special mutation of western hognose by collecting gravid females,
> hatching out their eggs and waiting for something very unusual to hatch out.
> Needless to say I spent many years hatching out hognose and releasing those
> hatchings ( and their mothers, for that matter).Fifteen years later I
> collected a very special female hognose snake.A few weeks after collecting
> her she laid five perfect eggs. About 45 days later ( thats right, hognose
> hatch in 45 days from Colorado), the eggs hatched and to my shocking
> surprise I had two leucistic hognose and three normal looking snakes.After
> several weeks of feeding and finally probing the hatchlings I learned that I
> had one leucistic male and four female siblings including the female
> leucistic.I was completely blown away!What I did was perfectly legal and of
> course I looked forward to offering the bloodline to the rest of the world
> since all the snakes were captive produced. By the way I released the mother
> before the eggs hatched so I'm sure there are many hets crawling around the
> plains of Eastern Colorado. Over the next 2-3 years I would produce about 10
> leucistic and many hets from this fabulous mutation.I offered the first
> leucistics for sale at $10,000.00 ea. and had no trouble selling them, and
> sold hets for $5000.00ea.These kind of figures eventually got the attention
> of the feds and they decided, in their own devious ways, to put an end to
> it.Now everyone should know it is illegal to possess venomous snakes in the
> state of Colorado.When the feds finally raided my house they legally seized
> the venomous snakes but had no right taking the hognose group since the
> leucistic mutation does not and could not survive in the wild.Eastern
> Colorado has hundreds of birds of prey including red-tail hawks and kestrels
> by the hundreds.Western Hognose snakes peak activity is a couple hours after
> sunrise and a couple hours before sunset especially before dusk in the
> summer which also happens to be the hawks and kestrels peak activity. A
> solid white snake of any species would not survive long with those kinds of
> odds.Unfortunately when the feds raided my house they left me with nothing.I
> couldn't afford to hire a lawyer that knew anything about the case as far as
> the animals went and wasn't able to get MY hognose snakes back.I plead
> guilty to violating the Lacey Act which is basically interstate wildlife
> trafficking and spent 16 months in a federal prison.I'm now living in a
> state where it's legal to own venomous snakes and I'm now working with some
> of the more rarer crotalids, green tree pythons and womas.And for those of
> you wondering "are ther any more leucistic western hognose out there?" Well,
> all I can say to that is..... "Damn right there is!" Peace everyone, and
> happy herping, Brook "
>
>
> I agree with you!! The leucistic, or the albino, or the whiteside etc. would
> have no chance at all in surviving in the wild. I am still trying to figure
> out how Federal Agents enforce state law on illegaly possessing herps from a
> particular state when it may not be illegal to posses the same species in
> another state that it was legally collected from. I have not read the Lacy
> Act but will do so now. From what I understand this is the only criminal
> situation where the Gov't doesn't have to prove guilt beyond a reasonable
> doubt. Instead it seems that they make you believe that you have to prove
> you are not guilty. I believe there have been instances where people owned
> kingsnakes that the Gov't said where direct descendants from native Georgia
> stock and they where charged under the Lacy Act as well. How the Gov't could
> prove this in a court of law is beyond me, instead the defendants where
> pressured into pleaing out to avoid jail time. What I would like to know is
> if anyone has actually fought this. I would love to see the Gov't make its
> case in proving certain animlas are descendants (in some cases several
> generations removed) from native stock of a particular state.
[ Hide Replies ]
- Leucistic? - glandulator, Tue Mar 4 16:39:33 2008
- RE: Leucistic? - Louie1, Tue Mar 4 19:57:38 2008
- RE: Leucistic? - glandulator, Thu Mar 6 03:11:57 2008
 RE: Leucistic? - Jesperkosse, Thu Mar 6 18:14:30 2008
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