All,

When I came into the game the anti-herp industry movement within academia was already in full swing. When I first moved to Gainesville I remember Kevin Brown telling me that I needed to avoid the Gainesville Herp Society (GHS) and instead drive down to Orlando and visit Wayne's World (Central Florida Herp Society). I said why? And he said that GHS was full of academics and less about the hobby and CFHS was more about hobbyists. Well, I didn't take his advice although I did go down and check out the CFHS. GHS had its fair amount of hobbyists, breeders and dealers: Bill Brant, Eugene Bessette and Doug Foster to name a few but Paul Moler was at almost every meeting. It was pretty cool.

When I started at The Central Florida Zoo I wasn't that into the "banning agenda" but I soon started leaning that way after reading all the herp books, field guides and scientific papers espousing to the massive problems and population depletion by collectors. I even wrote some now classic articles in the GHS newsletter and started pushing conservation hardcore. Why do people need to breed burms and keep iguanas. When they get to big they just try to pawn them off at the zoo. Or I would get calls about sick iguanas all the time. That needed to stop. Why do folks need to rape the wild? We must stop them! I had been to Hogtown(worked there), Crutchfield's and Strictly's. Needless to say Bill Brant was President of GHS at this time and some there didn't take kindly to my new agenda.

Then I went back to NC State to finish my bachelors. I was still hardcore conservation. I started doing the picture thing with herps and getting back involved with the NC Herp Society. This is where I started pushing the banning agenda further and found folks who had similar views, lots of them. There were plenty of academics and other professional folks who were on board already pushing the agenda. But I was getting my degree in wildlife science and there were all these tools and statistics that can be used to manage wildlife in a sustainable manner. Really? We can take animals from the wild and it doesn't damage populations? Oh, yes indeed. Well, okay then. I do see lots of herps when I go out looking. All species can be harvested if the populations are reasonably healthy because each species produces a surplus. Well I guess I was wrong all those years. I didn't ever read any papers documenting over-collecting or commercial collection as bad just these statements in papers and books. Another thing I learned is that many academics, on their own time, support NGO's and other organizations that push this hardcore conservation agenda. They do this because they don't want to jeopardize their standing as professionals by preaching this extreme agenda.

What I have finally come to see is that the new school academics have been raised in this anti-herp industry culture where animal rights and conservation groups propaganda have raised these folks. They don't have any data but they believe! As I once believed. And I didn't have any evidence that commercial collecting was damaging and documented as factual and I didn't read any papers about it but I believed the propaganda too. If you take to many herps it has got to be a negative. And people who sell herps take more then others so we must label commercial collection as bad. Let's push that agenda. Because to get some of what you want you have to take extreme views, which many academics do, to at least get something. But a funny thing happens, these academics just scare the hell out of game and fish with their dire predictions (they are already sympathetic because they came from academia) and then private herpers rights are snatched away. Just like that! Wow! From no regulation to banning most everything. That is wrong! The system has some pretty hefty design flaws.

Alan scolded Tom for his tone. But Tom has every right to take this tone. Tom maybe more than others. Private herpers have been treated like garbage by academics and regulators for years. They have been pushing this extremist banning agenda. They do not include us in the design process. They write papers which are flawed to push their agenda. Academics have to justify their position. They have to preserve their jobs and create funding opportunities. They need to make MONEY. And they do this by stepping on the backs of the herp hobby. I have been a member of all the major herp sectors (zoo, academic and private), well, except regulator and it is plain to see. I understand that we need to tone down the negativity in order to work together but we need to be shown some respect and shown to be valued. Academia and the regulators need to make a fricken effort here, Alan.

Welkerii

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