Posted by:
FastDad
at Mon Mar 2 16:09:17 2009 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by FastDad ]
I found the text below in an other forum. This is the story of the Lucys, written from the originator.
When I understand it the right way, then the Lucys where part of the seizure but not illegal!
I´m right or wrong?
When I´m wrong, please explane me WHY.
>>>
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
Stefan
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Greetings from Berlin
Stefan & Raimo
 Reptiles-Breeding-Enterprise.com
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For the understanding - FastDad, Mon Mar 2 16:09:17 2009