Katrina,

“We” is all the stakeholders who collect, sell , keep and breed herps. You don’t have to fund and study every species in the wild. We have enough natural history information and GAP data to come up with some reasonable bag limits for those species for which there is a concern. Further, we have to track what and how many are being taken. When you put in arbitrary regulations based on the opinion of those who would just as soon see all harvest stopped you can’t get the data needed. So what should have been done first was track harvest data not come up with an arbitrary ban of 1 to 4.

I agree that all the states you mentioned are wrong and so is MD. So is KS, TX, AZ and CA. I stand by my policy opinion 100%. It is based in science, fairness, conservation and logic. Just because something is better then somewhere else doesn’t mean that it is correct. Regs need to be normalized across all states. We need to have a clear and precise legal pathway to conduct our businesses and hobbies. We need access to wild caught and sales of wild caught should not be banned. My approach is the only logical and fair way to manage and harvest herp populations. Wildlife agencies can get funding from users of the resource, the problem is many agencies do not specifically earmark herp funds for herp management. Hell let’s create an excise tax on herp related products and livestock that funds herp research. There are answers that don’t involve bans or arbitrary regulations based on opinion and agenda.

Welkerii
El Paso, TX

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