To answer the overall question originally posted by Joe..The list is a good thing overall. It is the best we can do with the situation, IF what is desired is some kind of standard. However, misuse of the "Power" of the list by introducing personal bias or hearsay could potentially be a big problem as mentioned by Joe i.e. - don't screw the keeper of the list. Probably what would work better are one of either of these two options:



1) Maintain the breeder list for ANYONE who sends in the required documentation regardless of whether or not someone is believed. In other words, it is not up to any one person or group of persons to play God and decide for themselves what does or does not represent a locality specific animal. As stated earlier, alterna vary greatly, have a large gene pool to draw from so theoretically there are many permutations of pattern in all populations. Whether you want to believe someone or not is up to you, but the people who follow the rules should be allowed into the 'club.' What they do once they are in the club or what their reuptation is after that is up to them and how honest they want to be and whether or not others will take them at their word.



2) Develop something like the cornsnake registry. This too would not be an exclusive club, but would serve to keep an easy record of lineages. Could people still shade the truth? Of course, but then we go back to personal responsibility and trust of the person.



To address another of Joe's questions, is it all really worth it? This depends on your idea of worth. Is it worth it from a time/cost/benefit standpoint? or is it worth it for the purity of the animals? Joe would be the first to chide someone for wanting to make money breeding alterna, but feels that someone who is listed should justifiably charge more for their snakes. Is this a contradiction? Perhaps. What he has proposed in submitting documentation initially and providing it to each buyer is good in theory, I just don't believe that it is worth the effort. If I did do it, would I feel that I was within my rights to charge more for doing that work? Sure, but I don't think the average person is much more likely to pay 3 times more for an identical animal just because the breeder is on a list. Do what makes you happy. Most of us breed alterna because it makes us happy. I would do it whether they sold for thousands or whether I had to give them away to schoolchildren. At one time I was on the list, put there by Barringer and all that was required was to state where the stock came from - either wild or captive from another breeder and you were golden. It was enough that you were trusted, that people knew you collected and people knew you knew others who collected to get stock from. I frankly never knew I had been taken off, nor had I ever been contacted to say 'Hey, we don't have pics for your animals' or 'Someone accused you of lying, etc.' Which only serves to drive home the point that it is a good-ole-boys network. Just like molestation or rape, the accusation itself does the damage, whether or not it is proven. You wonder why I didn't know I was taken off the list? Because I never checked the list and I don't know whether it ever did or did not bring me any contacts at all. I didn't mind being on the list, but it didn't affect me one way or another about whether I was on it. I didn't need to consult it in order to get a locality because I knew who to go to already, or knew I could just ask around. Is the list a bad thing? No, but apparently the way the list is weilded around is.



I'm with the poster who said he was tempted to go underground again and I've been feeling that for awhile. I can breed, disperse my progeny, collect and acquire from aquaintances and maintain a happy life. I really long for the days when the only people you would see in a night were Ric Blair or Hollister taking a nap and people had some degree of courtesy and you didn't have to worry about a minivan pulling up to a rest stop and twenty kids pouring out of it with battery packs and light sticks to swarm all over a cut. Why are people so reluctant to take someone's word? I've purchased plenty of locality alterna from people I didn't know, but still trusted them on their locality and where they got the animals. You really have to ask yourself if the layman really cares. The hard-core will always be the hard-core and we all know who they are and that we will trust what we get from them. But for someone simply getting interested in alterna and being fascinated by them, the fact that the breeder tells them that they are locale animals only adds to the cache and provenance, i.e. - they can point to a map and tell someone, "this snake's ancestors came from that place, etc..." Believe me that is a neat thing. The whole holier-than-thou thing just really turns me off severely and is becoming tired and worn.

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