Your concerns are noted but thankfully and realistically unfounded. The known locality for this organism are actually quite small and very easily obtained. I would suggest that attempts by collectors to remove them from the wild would be fruitless.

The biggest threat to this species appears to be a lack of appropriate habitat. Habitat loss and fragmentation through contradictory timber land management, plantation timber tracts, fire supresion, and oil/natural gas harvest......and of course the heavy traffic these industries promote as noted with the poor fellow pictured above.
These is also the age old condition of many inhabitants that the only good snake is a dead snake.

Quite sad to hear story after story of, " we killed on of those....." .

There are some bright spots on the horizon in the form of some more LA pine friendly timber management practices on certain tracts of privately owned lands and captive release programs into suitable landscapes..... lets hope its not too late!

[ Show Entire Thread ]