Yes, we are going to lose some poulations to habitat destruction and fragmentation. If a population is isolated to such a great extent that natural predators can cause this much damage then I would say that population is doomed.

Additionally with recruitment basically completely stopped that population is doomed. Not to mention the inbreeding issues. We will lose some populations whether they are collected or not. Without creating corridors for recruitment and gene flow some of these populations will just go bye bye. Maybe the remaining specimens should be collected and placed in a captive breeding program so we can preserve that gene pool.

Yes, bag limits would work on many species they are concerned with. The problem lies in determining what bag limits? Often times the regulatory agency seeks advice from the academic getting all the grant money to study the species and they suggest unreasonably low bag limits because they really want to stop all harvest if it was up to them.

I think it is wise to get advice from wildlife science and wildlife management folks. Often times Ph.D. herpetologists really are not the best folks to ask about management issues. I would also certainly have herp industry folks involved in the process to offset the "banning agenda."

Welkerii

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