"Most of the animals that came into the country to found the breeding groups in the late 1970s - 1980s came from relatively few locales."



I'm not sure how true that is. True, some folks went down and collected their own and they hit the same spots but I believe the majority, perhaps even vastly so, came in via the import market with very scant if not completely incorrect data.



In any case my point was that a lot of what used to be available started to wane as soon as the locality thing came into vogue and that is also a reason why they are largely gone. I think the comment is relevant because in my view it is completely impractical to expect ad-hoc herpetoculture to maintain large numbers of small local strains for the long term when the evidence is its difficult enough to maintain strains that are at least “pure” at the species level.



As for the future of the hobby I think its mostly in the hands, or will be, of a few large breeders who will work the numbers running snake and lizard mills and there will be a few who work on the fringe who specialize and produce some really quality animals. From my standpoint there are many of advantages from buying from a fringe breeders but overblown notions of genetic purity isn’t one of them. In the end I’d prefer to buy a really nice pair of generic pyros than a pair of 8th gen line bred Santa Ritas but that’s just me. I like to look towards the practical long term not what makes a given breeder distinctive in the short term.
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�Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.� Emmerson



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