Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a TX rat that I have been keeping for the winter and I'm planning to release it soon. Would it be a bad idea to release this snake 100 miles from where it was caught?

Re-locating is a big no no and may be illegal depending which state you live in. There mutiple issues at hand. Lets say someone keeps exotics from Africa which have some nasty virus such as Ball Pythons. You decide to release your Ratsnake that has caught this nasty virus you are now responsible for killing many more snakes then helping just one. Second point is that an adult snake that is re located does not do well. There have been studys that some snaked will cruze and cruze looking for their original terratory. When you capture a wild animal it should be considered forever a captive. Sad but true so consider that next time you snap up a snake from under a board it is a different way of thinking but I have come to realize that as reality.
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"Life without risk is to merely exist."

Some biologists worry that if you have exposed a wild caught snake to captive snakes that you could transfer a reptile virus to the local population by re-release. Something like this has happened with desert tortoise captives. So be sure that isn't the case.

I worked with my state F&W head-starting local ratsnakes and these were re-released. The only precaution was to avoid exposure to my snake collection through a quarrantine protocol (basically maintaining sanitary procedures and separating cage location and the cleaning and food routines).

If you have not exposed the wild caught to any captive reptiles and if your state doesn't have any laws against release (I'm not sure about Texas)then it should be fine.

If your captive was from your own area, it's probably best to release it close to where you found it. That will give it the best chance of re-acclimating and thriving.

Regards
John

One of the snakes that actualy did poorly was in fact a rattlesnake. It was found that adult relocated Blacktailed rattlesnakes kept looking for their point of origin untill they died.
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"Life without risk is to merely exist."

hypothetical at least mostly. from what i gather on the virus of the released gopher tortoise it may of took decades to mingle with wild population and very MANY let go pets. There are theories that other situations was involved on the spreading of the virus as well. might of been a climatic event/s, some variety of food source helping the spread of the virus, etc. There has been some relocations of animals including herps with and without the legal ramifications that has not jeopardized wild species. there has even been relocations to establish wild and breeders colonies in certain areas of the country without all the quarantines, without parasitic checks, health checks,etc. may i remind everyone of the release of very many WDBs of these rattlesnake roundups. i would think that a study of conclusive evidence would suggest or support there is an alarming problem of released or re-released rattlesnakes would prove out as a problem. Do i support releasing captive, held over, or whatever ? no not really but on a scientific wise account.....i don't really see it either. One other point about virsus > the dog viruses of several years back > they don't really know how it all begain. There was actually asumptions that it came accross from Mexico and infected thousands of pet dogs in the USA. Yeah , right !
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I may be old , cantankerous, crabby, and cynical, but......