Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Greetings everyone.I would like to respond to several threads written about the leucistic w. hognose from Colorado that were brought to my attention from a very good friend in the business.First of all I'd like you all to know that I'm the original founder of the worlds first leucistic w. hognose.On June 28th 2003, federal agents from the Division of Wildlife in Colorado raided my house in Firestone Colorado and seized 98 snakes.About 88 snakes were venomous and 10 snakes belonged to the ever so popular leucistic w. hognose group.Now the feds would love for everyone to believe that I collected a leucistic hognose in the state of Colorado illegally, but that is far from the truth.About 20 years ago I started looking for a very special mutation of western hognose by collecting gravid females, hatching out their eggs and waiting for something very unusual to hatch out.Needless to say I spent many years hatching out hognose and releasing those hatchlings(and their mothers for that matter).Fifteen years later I collected a very special female hognose snake.A few weeks after collecting her she laid five perfect eggs.About 45 days later( thats right hognose from Colorado hatch in 45 days), the eggs hatched and to my shocking surprise I had two leucistic and three normal looking babies. After several weeks of feeding and finally probing the hatchlings I learned that I had one leucistic male and four female siblings including a female leucistic.(The three normal looking babies turned out to be hets for leucistic).I was completely blown away!What I did was perfectly legal and of course I looked forward to offering the bloodline to the rest of the world since all the snakes were captive produced.By the way I released the mother before the eggs hatched so I'm sure there are a few hets crawling around the plains of Eastern Colorado.Over the next 2-3 years I would produce about 10 leucistic and many hets from this fabulous mutation.I offered the leucistics for sale at $10,000.00ea and hets for $5000.00ea. and had no problem selling them.These kinds of figures eventually got the attention of the feds and they decided, in their own devious ways, to put an end to it.Now everyone should know it is illegal to possess venomous snakes in the state of Colorado.When the feds finally raided my house they legally seized the venomous snakes but had no right taking the hognose group since the leucistic mutation does not and could not survive in the wild.Eastern Colorado has hundreds of birds of prey including red-tail hawks and kestrels.Western hognose peak activity is a couple hours after sunrise and a couple hours before sunset especially before dusk in the summer which also happens to be the hawks and kestrels peak activity.A solid white snake of any species would not survive long with those kinds of odds.Unfortunately when the feds raided my house they left me with nothing.I couldn't afford to hire a lawyer that knew anything about the case as far as the animals went and wasn't able to get MY hognose snakes back.I plead guilty to violating the Lacey Act which is basically interstate wildlife trafficking and spent 16 months in a federal prison.I'm now living in a state where it's legal to own venomous snakes and I'm now working with some of the more rare crotalids, green tree pythons and Womas.And for those of you wondering"are there anymore leucistic w. hognose out there?"Well all I can say to that is...Damn right there is!" Peace everyone and happy herping, Brook

I would love to see some in the trade!!! I'm sure an adult lucy looks awesome!!! Would the FBI want to seize it if one popped up in the trade?
-----
Louie

10K and 5k a piece and you couldn't afford a lawyer....those colorado mouth pieces must be REAL sxpensive!!!!!!!

what an amazing looking snake....and what a lost opportunity for you,and 'the hobby' as well.....but that being said-this doesn't add up;the way you tell that story-such an open and shut case you have-and you can't drum up the cash for a lawyer?what sort of explanation have you heard as to their apparently illegal seizure of your nonvenomous snakes?
-----
"with head raised regally,and gazing at me with lidless eyes,he seemed to question with flicks of his long forked tongue my right to trespass on his territory" Carl Kauffeld

yeah...that's what I'm saying. I remember reading some kid of legal document that said they also found drugs in the raid.
-----
Anthony Chodan

www.gradeareptiles.com

i was one of the courious that was looking into this.what are the feds going to do with them?are the ones still out there in captivity or the field?thats a shame what happend.thanks very much for clearing this up for us hog lovers!! thanks LEE

-----
ball pythons,pastel,het&PH albino,het&PH hypo,PH pieds,PH clown,and norms!!
borneo ST,black,& red blood pythons
garter snake morphs
bull snake morphs
w.hognose morphs
e. box turtles
1.1 super kids Memfis Lance and Linda May(co-dom)

I heard that at least one of them made its way to the Denver Zoo. I don't really know if this is true though.

I contacted the Denver Zoo last Sept. about this very thing and here is the response and picture they sent me:

"Denver Zoo received snakes from a confiscation two years ago which included a leucistic hognose snake. The attached photo shows the snake shortly after we received it. (Although has grown since the photo was taken.) That male snake became the property of the Denver Zoo as part of the legal dispositions by the court. Although the snake is not on public exhibit, we do still have that snake in our collection.

Thanks for your interest in the Zoo! "

-----
Jenea

2:3:1 Tricolor Hognose
2:2 Eastern Hognose
1:2 Western Hognose
1:2 Southern Hognose
0:0:3 Florida Redbelly Snakes
0:1 Gulf Coast Box Turtle
1:1 Red-eared Slider
2:0 Cats
1:1 Kids
1:0 Spouse

WOW , Absolutly a stunning animal...
-----
Thanks and best regards

Mark

If they intend to breed it? If so, maybe one day it will enter the collectors market once again.

OMG!!!!!!! I HAVE to have one of those. Absolutely stunning!
-----
2.1 Albino BP
0.4 100% Het Albino
2.1 100% het Caramel Albino BP
1.0 100% Het Clown
1.0 50% het clown
2.12 Normal BP
0.0.1 Western Hognose
alot of cornsnakes
0.1.0 Dumeril Boa
3.6 Bearded Dragons
1.0.1 Sulcatta tortoise
2.0 Russian Tortoise
1.0 Cockatiel
0.1 Rottweiler
0.2 Boston Terriers
0.1 White Boxer
0.1 Paint Mare
bunch of geckos
0.1 Teenage daughter
1.0 Husband who puts up with all my critters.

Check this out... Scroll to the bottom of the page and look under future breeding projects...
http://www.kingsnake.com/bhb/shoptalk.html

That's just because there site is supposed to be down (it is down, but still pulls up pages with google and such). It was never updated.

Yeah, it might be down but doesn't the fact that they have it listed as a project indicate they have or have had something backing that indication at one point?

Yes, they did have them at one point. They were one of the people who originally purchased them from NVENOM8. They have since been confiscated like the rest of them.