Reptile & Amphibian Forums

hey dean, i've been reading that ohio is now making you ohioans[?] pit tag any captive snakes that measure 18'' from snout to vent? is that true? what's the deal?.....dannio

It's only for native OH herps (black rats / E. milks etc)...but it's a problem. I used to have natives to use for educational programs but turned them all loose after this went into effect.

There's a group trying to get this overturned.

What the heck is that. Does it harm the animal? Either way it sounds dumb so i'll wait around for a response.

evan

I don't think the gov't folks realize how dangerous it can be to small animals, I've heard a lot of horror stores recently.

It's just another one of those thinhs to make it too expensive and too much of a hassle to be worth it.

I fully suppot DNR's quest to keep people from harvesting our herps for profit...but I don't think they are going about it the right way.

This is similar to microchipping dogs and cats, right?

But it can be very invasive to a small animal like a colubrid.

I can well imagine it would. It sounds ridiculous to me.

Not only is it invasive but in every case I have personally dealt with it has been deadly. Avid requests that the pit tag be lodged STRAIGHT into the body cavity not between the skin and the ribs as ODNR says. This I found out when Terry Wilkins called Avid with a complaint about pit tags. I was in a study with Doug Wynn with Thamnophis radix radix, Crotalus horidus horridus, and Sistrurus catenatus catenatus and out of every animal our group collected NONE contained pit tags. So statistically what does this say? Either the population is growing at an outstanding rate or they are dropping like flies. Ask Wynn if his head counts are increasing.

Yeah thats gayer than elton john. And that shouldnt be allowed. A snake 18" long cant handle something like that. And the fact that it is fatal should be another reason to stop. That should not be happening. My 2c.

Evan

It seems to me that a good lawyer would spend all of 20 minutes getting an injunction against this.

I worked as a vet tech several years ago and I put in a lot of Avid chips in dogs. Of course, dogs have a lot of loose skin to lift and inject the chip under the skin. The chips I put in were placed over the scapula. I would be clueless on how to safely do this with a colubrid.
Hey Dean, you remember Van (the guy that took us roadcruising in Brevard County)? He's been putting in pit tags and tracking black rats and eastern kings for school in NC . I'll tell him about this thread so he can share his thoughts on the process.
Chris

A good lawyer and a little bit of time to be exact. That brings me to another portion of why I am posting. I am involved with a newly formed Lobby group called National Herpetological Lobby or NHL, basically we are taking on issues that really require attention, and as far as the pit tag situation goes we are currently (I think as of two days ago) at legal battle with ODNR. NHL not only addresses this problem but many others in which we plan to change whether it is local or national. If you want more info on the newly formed NHL just drop me an E-mail at alxclay@msn.com

Thank you

I'll email you.

Terry mentioned this at the NOAH meeting Wed night.
I'd like to get the GCHS involved.

Yes, the PIT tags are tiny chips that are read with a handheld scanner from a few inches away from the animal to positively identify them. They are essentially injected into the animal with a glorified syringe just under the skin. I use them on mammals as small as 15 grams, and my officemate uses them to mark entire populations of endangered small frogs, probably down to 10-15 grams. Ive never encountered any problems out of thousands of marked animals, and to my knowledge, he hasnt either. Im curious how the authorities are using (abusing) them that they are killing animals, it sounds like they dont know what they are doing. But the bigger question is what are they doing it for? If its supposed to keep people from collecting wild herps, whats to keep someone from just PIT tagging that animal? Or is it supposed to be like registering your car with DMV so they can keep track of which animal is owned by who?

Working in research they pit tag some fish,fowl,& herps here. The tracker is only about the size of a pen tip. it is placed under the skin under a anal area scale usually(at least were I work). Trust me the snake could swallow it inside of a mouse & it would pass w/o damage to the snake. There is always some ,though slight, risk of infection since it is a foreign object but so are body pierceings. Unless it is a sensitive snake it shouldn't be to much phased by the actual tag however the restraining will be uncomfortable. I'm from philly & I hope that doesn't cross over to us. Fish & Wildlife already is on a rage w/ chelions(turtles) for sale at shows.

Currently we are going to court with ODNR because ODNR requires all native reptiles (In the case of turtles, over 4 inches in carapace length, and snakes must also be over 18 inches)to be implanted with a pit tag. If there was a safe way of doing this I certainly would be very cooperative. Avid suggests placing the pit tag in turtles in front of the hind leg but on between the carapace and plastron (The same area that the ovaries are located). In snakes Avid did not suggest between the skin and the ribs but straight into the body cavity at the mid section of the snake. Both methods have not been tested and to all of my knowledge and research makes both die. If you have data that suggests otherwise please send it to me as I would love to see it and possibly help me understand how to correctly insert these tags. But as of now, I currently have absolutely no reason to kill of anymore native animals.

"straight into the body cavity" implies that you're supposed to just shove a syringe straight on in and inject the tag wherever. ALL PIT tags should be injected into the body cavity but you do it from an angle and its very straightforward and safe for the snake. Basically you inject about 2/3 of the way down the snake's body between the belly scales (toward the head). Once you get the needle past the interstitial skin between the scales, its in the body cavity and you just press the plunger. As I said in my post above, if done right there will be no blood or bodily fluids at all. The needle should be parallel to the body, not angled in at all. Also, the needle should only have to go in about a 1/3 of an inch, if that much. Please please don't just read what I just wrote and try it- have a professional teach you in person and then practice on DORs (dry syringe) until you feel comfortable doing it.

Van

I think that perhaps Avid is giving out bad information if they are suggesting to inject it IP, but I do not PIT tag snakes, so I dont know for sure. In both rodents and frogs, PIT tags are inserted SC and no deeper. Having someone other than an experienced vet inject a PIT tag IP seems like it is asking for problems. But if you know what you are doing, even that ought to work out. I know that some of my herpetologist friends do major surgeries to insert radiotransmitters routinely, and snakes are very resilient to that, so having something only a tiny fraction that size into the peritoneal cavity shouldnt pose a problem. Getting it there without puncturing major organs is another issue, that I am not experienced with. Based on my experience, Id place PIT tags SC, but I dont know if there are reasons not to do so in snakes.

a bunch of albino blackrats were illegally seized by ohio f&w. i guess they need transponders to properly differentiate between vivid shades of pink/orange/blotched vs jet black huh? maybe one or two of them oughta try reading an article or two. w/ pictures!

Someone had a t-shirt made up with an ODNR badge and logo on the front...

and the back read:

"ODNR, saving Ohio from mutant black rats snakes"