Reptile & Amphibian Forums

IMO it does not make a bit of difference to TPWD what you are looking for herps for. The intent is to keep us off the roads and ROW. We should be united in this effort. The issue is collecting on the roads.

I do have my ideas about commercial vs. hobby/breeder collecting. One cannot say they are not commercial if they have sold or intend on selling offspring of any wild caught animal. If you sell, you are commercial. If you buy from a breeder you are supporting commercial trafficing of the animals. Those of you on your high horse who spout to be totally against those that sell an animal ought to relook at their own ways.

Speaking for myself, I can remember when I was all gung-ho out there catching alterna with the intention of turning myself into the number one breeder and making a fortune selling the offspring. At the time I did not think of it being commercial. It was fairly easy to rationalize that I was a breeder. BUT, think about it. No matter what, the animal is still out of the wild and technically considered to be a dead animal by most biologist, at least dead to the wild population. If it were not for people like myself and lots of others, there would not ever have been a base population for "breeders" to breed.

I am really curious how many of you out there are truely innocent of not selling, buying, or exploitation of reptiles in one form or another. Is anyone out there innocent?????

I submit to you all, put aside your differences about this issue and UNITE. A more united front has many advantages, number one being numbers.

ECT

By the way, I may be "old" but I do not take any medications and anyone who knows me personally would never say that to my face. So be nice out there, one never knows when one might run into each other. I sure hate embarassing moments, don't you.

I would have to agree 100%. Suprise, suprise, right? After my posts of yesterday I was considering broaching the same line of thought as ECT today. I think we do need to ALL band together. I know that many folks on these forums buy and sell wild caught animals but they never speak up when I am getting BBQed by the holyer than thous. And almost all of us sell captive born animals. The bottom line is that we are all guilty at some point in some way. We do not want the door shut on commercial activity. We may want to regulate it so that the greedy and ruthless folks are held in check and TPWD, academia and AR folks have some assurances that over-collecting is not occuring. I think that this type of agenda with a unified approach is the answer. Let the BBQing begin!

Mike Welker
El Paso, TX

Sorry, I can't agree. A person who collects a couple of kingsnakes and takes them home to breed and sell the captive born offspring is IN NO WAY equivalent to the person who goes out dozens of times, collects many more kings, and sells them directly to the pet industry or other out-of-state buyers. This collector will then go on to do that year after year, while the aforementioned hobbyist sits home with his original pair or trio and continues breeding and selling or trading the babies.

The difference in impact on wild populations is orders of magnitude. In the first case, two or three animals are "dead" to the population-in the second, it may be scores of individuals.

As I said before, I dont believe that in most cases commercial collecting has a pronounced detrimental effect on herps in west Texas. Mike, if I did, I wouldn't have ever dealt with you in the first place. But that doesn't mean hobbyists and commercial collectors are in any way equivalent. If this opinion puts me on a "high horse", then my apologies.

Brad Chambers

The phrase "commercial collector" implies that a person can go out to an area, collect enough animals to sell and actually show a profit after taking into account one's expenses.

With the cost of a hotel, gasoline, food, supplies, wear and tear on one's car, and most of all the time involved in the pursuit, I would be shocked if there are very many people who could actually turn a profit by collecting animals in the Bend. I figure that I would be lucky to turn $5.00 an hour if I put everything I had into it and frankly, I can make a lot more money doing far easier things than chasing elusive snakes across the desert.

A person who goes out and collects a few animals to use in a breeding project is a "hobbyist", not a "commercial collector" as far as I am concerned.

I think that a commercial collector that lives close or in west Texas can collect plenty of animals to turn a profit, if that is what one does. After all, how does one get good at their job? If they are good enough, they are amongst the best (or worst)! There are many species that are attractive to people who will never make the trip for themselves, many who do not leave their apartments in the city, and with the internet and overnight shipping, voila! That is why we need sound laws not broad sweeping stuff that denies us all of our heritage and rights. Every herper does need to unite, but we must have voices of reason and do this thing by the book if we want it in the book!
Todd Hughes
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Todd Hughes

Brad,

Hobbyists do not sit at home with two snakes and breed them. C'mon man that is ridiculous. The gray-band collector/hobbyist goes out and catches every gray-band they can find and they make several trips a year to do this. Further, many gray-band hunters move to TX so they can go more than a couple times a year.

But I understand your point that a commercial fellow may take more species and thus more total animals from the wild. But there is no way that 1) a commercial collector can make enough money from road collecting to make a living (meaning he can't capture enough herps using that method) 2) any collector can harm a population from road collection.

All of the top commercial guys in Texas use drift fences and bucket traps to collect large quantities of animals. They also buy a lot of animals from locals for dirt cheap.

You have to have a very successful collection method to harvest large amounts of animals. Look at the anole collectors in FL. They go out with lights at night and scour neighborhoods and catch a butt load of anoles. All of these commercial guys sell their catch for cheap, cheap. I think the anole guys get $0.50 a lizard.

The point was that "commercial" means the selling of ONE animal whether wild caught or captive born. There are very few folks that just "give" animals away. And we are ALL involved in one way or another with that. A collector/hobbyists may take less total animals but they are still taking animals and most sell offspring. The collector/hobbyist/commercial guy that selectively takes certain species from the road and sells them is not causing any harm. It is the high impact commercial collectors that take everything they find, set up traps and buy from a network of locals that COULD be causing damage to populations.

It is all relative. We have to look at this on a case by case basis. You have to look at the species natural history, collection method, number of harvesters, access to habitat and numbers harvested to make a judgement call as to impact of collection. In most cases the impact is negligible. The only concern I have with commercial collection is the high impact guys that employ the techniques I outlined that may cause some damage.

Of course ALL collection is definitely negligible when compared to road mortality, development and human population growth. The captive population is a "safety net" against those impacts. But you have to have a captive population and most species are not bred in captivity or even kept in captivity. So you need to leave the door open for this to take place. And as much as we hate to admit it, money is a part of this.

Take Care,

Mike Welker
El Paso, TX

Mike (and others),

I'm just curious here and not recommending any particular ban and not speaking for anyone but myself.

How would you feel about a ban on the use of traps for collecting herps? Obviously, we would have to exclude tongs (which some regulations define as traps) and make some exceptions for research projects.

Are there other high impact collecting methods that could/should be banned?

You're comment about high impact commercial collection methods versus small scale commercial field herping has me wondering if banning certain practices wouldn't make more sense than banning certain market practices.

Personally, I still prefer a ban on selling all wild caught (with certain exceptions that I've outlined previously), but I recognize that many herpers are understandably reluctant to endorse such a ban.

Eby,

I believe you might be on to something. I know that I could never road and even hand field collect enough herps to make a living in west TX. I actually tried it just for the summer in 97 and it doesn't work. The turtle harvesters have methods they use to systematically clear out entire drainages or so I have been told. I am not sure if they used just crab traps or traps and snorkeling to catch them. We might want to look into this as an option.

We also have to look at the ways ruthless harvesters may try and get around things because you know TPWD will and we all support a conservation minded answer. When we come up with what we believe to be the "perfect" answer we need to be sure to close any over-exploitation loop holes.

Mike Welker
El Paso, TX

Has anyone ever completed an assessment of the various high impact collection methods and their effect on population densities?

MAYBE a suggestion of bag limits (for capture, NOT possession) AND bans on certain high impact activities would work for the folks in Austin. It certainly seems easier to enforce (I think) than trying to guess the intent of a collector with a snake in his hand.

I could go for that. You could probably use almost any type of drift fence study done by academia combined with the harvest data that Matt Wagner has combined with some of the criteria I outlined for setting bag limits to come up with a real good conservation minded harvest limit on most species.

Mike Welker
El Paso, TX

I just sent you an email through the forum link, let me know if you get it.

I got it and I will respond shortly. I am going to get ice cream!

Mike Welker
El Paso, TX

You are wrong, Mike, we do not all take every alterna we see! HA! I have seen four and didn't take one! A choice snake is a choice snake, no matter what species. I would rather have quality than quantity any day. I collect for my breeding stock and don't collect all I see. I would have too many, lol! I have been offered snakes for free many times in the field, so people do give them away. I do not consider myself commercial, as I haven't bred any yet to have offspring to sell, but I still collect, kind of like a bag limit. I have always had a non game permit to allow for the off chance that some day I would be in the field and find 25 animals in the aggregate that I would keep, conditions would have to be astounding, but it happens. I am legal in harvesting my take year after year with the license and permit, but never fill my quota. Not everyone fits into the neat little stereotype do they? I thought you wanted to be taken seriously, or are you going to sling mud at other herpers and label them, as you don't want to be labeled?
Todd Hughes

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Todd Hughes

Todd,

No, I stand corrected. But you wouldn't say that a majority do? In my 17 years of herping west TX I have never heard of anyone that keeps gray-bands NOT collecting a gray-band they found.

Aren't they all awesome looking? I know some are better looking than others.

Mike Welker
El Paso, TX

Lets talk numbers: Up to this point in 2007, I've seen, in the wild while road cruising and field herping, about 120 snakes. Of those, I've added the following to my personal collection: 1 splendida, 2 bulls, 1 mexican hognose,2.2 emoryi, 2.2 subocs (only because I'm working on a couple of locality breeding groups), and 1 annulata. I really only have a few more locality animals needed to fill out my breeding groups-then I'm done for the forseeable future.

Now, if I had been a commercial collector, I would have some very simple math to do-120 animals found minus 0 animals released =120 animals collected and sold. And I would be nowhere near finished. I'd keep at it, month after month, year after year.

To me, that's too big a difference to gloss over. Further, I believe that if we hobbyist herpers allow ourselves to be lumped in with the second guy above, we'll be quite literally sunk right along with him.

And on the issue of alterna-you have to come out to the Trans Pecos multiple times to have a realistic hope of catching even a single animal. I have a small group of alterna, but only one was collected myself-all the rest are captive bred locality animals.. I doubt anyone would be foolish enough to seriously try to amass a decent breeding colony soley through their own collection efforts (unless of course they have unlimited funds and many years to devote to the project)!

Brad Chambers

I agree with you to a point as well. Do you consider me a commercial collector? I sell wild caughts but I do so selectively and with restraint. Out of the total number of animals I have found this year I have collected a small portion of those. Out of those that I did collect only a small portion have been sold. I have also collected a large number of DORs for the UTEP museum.

I understand your point. You are minimizing and I as well above . We are talking numbers here and I believe these numbers are to low to be concerned with. You most defintely will end up collecting way less than me and there are those that collect way more than me. Where do you draw the line? You draw the line at negative impact and I don't believe that you or me or most people on this forum are crossing that line.

Mike Welker
El Paso, TX

"Further, I believe that if we hobbyist herpers allow ourselves to be lumped in with the second guy above, we'll be quite literally sunk right along with him."

Well said, that's perhaps the most important point of all.

I would never say that commercial collecting is inherently wrong. Herps are certainly a renewable resource, just like fish and even the timber that TPWD just gained the power to harvest from parkland. But to say a commercial collecter is the same as a commercial breeder because they both may make a profit is only correct in the loosest verbal sense. In terms of impact to populations they are very different. A commercial collecter needs much more take in order to turn a profit and remain viable than a commercial breeder does. A commercial breeder can take just two pairs and be set for well over 20 years before needing to add another wild caught specimen.
But yes I do think bag limits are the best, fairest solution and road and ROW collecting in the mostly roadless counties of west TX could not possibly present a danger to the sustainability of any species out there. Unfortunately for commercial collecters I think most hobbyists would be happy with bag limits of 4-10 snakes, 2-4 turtles and 10-25 lizards on a per species per year basis and that doesn't make for viable commercial collecting.

Aaron, Verry well said, I could live with bag limits if that is what it is going to take to get us back on the road again. Clark

Aaron,

I agree if those bag limits were per species and all non-protected species were harvestable ( no "White List" ). But read my second post, you have to take into account several factors to set bag limits. Many species don't need any bag limits because there are natural bag limits or they are so common that collection does nil to the population.

I do a combo deal. I sell some stuff but I also keep and breed. I believe that pet trade species should be all captive born since there is such a high demand (this is opposite to the "White List" which is why it is so wrong). But I also believe that all species should be able to be harvested and kept by qualified people. I charge a lot for my animals because I believe the price of wild caughts should reflect the actual time and money it takes to get them. This eliminates the impulse buy and the dealers. I provide locality data, usually a GPS point, and I usually only collect a wild caught if I have an order for them. I don't catch stuff and hold it and see if I can sell it. Most dealers do this. I operate an acquisition service, really.

The bottom line with all this is that we can come together with a majority consensus that makes just about everybody happy and is fair and reasonable. The big problem will be to convince TPWD to do their job and follow their mandates!

This may cost us more finacially because the big excuse from TPWD is under funding. I would be willing to pay for additional permits to conduct my business and I would be willing to keep accurate records for better monitoring. There is a fair, conservation minded way to get this done and I think most of us are willing to pay our fair share.

Mike Welker
El Paso, TX

You'll not find many other commercial collectors willing to conduct business like this...

Brad Chambers

Yes, that is why we need some regulations like bag limits and/or restricted collecting methods to prevent over-harvest while still keeping the door open for reasonable conservation minded take limits and commerce.

Great discussions, guys! I am going out to get some ice cream but I will be happy to respond when I get back and I am willing to work on a workable solution that we all can live with and will help conserve the herps.

Take Care,

Mike Welker
El Paso, TX

>>>I am willing to work on a workable solution that we all can live with and will help conserve the herps.

I'd be very interested to see your proposals and rationale.

It COULD be that dealing with methods and numbers is more practical and effective than trying to deal with the "intent" of the hunter.

In a perfect world, I'm for a a commercial collection ban, but that might create an enforcement nightmare.

is that we're dealing with a public perception problem. Whether it hurts herp populations or not (and the truth is TPW has no data to confirm or deny this for any herps other than aquatic turtles), the public and our wildlife professionals mostly find the idea of commercialization of wildlife repugnant. We will have to address this, or fail.

Too bad they don't feel the same about trees and fish.

Brad Chambers