Reptile & Amphibian Forums

All,

I have just completed a discussion with my friend, Eric Dearing, that studies and breeds box turtles and we have come up with some real good, conservation minded herp regulations that allow some commercial take under highly regulated circumstances. Further, we have identified funding sources (us) so TPWD can fund enforcement. I will present our ideas for feedback on this forum.

After you get done with your letters to the Govenor I would appreciate it if those of you with the knowledge could give me your ideas in regards to bag limits for each species of herp in Texas. Please justify your bag limit amount with a sentence or two. Some species may not need bag limits due to the fact that they are so hard to collect (for many reasons) and you can indicate that and your justification.

I know some of you may be against commercail collection and that is fine. I don't need to hear about that.

You should think about bag limits as total take on a species per year for any purpose. This of course means that we need to know the total number of collectors. A conservative estimate would be 200 individuals (I need to get more data on this). Also remember that many individuals only catch certain species. I will be contacting Matt Wagner at TPWD to get his data for the last 10 years.

You can send your bag limit suggestions to me at my email address listed below. Thanks for your help.

Mike Welker
El Paso, TX
OHI2007@elp.rr.com

Mike-

Due to extreme paucity of population and other data for most herps, I believe bag should be conservative. "First, do no harm" should be our watchword. Herps with restricted ranges, low fecundity, spotty distribution, relict species, and strongly ecologically K-selected species should have lowest or (rarely) a zero bag limit. Note that I do not include in that list herps that are merely "fossorial" or "highly elusive and secretive".

Conversely, bag limits would be pointless for widely distributed, prolific species with relatively little demand.

While I strongly believe that herps should be regulated more like fish than like mammals, no reptile is as fecund as your average fish species. So bag limits cannot be nearly as generous. For example,one might consider the checkered garter snake as a kind of reptilian "panfish", but rather than set the bag at 50 per day, as in some panfish species, we could perhaps set it at 50 per year per license holder..... Similarly, for a larger,more sparsely distributed, slower reproducing species, we might apply a "bass" type bag limit-maybe 6 per year. Examples might be rock rattlesnakes, Trans-Pecos copperheads, or alterna....

Just some ideas.

Brad Chambers

Brad,

Thank you for responding. I will copy and paste your response and keep it with the others as soon as I get others..hint..hint.

Mike Welker
El Paso, TX

>>>I would appreciate it if those of you with the knowledge could give me your ideas in regards to bag limits for each species of herp in Texas.

Well, I don't have any particular "knowledge", but...

I think collection data should be required on ALL herps removed from the wild.

I'd like to see bag limits on everything, even if for no other reason than to force the submission of collection data.

IMO the west Texas snake most susceptible to over collection is the Trans-Pecos Copperhead. I can’t imagine the overall population being harmed. However, remnant populations in specific locales could be harmed. I’d recommend a low bag limit.

Thanks Daryl. I didn't mean anything derogatory by using that statement.

Mike Welker
El Paso, TX

I absolutely agree about copperheads. They definitely have isolated populations that can and have been over-collected in the past. A bag limit of 3 or 4 per year might be appropriate and I would support the TPW in prohibiting collection in certain localities that can be overcollected in the field. An example is Stonehouse Canyon west of Lajitas. It used to be possible to go there and find multiple copperheads almost any summer day. It only took the word getting out to change that.

Other species bag limits: I don't think any of us needs to pick up more than 6 of any snake species in a year. I simply to do not see a reason for non-commercial collectors to pick up more than that. It encourages repeat year trips if the limit is set in this neighborhood, which is good for the Texas economy. I do not believe there are any snake species in danger in West Texas given the enormous amount of unhuntable public and private land. The reality here is that it would be impossible to overcollect any species except in the rare case of riparian animals like copperheads as noted above for specific localities. For lizards, I would not put a limit on anything other than alligator lizards and retic geckos and 6 would do it for them.

I also support requiring collection data for any animal actually removed from the wild, plus, if not already a regulation, a rule that any animals picked up for photos must be released in the same location.

--Henry W.