Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I was watching the food network and they were talking about the ten most unusual foods. There was a restaurant on the list called The big texan, the chef said that they purchase over 4,000 snakes a year! Could this be true or was that an exaggerated estimate? What affects would that have on wild populations? wouldn't it decimate entire populations if they bought that many snakes a year? I would like to hear everyone else's opinions on this. it just seems to me that if that number was correct, and if you added the numbers going into the pet trade, that the wild populations couldn't possibly make up for the drastic harvest. Just thought I would ask what people thought of that.
Kevin

;0)

It can have devastating effects on the wild populations. I believe these animals come from the Rattlesnake Roundups/Rodeos. I don't think that the number of Rattlesnakes being taken from the wild for the pet trade is really all that significant. Most of those animals are captured during "road-cruising", or in the field a relatively short distance from the roads. So, you are only depleting a percentage of the population within easy walking distance of the roads, and there's really not that many taken anyway. The population can easily support that collecting. The Rattlesnake Roundups, however, are a completely different story. Those guys frequently raid den sites for the animals in the west, and gas gopher tortoise burrows in the east for Eastern Diamondbacks. The Eastern Diamondback population is probably 10% of what it was 30 years ago. Also, when they gas the Gopher Tortoise burrows, they affect everything else that uses the burrow too, including Eastern Indigos, the Gopher Tortoise itself and others. These events are something that HAS to be stopped. The problem is that they have the political support because the events bring much needed money into these rural communities.

right before they showed the restaurant, they showed the sweetwater roundup. Is using gas still legal? If not, that is simply amazing, here you can get a ticket if you let antifreeze spill on the pavement, seems that dumping straight gas into the ground would be the ultimate in pollution. My other question is, if gassing is illegal, can't they tell by the smell of the animals that gas was used? gas seems like something that would be very easily identified considering the animals would have the distinct odor which does not come off very easily. I have worked on cars and the smell of gas won't come off for a couple days even with extreme washing.
Kevin

Using gasoline to drive animals out of their burrows is strictly against the rule of law, if you abide by EPA regulations. Most of the folks don't care... it's all a joke to them. Catching the snakes is the important thing. They justify their environmentally destructive practices by insisting they are performing a public service.... removing those nasty rattlesnakes.

The technique goes something like this: They take a garden hose, or similar hose and put a teaspoon or so of raw gasoline in the hose. insert the hose into the burrow and "blow" the fumes into the burrow by placing their mouth on the hose... it doesn't put *that* much gas into the burrow that the snakes smell like gasoline for a long time, but it can make the burrow uninhabitable for the tortoise that created the opening in the earth in the first place. I have also hear it rumored that the tortoises will not evacuate the burrow, even in the presense of all that noxious fumes...and have been reported to end up dying as a result... I do not have factual evidence to support the tortoise dying in the burrow anecdote.... just something an old timer told me.

It is pretty awful to consider the environmental impact of removing as many snakes from an area as roundups can in a year's time. It is pretty significant if the use of gasoline actually kills gopher and or other species of endangered tortoises and Indigos.... I've never been able to get my brain around the rattlesnake roundup mentality, nor the indiscriminant killing of any species (even homo sapiens, like in many examples of genocide over the history of the world) just for the sake of the killing.

If you ask the participants, I'm sure they'll tell you that they're just doing the public good... afterall, what if it was your little boy or girl that got bit by one of them snakes??? or if your livestock were in jeopardy of getting bit??? Frankly, I live in an area where it is more the rule than the exception to find venomous snakes, and we don't round them up, sell them, or kill them.... my kids all know what the local species look like, as well as many exotics. They know not to fool around with a snake anymore than they would take a gun and mess with it.... Why is it that these people can't educate their young people not to play with animals that can kill instead of trying to wipe them off the face of the earth as an excuse to get together to drink a few beers?????
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"Seek first to understand, then to be understood"

You've probably stirred up a hornet's nest by bringing up the roundups, and in particular the illegal method of gassing.

I'm going to stay away from all that, and say that it is indeed likely that the restaurant buys thousands of rattlesnakes each year to serve up. (That particular restaurant, I think, is the same one that offers a free 72-oz steak dinner to anyone who can eat the whole thing at one sitting. I believe it's in or near Amarillo.)
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MichaelB

sfd

Gassing polyphemus burrows is definitely against the law in Florida. There are, BTW, two critters who live in the burrows & nowhere else on earth...the gopher frog & the gopher cricket.

~~Greg~~

It is against the law to gas Gopher Tortoise burrows in every state where Gopher Tortoises are found. The infractions are simply overlooked.

The feds will overlook infractions like that, but if you do a venomous show and don't put zip ties on your delicups, you are in big trouble! Simply amazing.
Kevin

Well, the Feds actually don't have anything to do with the Rattlesnake Roundups, because the snake aren't protected in the states where these debacles occur. Even if they were, the Feds wouldn't get involved unless they were illegally transported across state lines for commercial purposes, which would be a violation of the Lacey Act.

It's the state agencies that turn a blind eye to illegally gassing the burrows. The Gopher Tortoise, to my knowledge, has never been listed on the ESA appendixes because it is protected by state laws throughout it's range, which gives it automatic protection from interstate commerce.