Reptile & Amphibian Forums

The laws in Va. prevent me from legally breeding my trio of eastern hogs.In fact you can only posess 5 at a time (legally).All this does is make me appreciate my southerns even more.I'm also, getting a pr. of mexicans.The law makes absolutly no sense because,the local "yahoos" kill them every day,calling them moccasins or spreading adders!

nice hogs.....state laws are sometimes put in as an attempt to control laundering of wild life under the umbrella of "captive bred"....we all know that this a problem in herp sales....all those adult spotted turtles for sale in the spring, are they all legally harvested???...please....,the term captive bred indicates that these animals for sale are a result of years of hard work by the breeder...not a trip to jersey or maryland or north carolina...and then attempt to pay your expenses with some unfortunate animal that you trapped....when concerned people in positions of power are alerted to this abuse, they lobby for these non-game laws which in some cases seem extreme(pa for example) or hypocritical(texas laws that allow rattler round-ups but not road cruising)....unless there is a management program in place it isn't known what harm is being done by uncontrolled collecting....WELL...... THERE USED TO BE A LOT OF SNAKES HERE......ITS PROBABLY A RESULT OF..... GLOBAL WARMING...yeh...THAT"S IT

It gets worse, they changed the law so that instead of protecting the native Black Rat Snake, they are also protecting non-native Yellow, and Everglades Rat Snakes by changing to the new classification system that lumps all eastern Rat Snakes together. It does look like you can get a permit to breed them with few problems. I have the feeling that they figure that if you take the time to get the permit, you aren't out there cheating.

Now if they will just start fining people for killing native snake, Virginia will be taking a step in the right direction.

Agreed!! Jeff