Reptile & Amphibian Forums

After reading John Cherry's thoughts on a thread I got to pondering, why dont we form a program something like AKC does for dogs. We could set up a nation wide club that chronicles snakes into groups such as locality, morph, itergrades, etc. people could submit photos, locality maps, etc for proof and we could use the fees raised for things like grants, conservaton, and lobbying for our cause. This way a person could trace the snakes linege by its regisration numbers.

I know we have herpers who say "Trumbower" line or "Stillwater" and some are questionable but if we had a number system??? Also we would need a review panel consisting of morph and local people to review the applicants.

As Charter Officers I would pick John Cherry as President for his integrity, Daryl Camby V.P. since he is the probed one, and KJ for locality Secretary (anyone who has dated his sister as long as KJ understnds local purity)LMAO!!!!...

Just a thought, anyone else ????

Later-Del

Del,

Your idea is a good one, but in the past ( Boy do I hate always referring to ancient history ) at least two other people have tried what you are proposing.

Herpers have always tended to be somewhat apathetic when it comes to being proactive. I for one would be more than glad to help in any way I can ( money, time etc ), but doubt that we could really get everyone to buy into the deal.

A perfect example of the problems you would encounter is the NRRAC situation, Jeff Barringer tried to orchestrate several years ago to help try and influence new herp laws etc. It never really got off the ground well, $ 20,000 plus was spent ( 8,500.00 of mine ) and countless number of hours were spent working on it. Procrastination, petty bickering and " it can't happen to me" caused its eventual demise. Now we are seeing a rash of new restrictive laws that affect all of us in this hobby.

As far as being President, "AIN'T NO WAY DUDE". Been there, done that and have the T-Shirt saying so. I will though be glad to help if you can get this thing off the ground, just let me know what you need.

John Cherry
Cherryville Farms

I got into the forums just about the time that organization was dying out. I completely understand what you mean, I am the current president of our local Fraternal Order of Eagles and we have over 800 members yet only 50 to 100 will get involved in the nuts and bolts of the operation. One thing that makes the AKC and NRA so succesfull is that the people paying dues and fees dont run the operation. Their money goes to payroll for the ones who do the lobbying, regisration, etc. You have a board that donates time to over see them.

More ramblings - Del

John's right. This has been tried at least twice in the kingsnake.com community alone, not counting the "alterna approved breeders list." The most recent time was a STRONG attempt with the originator using lots of his own money to send out certificates and everything.

The main problem is that it still came down to trusting the breeder. Someone registered it according to what they said it was! Nobody exists to determine if that is a "pure" animal or not - just that he says it is. If you DO have a "committee to say if it is pure or not, people will either believe them or not. The more strict that committee is, the less people would like them. The better the program would be, though!

The alterna approved list is the best example I've ever seen, BUT it still isn't perfect. It used to be MUCH better when this community was smaller. It still comes down to trusting the breeder, though.

KJ

I think it is a great idea,especially for Pits. I would probably have to get myself some new ones just to participate in such a historic event . I think many people would want to participate in something like this. Tom

I would be supportive of this effort and think it would be worth the hurdles one would encounter.

Jud