Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I didn't get much comment in the below post on what makes a locale for you folks. I guess we were all side tracked by the main question about the thayeri color, bloodlines etc.

So let me try a again, to you folks what is a legitimate locale specific animal. Animals that were originally collected within 50' of each other, 1 mile, same county, same canyon, same mountain range or just what are your parameters.

Sorry but these are some of the age old questions always kicked around by some of us and I enjoy the responses from others outside the normal group I talk to.

Or in other words Inquiring minds want to know. LOL

John Cherry
Cherryville Farms

PS Joe and the rest of you pose some of your regular questions we all struggle with, this could get quite interesting before it is over . LOL

Since "the only thing that can be pure is locality" I would say the closer the better. In the end though what needs to be demonstrated is that the animals come from the same population. To me geographic or ecological barriers would demonstrate this but good luck arriving at consensus there!

I know its your gig John but locality discussions here in the mexicana forum are a little useless. We just don't have that kind of information. Few people can even demonstrate that they don't have hybrids with 100% certainty. In any case much beyond the F2 or 3 captive-bred generation the breeder's snake room becomes the specific local.

It is my feeling with the Thayeri / Mex-mex / Greeri etc not being actively collected right now and injecting a steady (even if small) flow of "natural" genes into our captive breeding projects. Then this cat is not only out of the bag, but ran out into the road and got hit by a truck.... With current regulations if we tried to round up all the known locality lines and animals we would have a very small founding stock and be missing out on some of the natural diversity, plus the localities we know can be very broadly painted and not specific at all. To me most of the confiscated animals are not even up to par because the locality data is often suspect. What you know for a fact is where the animal was seized, not where the animal was collected.

I have to agree that what we are stuck with for the time being is being able to define them as a breeders line/stock instead of locality. Currently those of us that favor locality are just plain screwed.
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Herp Conservation Unlimited

When I was breeding alterna, I collected colonies of snakes from a small region, say within a mile or two. Within the colony I could make pairs from the same cut or up to a mile or two away from each other. But what was most important was documentation and true representation. Just keep track of what you have, where you got it, what you bred it to, and what they produced. Everything else will take care of itself.
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http://www.hcu-tx.org

John,

My answer to locality would be from a population constrained by ecological obstacles or barriers. Although in thayeri, this is currently pretty much impossible to determine.
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Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

I would agree that locality would be defined as being of the same breeding population. But, unless I am mistaken, I don't think anybody has done any definative studies on just how far snakes move in search of a mate in the wild. So, I guess I would say within a 25-50 mile radius? for lack of any determining data. But this is just my personal opinion. PS, I have to pause know and wipe the drool off the keyboard, awesome snakes John. Hopefully, I'll be contacting you later next spring with a huge order...............
Merry Christmas,
Jeff

As joe said for me the main thing is to keep good records of breeding crosses and all the other information you can get and believe on any group of snakes.

With most of the animals that we work with the approach is pretty simple. Get as large a group of as diverse as you can get that are representative of the animals you know from your experience or study to represent that specific locale of animals.

As far as what makes a locale to us it means a group of animals that are as closely collectted in the original animals as can be, with the deciding factor being that they must have the physical characteristics that make they diferent. For example Pandale Dirt alterna as versus Black Gap. Sometimes that will be a mountain range, sometimes a specfic mountain or canyon, sometimes it will be a county, sometimes it will be a specific road and other times it may be an entire state depending on the physical characteristics we are looking at.

That goes for Mexicana, pituophis or whatever it may be. To use the favorite dodge that the breeding group in the USA is very small and that they are all related in one way or another is a suppostition we don't use as in most cases they are ways around it if you try hard enough.

I have for instance a few of Dan's bloodlines and trust him completely, I also have several other breeders lines that I personally know or knew in the case of a couple that were involved back when the importations were brought in. And yes with thayeri I have a few animals that are from confiscations at the border(ie: The Laredo line we breed) and outright circumvention of the laws from people like Mickey Jacobs that used to bring in reptiles and red leg tarantulas back in the late 70's and early 80's. He was a competitor of mine back in the days of Gulf Coast Reptile & Animal Wholesale. Mickey while an outlaw supplied the hobby with a pretty good group of animals that few people ever talk about as they were not brought in with papers.

Just some thoughts, it does not make it right or even desirable but is just what we believe and try to do.

John Cherry
Cherryville Farms

"and outright circumvention of the laws from people like Mickey Jacobs that used to bring in reptiles and red leg tarantulas back in the late 70's and early 80's. He was a competitor of mine back in the days of Gulf Coast Reptile & Animal Wholesale. Mickey while an outlaw supplied the hobby with a pretty good group of animals that few people ever talk about as they were not brought in with papers."

Given the provissions of the Lacey Act things like that scare the hell out of me! If ever there was reason to keep good records, it would be so as to keep animals from these lineages OUT of ones collection.

Tony,

I agree...RECORDS, RECORDS, RECORDS...and then some more RECORDS! The good old "Wild & Wholly" days of way back when...

Later,
Jim
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CSRAJim

While I agree about the need for records and more records, the concern about the lacey act is not one you need to concern yourself with as long as you did not cause to be removed from the wild and/or facilitated the transportation, purchase or sale of those animals. F1, F2 or less are way past the statures reach and additionally the statue of limitations are way over on those incidents. If that was the case the owners of bearded dragon would be in serious trouble. And yes if your Thayeri came from breeders in the southwest and/or middle portion of the country that is the area that Mickey worked in mostly so it is very possible some of them were related to his.

It was very irritating when he was in full swing as I had legal export permits and he didn't. Such is the way things were back in the day if you will.

My feeling on the Lacey Act is that I would rather not poke that bear.. I heard that if you have offspring from animals that were illegal you could have them seized, and in some cases have to lawyer up. Now those were stories as I do not have any first hand accounts of Lacey Act being pursued on F1 and up animals, but it keeps me wary.

Lance
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Herp Conservation Unlimited

Yeah it wouldn't much matter if authorities had a case or not. Seazure equals good as dead animals and any incident would cause you to have to "lawyer up".

John,

Thank you very much...In addition to CITES & Lacey, animals with scant information make keeping track of other future breeding "items" difficult later on as well (i.e. "F" generation, bloodline, chain-of-custody, etc).

These days it's nice to know if at one time the "bloodline" went through someone (chain-of-custody) that works with "hybrids" that might result in embarassment later on...

Speaking of CITES & Lacey, what are the statute of limitations as they are currently adopted?

Also, you are saying that CITES & Lacey only applies to the WC animal in the first place and not to offspring here in the US from WC?

Later,
Jim.
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CSRAJim

"These days it's nice to know if at one time the "bloodline" went through someone (chain-of-custody) that works with "hybrids" that might result in embarassment later on... "

That is a Cherry-ism if I ever heard one. Its a shame that mentality has spread to here. It was bovine feces on the Pit forum and is here as well.

Not sure what you mean by Cherry-ism, but as far as bloodlines are concerned what else would you prefer to call them. In every type of animal that I have worked with, cattle, miniature horses, quarter horses etc. etc. the bloodlines are important to be able to predict eventual expectations of offspring.

Additionally as I am not a big fan of line or in-breeding for a number of reasons I want to know if animals are related to cut down on problems as we have all seen in some projects such as the leucistic Texas rat. There are easy ways to isolate and produce specific results besides breeding mother to son, father to daughter over a long period of time.

For instance in quarter horses you would not want to try and take a son of Go Man Go (a great Halter Horse) and try and do cutting on him, nor would you want to take a son of Doc O Lena ( a wonderful cutting horse)and make a halter horse out of him.

So using the word bloodline means to me, genetic make up that I am relativly sure of. Cuts down on surprizes and makes a true breeding program easier to work with from all angles.

Which is important long term to me.

John Cherry
Cherryville Farms

Man I forgot I posted that. Sorry! Not the most tactful all the time am I? Anyway, Jim’s post was quite reminiscent of your days on the pit forum spreading the gospel of not buying from those who also breed hybrids, hence my flippant “Cherry-ism” comment. I should have just reiterated what I’ve said before, that whether one works with hybrids or not is a lousy indicator of a breeder’s reputation or character or the genetic makeup of the stock he offers. John I fully support anyone’s right to deal (or not deal) with whomever they like but I’ll also exercise my right to call down ideas on public forums that I believe to be poorly formulated; fair or not this just happens to be one that I associate with you.

For me, it would be a defined, preferred habitat, one that a group would not be inclined to leave. They would enjoy plentiful prey, abundance of habitat, and mates to keep them in the habitat, be it micro or macro. In other words, if I find more than one female utilizing an area, or adults and subadults in the same area, I would consider them a locale. When I find roaming males, which I do often, they may have a larger territory or just "wandered off" the locale. I don't know if that makes sense to you John, but as a field herper, it does to me. I work some island habitats, they are locale, only during a hurricane event does any gene flow occur, so every 10-20 years it changes some. But if the animals stay in place, it is still a locale.
It could definitely be an outcrop on a particular mountain or hill, a mountain itself, or a range of mountains. It gets muddy when subs are overlapping sometimes. I work in the splendida/holbrooki overlap. I see some weird stuff out there, but they are probably not more different that they are more the same. Sometimes a locality may be easy to define and sometimes not. I think we just don't know all there is to know to say for sure, lol!
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Todd Hughes

Todd,

it makes perfect sense to me and I am impressed with your thought on the subject. I do not know if you are fimilar with the "Mosiac Kings" I was working with a few years ago that were from a very small island locale off the east coast. They were unlike anything I had ever seen. Dark bellies, wierd upper body pattern and very cool to me anyway. I sure wish I still had them. What area of the state are you working in?

Johnn Cherry
Cherryville Farms

John, I work 200 mile radius out of Corpus Christi, mostly the coast of Texas from Nueces county up to Calhoun county, but I get all the way up to Orange county on occasions, and down to Brownsville as well. I did see your mosaics, and thought them very interesting looking animals!
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Todd Hughes