Well said Joe & it is easy to save receipts for gas, food, lodging, supplies, turnpike tolls, etc.., I have done this for years & can supply such data myself.
A few days ago while I was in Sanderson, I had the pleasure of meeting one of the Terrell county Commissioners, Mr. Ken Norris, who is the commissioner for my district of Terrell county. I was cutting a large tree on a property that I had purchased last year & gave Mr. Norris all the firewood that we had made from its removal. He came by my home in Sanderson, where we sat for an hour or more on the front porch and I explained my history of snake hunting/keeping and admiration for the desert there. He thought gray bands only occurred in like 3 counties (Val Verde, Terrell & Pecos) & I educated him on the fact of their range from Edwards in the East to El Paso county in the West & that they had a larger range than realized from years ago. When I told him I had found close to 90 of them from the wild, he was suprised, yet I explained that they were not rare, merely secretive & that it was quite likely that unless a person was actually ever looking for them, that you could live in the areas they exist in & never even know they are there. Many folks down there really don't know a thing about alterna & he was interested to learn so much about a snake so few locals know a thing about there. I went on to explain to him about the bad politics that were used in 2007 to pass a new law to outlaw road & road-right-of way collection of snakes in Texas. I told Mr. Norris that not only had I a spent alot of money over the past 27 years from searching for alterna, buying houses and property in Terrell county, but that many, many other herpers had done this as well, taking yearly and sometimes multiple trips to the trans-pecos and that with the passage of the 2007 bill outlawing legal road & ROW collecting now, that this has accomplished nothing other than making honest people outlaws who want to find snakes. Went on to explain how this effectively has hurt local buisinesses from Del Rio to El Paso, as many people have cancelled trips to Texas, choosing to go to other states where road collecting is still legal & allowed. Motels, Restaurants, Gas Stations, even TXWPD have all lost revenue from the ridiculous current law that is in place, outlawing snake hunting along public roads. I also informed Mr. Norris that there had been no verified traffic accidents, that were caused as a result of years & years of road collecting for snakes in West TX as far as I had known or ever heard. After our long talk, he understands the importance of herping & what herpers bring to Texas, he IS on our side. We need to get the word out to more of the locally elected people in Texas, explain & educate them on our hobby & the fact that alot of money was spent in the local economies from herping. I think alot of people all accross West Texas really don't realize just how many dollars are spent every spring and summer from the reptile people. They will rally behind us, when it is explained to them from what I have seen. Just my thoughts here, hopefully all of us & the HCU can get this un-american snake law reversed in the future.........John
