There are so many statements, guarantees, arguments, whatever you want to call them about this locale or that locale and my animals are only "this" or my animals are only "that".
Just thinking out loud but do any of the staunch locale people actually know the true range of a corn snake, rat snake or king snake in it's life time? Or better yet do they know the range that three or four generations may cover?
I've always brought this up concerning okeetees.
Some say it can only be called an okeetee if it was found within the boundries of the hunt club or has lineage traceble to the boundries of the hunt club.
Some expand these boundries to a little wider bourde of Jasper county.
I won't go in to lookeetees or okeetee phase.
Then you have locality animals like Doug Gap Road subocs, or highway 727 alternas (doubt these are the actual roads but you know what I mean).
Going back to my questions before...do they know the exact lifetime range of these animals to be able to "guarantee" these animals are actually FROM these locales? Not just found in these locales?
big difference as far as I'm concerened.
I don't like to narrow it down beyond state lines and then this is only used as an indication as where they are found not as a indication of their lineage.
Lets take the okeetees, an easy example. Ok let's say the "okeetee line" is the border of the hunt club. There is a corn snake born twenty miles from the hunt club, it breeds with another corn that was born outside of the hunt club and their babies spread out from the hatch site. Say one of these babies begins to grow and move out into it's own territory and "wonders" within the hunt club borders. It just so happens that "Herper Joe" is hunting the hunt club and sees this snake as it has just enetred the hunt club boundries. He catches this corn and says "hey, what a nice okeetee!, I know it's an okeetee because I just caught it in the hunt club boundries. Problem is, this snakes is no more okeetee then the one born several hundred miles away.
Same story in referse. Several clutches of corn snakes are born within the boundries of the hunt club, the parents of these clutches were actually born in the hunt clubas weel and their parents were as well. Now these hatchlings would be about as okeetee as you could get. Well, like animals do, they spread to find areas of least compitition, some make it most don't. Let's say one of these makes it and finds a nice place near the boundries of the hunt club, finds a mate and new hatchlings are produced very close to the boundries of the hunt club. This new clutch spreads as they do and several leave the borders of the hunt club. As they grow they spread a little farther from the hunt club and yep, you guessed it, "Herper Joe" comes by and finds one of these snakes crossing a road five or ten miles from the hunt club boundries. This snake is actually a true okeetee corn snake but because it was caught outside the hunt club boundries it "is not an okeetee".
Basically my point is simple..unless there is a non-penetrable boundry how can any insure the true locaility of a snake just by location of catch.
Did it just cross into the boundrie?
Did it just cross out of the boundries?
Were it's parents from inside the boundries?
Were the parents from outside the boundries?
Was one from within the boundries and one from outside the boundries?
Way too many questions for anyone to ever guarantee locality or to keep locality pure.
That's why I don't worry about which county my Alababm wild caught corns are from, simply because it can't be proven. I just use Alabama wild caughts to signify where they were caught, only.
I have caught eastern black king snakes in the middle of the county I live in and I have caught them at the extreme boundries of the county. They could be specified as "X" county black kings but the simple fact is, especially with the ones close to the borders of the county, you just don't know.
Same with the many many black rats I've caught in the area.
anyway, just thinking out loud before I head off to traffic court this morning.
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Corn snakes and rat snakes..No one can have just one.
"Resistance is futile"
Jimmy Johnson
(Draybar)
Draybars Snakes
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