Reptile & Amphibian Forums

To keep it short, our current government is not going to stop until a majority of our hobby is well under boot heel. I doubt we will be allowed any non-native herps in the near future nor will we be allowed to import/export any as well. When asked all they will have to do is say "look at Australia and the impact non-native toads have made". "They dont allow imports and exports and we should do the same!" (Personally I dont agree with this)

I am not a doom and gloom kind of guy. It is just the current climate of affairs. Herps are on the way out.

My question is this... Do you think we will be able to justify being allowed to keep native herps? Again not trying to start flame session here... Just want to get some ideas flowing for Native Stuff such as Alterna or Milks.

BW, StevenX

God given right and all, Go forth and multiply, and subdue the lands, and all that.
Realistically, I think right now Texas is one of the states that thinks business is better. I hope we have more luck in being allowed to keep native herps than our right , nay privilege, to hunt them on the roads. it will be interesting to see which way our reps and sens vote on the python issue, seeing as we are on "the map". I think the way that goes, eventually so will go the native situation. Hopefully, we will prevail, I don't like a lot of things, but I don't go off the handle 'cause other people own them.
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Todd Hughes

Antelope I appreciate your sentiment but to say roadherping was a privlidge is kinda looking at it bass-ackwards. Privildges are special things, above and beyond the norm that are either granted to a special class, or earned through some sort of special behavior. Whereas freedoms are basicly anything you can do as long as it doesn't hurt another person.

For herping to be a privledge, granted by the government, that would mean the herps actually belong to the government and they are granting us the privlidge to hunt them. The truth is the opposite, the herps belong to the people. The people have granted the government the right to prohibit or limit collection but IMHO that is only supposed to be done in special circumstances, such as in a state or national park or to set limits when a species is at risk of going extinct.

Aaron, I totally see your point, but "what we have heah, is a failyuh, to communicate." LOL, what has been taken, in their view, was a privilege, granted by the state and is considered by the powers that be, able to be taken away. Nowhere does it state that we have the right to road hunt, even if I believe that we should. There was a proposal to make hunting a right, but it fell by the wayside. I totally agree with what you are saying, unfortunately, the "right" has not been taken back by the powers that should be. I am all for getting those rights back, set in stone, so to speak, but if you don't own the land, you doon't get the "right", by law, as of now. As long as TPWD have the ability to do this, for whatever reason they deem appropriate, they will use this, not to further their stated agenda, but to further others' agendas.
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Todd Hughes

I realize that roadhunting was not a legal right as put forth in the Bill of Rights. Still, I prefer to call it a freedom because formerly you didn't have to be of some special class to enjoy it. All you had to do was walk into any place that sells hunting licenses, state your intent and purchase the licence. This was possible for basicly any American citizen other than a felon.

Plus it sounds worse to say you no longer have the freedom than to say you no longer have the privlige. If you say you no longer have the privlige it sounds like you must have done something bad in order to have had it taken away. To say you no longer have the freedom implies that something was unjustly taken from you. And that is exactly what the roadban is IMO, unjustified by any type of science.

I don't think we are in disagreement here. I am just trying to express it in a way that really emphasizes the injustice of what they did to us snakehunters.

I agree, a total travesty of justice, now we use the process to get that freedom back.You know what they say, the wheels of justice turn slowly...
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Todd Hughes