Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Went to the Austin Herpetological Society meeting last night to hear Texas Parks and Wildlife Department Permits Coordinator Karen Pianka speak on the current Nongame Wildlife permits, rules, and regulations as they relate to Texas Herpers.

I was pleasantly surprised. Karen didn’t have horns and a tail as I’d suspected. In fact, she is quite a nice lady, sincere and engaging There was a good exchange of ideas and information. I think we all came away with a better understanding of the issues. I came away convinced Karen and the folks at TP&W are sincere in their desire to come up with meaningful clarifications and improvements to the regulations.

Much thanks to Tim Cole and Deb for their hospitality as well as to Tony Hardin and the Austin Herp Society folks for putting this Q&A on. Much thanks to Karen Pianka for her time and for her sincere interest in our concerns.

Here’s to the future, with mutual cooperation and collaboration, to craft meaningful improvements to the regulations that will ultimately benefit the wonderfully diverse Reptile and Amphibian Wildlife Heritage that we have here in Texas.

jsc

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"As hard as I've tried, just can't NOT do this"
John Crickmer

There's probably a good "tail" joke in there, but probably sexist, too.

John, did the subject of subspecies versus species come up? My main problem with the regs as they are is that the data for many forms is pretty much worthless, since most of the info they are tracking is for animals not native to Texas, due to the insistence on including all ssp of species such as getula and triangulum, rather than tracking just those ssp native to Texas.
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Brad Chambers
WWW.HCU-TX.ORG

Breeder of:
Green Tree Pythons
Jungle Carpet Pythons
Pastel, Pinstripe, FIRE, Piebald, Clown, Lavender Albino, Leucistic, and Spider Ball Pythons
Striped Colombian Boa Constrictors
Kenyan, Rufescens, and Conicus Sand Boas
Red Phase Western Hognose Snakes
Spider Western Hognose Snakes
Albino Western Hognose Snakes
Locality Trans-Pecos Mexican Hognose Snakes
Southern Hognose Snakes
Eastern Hognose Snakes
Tricolor Hognose Snakes
Hypo Checkered Garter Snakes
Eastern Blackneck Garter Snakes
Stillwater Hypo Bullsnakes
Patternless Bullsnakes
S. GA Eastern Kingsnakes
Locality Desert Kingsnakes
Albino Desert Kingsnakes
Hypo Desert Kingsnakes
Mexican Black Kingsnakes
Desert Phase, Striped Desert, Newport, and Coastal California Kingsnakes
Locality Mexican Milksnakes
Spotted Mexican Milksnakes
Tangerine Mexican Milksnakes
Locality Alterna
Abbott Okeetee Cornsnakes
Mexican Baird's Ratsnakes
Cape Housesnakes
Tangerine Albino African Fat -Tailed Geckos
Locality Spotted Turtles

Yes it did. She seemed open and willing to understand our issues in this respect and to work with us to resolve the issue.
She got a perspective from us, I don't think she was even aware of. I got the impression she did not know about the Zookeeper situation with LE over subspecies. She seemed to agree LE needed some guidance on some components of the regs.

jsc
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"As hard as I've tried, just can't NOT do this"
John Crickmer

Good. We should definitely follow up on this. It's a big problem, both for keepers and for the veracity of any data that TPW hopes to gather.
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Brad Chambers
WWW.HCU-TX.ORG

Breeder of:
Green Tree Pythons
Jungle Carpet Pythons
Pastel, Pinstripe, FIRE, Piebald, Clown, Lavender Albino, Leucistic, and Spider Ball Pythons
Striped Colombian Boa Constrictors
Kenyan, Rufescens, and Conicus Sand Boas
Red Phase Western Hognose Snakes
Spider Western Hognose Snakes
Albino Western Hognose Snakes
Locality Trans-Pecos Mexican Hognose Snakes
Southern Hognose Snakes
Eastern Hognose Snakes
Tricolor Hognose Snakes
Hypo Checkered Garter Snakes
Eastern Blackneck Garter Snakes
Stillwater Hypo Bullsnakes
Patternless Bullsnakes
S. GA Eastern Kingsnakes
Locality Desert Kingsnakes
Albino Desert Kingsnakes
Hypo Desert Kingsnakes
Mexican Black Kingsnakes
Desert Phase, Striped Desert, Newport, and Coastal California Kingsnakes
Locality Mexican Milksnakes
Spotted Mexican Milksnakes
Tangerine Mexican Milksnakes
Locality Alterna
Abbott Okeetee Cornsnakes
Mexican Baird's Ratsnakes
Cape Housesnakes
Tangerine Albino African Fat -Tailed Geckos
Locality Spotted Turtles

It was an eye opener meeting for both us and TP&W.

Lots of positive and constructive conversation that I believe will continue.

There have been some recent changes with personnel at TP&W which I believe may lead to more positive cooperation with herp issues.
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Tim Cole
www.austinherpsociety.org
www.AustinReptileExpo.com/
www.AustinReptileService.net
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<
Conservation through Education

>>There have been some recent changes with personnel at TP&W which I believe may lead to more positive cooperation with herp issues.

that sounds promising; I hope you're right...but we gotta get the legislature to "fix" the current law too.

Tim, I assume you'll be out in west TX the second weekend in June...how early are you going to be out there? I'll be out for the week prior but will miss the meetup. PM me if necessary.
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Chris McMartin
www.mcmartinville.com
I'm Not a Herpetologist, but I Play One on the Internet