With few exceptions those who participate in the captive production of reptile on some level also participate in commercial herpetoculture. In my view, this market reality skews most of what we do. In the act of marketing it is inevitable that we take steps that differentiate our stock from that of others. In herpetoculture, there are many paths to product development. We line and or selective breed for traits that are aesthetically pleasing. We select for mild temperament and adaptability to captive conditions and foods. We actively search for and extract color and pattern mutations to create new, if only temporarily rare, phenotypes. The more recent trends to produce hybrids and "locality" pure specimens however represent diametrically opposed views of where the hobby is going. Both views have their champions and detractors but they like morph production and line breeding need to be viewed as simple methods of product differentiation if they are to be reconciled.
Jeff, Schofield recently brought up an interesting concept. In comparing the views of those who hybridize and those who feel pure is the way to go he brought up speed and consistency. Certainly from the perspective of bringing new phenotypes to market, hybridizers may do so with speed but the phenotypes are not consistent. Likewise, purists are slow to locate and develop distinctive locality based phenotypes but when they do they are generally pretty stable. I think this observation might hold a partial key to resolving the rift as it were between the two sides.
Putting it in the best light, hybidizers are proactive in their efforts to bring new and unique phenotypes to market. The problem, in the view of purists, lay in the reality that after the initial cross, hybrid phenotypes becomes unstable. It is quite common that after a very few generations that some offspring begin to look like "pure" examples of one of the parent species. The fear is that one of these might make its way into "pure" projects. What if however, hybrids phenotypes were both stable and easily distinguished from "pure" specimens? Would this negate much of the objection? If so, how many generations would it take to stabilize a hybrid phenotype? Not to insinuate that hybriders should work to this end but it is an interesting proposition and it isn't one without example. The beefalo, a buffalo/cow hybrid, has been developed into a stable phenotype that is now even considered purebred stock. Though I have positively characterized hybidization as proactive I could just have easily been negative and called it a short cut. This approach to reptile breeding shows, in my opinion, great potential. That however is not to say that it is or need to be an easy path. Through creative out crossing AND succeeding line breeding and culling distinctive new "purebred" strains of domestic herps might be developed. To my view, the current heap of indistinguishable mexicana X alterna X ruthveni X Pyro X triangulum X whatever hybrids, though neat, doesn't even hint of this potential?
On the purist side we see some level of preservation of natural phenotypes. Few would argue that preserving a wide selection of "pure" wild types doesn't hold value. However few would also argue that the current ad hoc status of these breeding efforts is capable of maintaining these types for anything but the short term. Without a specific effort among purists to develop a system to track and ensure the purity of their stock, locality breeding too will remain a contentious endeavor. In this light, it isn't the existence of hybrids that threatens the purity of locality stocks, it’s the lack of an agreed upon criteria for establishing the legitimacy of locality stock as well as a system for preserving and conveying this information. Consider this, even if hybrids were not on the scene, the "legitimacy" of locality stocks would still be threatened by the the presents of animals in the captive gene pool stemming from lines predating even ad hoc efforts to maintain locality information. In deed this is where most if not all the contention around locality stock now emanates. In writing this it has become clear to me that the burden of protecting the purity of locality stocks lay with the purists. Given the proper system no animal of hybrid (or generic) ancestry need find its way into locality projects. Given the proper system, these locality projects might also be maintained for the long haul. Developing such a system and therefore this market niche into something less contentious and more credible requires effort on those involved not on others falling in line with their views.
