Sorry it took so long for me to reply--been out of town. Anyway, I don't sell my Mt Kings because I give them away, and I hope that contributes to reducing collecting pressure. True, I do live in Arizona.
You're quite correct to point out that one out of 37 animals is a prime example of reducing collecting pressure, and if hobbyists collected one out of five animals they kept, I think we would have turned a critical corner on the pressure thing. In Arizona, the Game and Fish folks survey herp populations and adjust the open seasons and bag limits from time to time. If they decide that a particular species is in peril, they will close collecting on it until they are satisfied the species can be collected again without risking dangerous levels of reduction. Since there is still an allowable limit on Mt Kings, it's their judgement that it would be OK for you to take one, and I'm in no position to gainsay them. Besides, I think you should be able to take one, if legal, without a bunch of finger-wagging from the Internet crowd. It's Game and Fish's call.
If you really want to get my feathers in a bunch, let's mosey over to the gas station where gasoline is currently over $2 per gallon. Grrrrrr. If that doesn't curtail field collecting, nothing will.
The breeder/hobbyists have made possible the continued availability of these and many other wonderful herps, even if wild collecting is eliminated in the future. That founder stock had to be WC, so collecting played an essential role. I'm grateful to the pioneer breeders who made the investments in time, cleverness, insight and sheer persistence to create the captive lines, and also grateful that they created the paradigm of captive breeding as part of the pleasures of herp keeping. They also developed a culture of expectation of success, rather than the culture of "why bother" that was more prevalent when I got started in the '60's. I think that we're going to have pets and wild populations all at once, and it's the determined breeder/hobbyists who paved that road.
As to the aging of my Mt Kings and breeding, I never noticed any reduction in fecundity due to advanced age. I have heard the term "reproductively senile", but my animals bred until they died, into their high teens and early twenties. I will say, though, that if I notice an animal exhibiting profound signs of age, such as rapid shedding, deterioration of skin condition, lumps, general brittleness of appearance, I retire them. It's not long after signs like these present themselves, that the animal completes its passage in this world.
