Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I am new to this, so please excuse my ignorance, but does "WC" stand for wild caught? I have been reading posts and I see that acronym alot. If so, I have a question, and I am not trying to ruffle feathers, merely better understand the reasoning: I see by various posts that you can actually buy venomous reptiles, so my question is, why take them out of the wild and keep them when you don't have to? Again, not trying to anger anyone, it seems as if alot of people here catch these animals and keep them, I am just trying to understand the logic behind doing so. I would much prefer to photograph any animal in their natural habitat and then leave them alone. Please enlighten me. Thank you.

Yes, wc stands for wild caught. You can go to the Care Sheets/FAQs/Features link (right under the forums link)and scroll down to the glossary of terms link for all of the commonly used terms and abreviations. The good answer to your question would be that snakes are taken from the wild for breeding programs or studies. Sometimes a snake may be so rare that the odds of it finding a mate in the wild are simply slim to none. In other cases animals are harvested from the wild simply for money i.e. to sell. A lot of times I wonder the same thing you do with wild caught reptiles, especially because a large majority of the animals are disease/parasite infested and don't end up living long in captivity for long anyways. Most people do not know enough to treat such animals correctly, or even to recognise the symptoms soon enough to get the animal to someone who does. There may be other reasons to keep a wc snake, but these are probably the main two. I may start a war with this, but I feel that in a lot of cases wc animals are just not neccesary, especially those that are commonly bred and available in captivity.
-Will

Thank you for your response. I could certainly understand taking an animal from the wild if it would help to propagate the species, especially when it may be threatened or endangered. But I agree with you that taking an animal from the wild to merely keep for one's own enjoyment is not necessarily a good idea. Is this where most of the snakes that are sold come from?

Most of what is available on the market (particularly in US species) is CB. Species that are hard to breed still get collected for sale. For the CB species I seeno point except if it's aberant.

Another good reason for collecting in the "wild" is the removal of snakes trapped by developement. These cannot allways be successfully reloated.

Frank
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"The luxury of not getting involved departed with the last lifeboat Skipper..."

You've brought up some very logical and rational reasons for collecting wild snakes. Thank you for your input. Reading some of the posts here, I see that most of you love these animals and take great care of them. I thought I was in a forum of people that kept these animals for the "thrill" or bragging rights and I see now that my first impression was incorrect. I wonder if any of you ever saw a show on Animal Planet a few years back...it was some South African guy who wanted to get photos of snakes...I remember him "tackling" one in a river...he was also bitten by one, a cobra I think, and I remember cheering for the snake when it nailed him.....I watch Corwin, Irwin, etc with my kids, and I understand they handle these animals as a way to educate people (although I think Irwin is an adrenaline junkie and I sometimes question his motives)...but this South African guy really p*ssed me off at the time...to basically antagonize an animal to get an "exciting" photo or just for the challenge is something I find truly aggravating.

Saw that...was waiting for the "epilouge" where they explained he didn't survive the filming.....

Frank
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"The luxury of not getting involved departed with the last lifeboat Skipper..."

I agree to this entire thread. As far as steve irwin being and adrenaline junky and that being his motives. Have you ever watched a boring nature show...they are all over and most people fall asleap to them. Steve irwin provides and entertaining show that can help educate the public and get their attention. I think he does a great job and I have not seen him attack this hobby in any way as many uneducated zoo people tend to do without uderstanding that it is the ture idiots you see in the news that need to be delt with on a single basis. With wild animals (that is an abreviation "wc" by the way an acronym would be if it spelled a word...: )...anyway) I do not see the point either besides for breeding, venom milking, and other studies. There are plenty of people breeding these animals. The best way to fight this is to just pass the ball python "bin" of feeding and not feeding for 5 and 15 dollars when you go to a show. Pay the money for a healthy captive breed animal. Taking these animals out of the wild (especially in the great numbers we sometimes do) is not only pointless and does nothing but make a few dollars and puts these animals into the hands of people who cannot afford the extra money for a cb animal and thus cannot afford to care for it properly. This also has a huge effect on the environment. When you import large amounts of gravid females..each animal would have put 5-50 snakes in the wild that year that are needed for an ecosystem to work. Though I hate the way that aspect of the hobby works...the last thing I think we need is more laws to control things so I urge people to just not buy the animals and that will help more than anything. If people are not buying there is no reason to do it.