Reptile & Amphibian Forums

How do you feel about private breeders? I mean legitimate CBB box turtle breeders. If there is such a thing. Do you think if there where more of these it would help conservation? Or would it only cause WC dealers to sell their turtles for less? I see on the internet that they are selling lots of 30 Ornates. That sickens me. I have not seen 30 wild boxies in the last 15 years.
Do you think CBB breeders help, hurt or does nothing for conservation?

There are a lot of complications in the law regarding Box Turtles. It seems that the only real way you will find one is from someone who is truly passionate about these turtles and is willing to raise them at a loss. The first rule of Boxies is to raise them outside and only species from your area (there are second rules, of course). So, for instance, in Illinois (where I live), you have to have a vaild fishing licence to collect them from the wild ($13.50 a year). I can't take any more than 4 at a time, I think, and have no more than 16 in my possession. In my area, according to the first rule, the only choice is Ornates. They are not protected in Illinois. I can't keep wild animals for more than 90 days so I have to get an aquafarming(?) permit so I can raise them with the intention of selling their offspring for commercial gain ($50.00 a year). Now comes federal law: I can't commercially sell turtles with a carapace length of less than 4 inches so I can forget about unloading my offspring for about 3 years (unless there's a long line of teachers out there wanting them for educational purposes). Let's say my turtles have 20 babies a year. That means I will be feeding and housing 60 turtles (plus the parents) before I will be able to sell even one of them. That's a lot of heating and feeding and fretting. So by the time I sell one, I feel that I should get about $300 a piece (cheap) for these captivity-habituated parasite-free beauties. And then there's the guy that will sell wild caught ones for $30. Which one would you buy? Turtles are the most affectionately regarded herps except for maybe frogs. And laws in some states are REALLY ferocious regarding Boxies. If you want to see some real hardline stuff about them, I invite you to take a quick look at Indiana's laws about Boxies. They actually have in their DNR site that regionally produced captive bred Boxies that are released to the wild can spread infectious diseases throughout the wild population! I'm sorry, but I've never heard of such a thing...mustuv been the herptilian flu epidemic of '73.