Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I was thinking about a sort of national or international registry for snakes. Has anyone ever tried to entertain that thought? I know that dogs have the AKC, CKC, ETC, and i think that doing something like that would do alot for our hobby. If that would be practical or feasible or whatever. With all of the genetics involved these days it would be nice to have an organization that tracks an animal's lineage that way you could have an idea of an animals genetic makeup, orgin, pedigree, whatever. We could have the NSR (National Snake Registry)!! Any and all thoughts and comments would be appreciated!
BTW I'm new to the Forums well new to posting. I currently own about 10 BCC and BCI's. Hopefully i'll get some pics posted in the coming week. I look forward to getting to "meet" everyone who posts in the forum. thank you

Nick

that's a nice idea but think of this...your home city/state decides to make it illegal to own a snake over lets say 4 ft. whats to stop someone in a particular law enforcement organization from accessing the reptile registry and finding out who all owns what snakes and then coming to your door to confiscate them? personally, i prefer that people not know what i have in my home.
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1.1.0 Colombian Redtail Boas
2.1.0 Sumatran Blood Pythons
1.0 Black Blood Python
1.0 Dumeril's Boa
0.1 Coastal Carpet Python
0.1 Jungle Carpet Python
1.0 Texas Tiger Salamander

You know i hadn't really thought of that one. That would definately be a bad thing! Thanks for the reply!
Anyone else with thoughts, comments, suggestions?

Nick

What's to stop them in theory is the Constitution. It would require a subpoena, which requires showing probable cause to believe a particular person has violated a specific law. Of course as long as the current bunch is in the White House, you can never be too sure that the Constitution is still in effect.

But in any case, I don't see how such an organization could give you any more information than a breeder can.

Thanks for the post!

I think that some kind of registry would provide alot that a breeder could not. I'm not saying anything bad about breeders. I'm just saying that kind of database could provide lots of valuable information from genetics to health. I think it would be an awesome step forward. The possibilites are infinite. It would also provide a whole new meaning to guaranteed genetics. Plus i think it would unite us and give us more of a voice and power and give us the ability to legally keep the snakes that we want to. well thanks again for the post i appreciate any and all feedback.
-Nick

Hey Nick

I was just talking to Doug at boa basement about the same thing today. I think it is a great idea but I would not know where they would begin to even start doing something like this. With most of everything being captive bred for the last i don't know how many years, it would be hard to trace the lineage of most snakes all the way back to the wild caught parents. I do not believe in the mixing of different species and i would not intentionally do so myself but who is to say what is pure and what is not at this point unless it is wild caught. On another note with the world changing as it is, certain species that may not have crossed in the wild in the past may have access to each other now because of the deterioration of boundaries that kept them apart. We might not know exactly what we are getting from the wild!

Shot

Thanks for your reply. I agree with everything that you said. My thinking is and i'm going to reference the AKC (American Kennel Club) That every breed of dog that is recognized, all came from the wolf. Breeds over time become bred with other breeds and with careful fine tuning can become a very wide variety of different breeds. That is where some sort of standard would come into play.As in snakes with different pattern and color morphs, so do dogs not to the same digree but i'm sure you get where i'm coming from thats what the Standard would be for Ok i'm going to be the first to admit that i have very limited knowledge of the AKC but i'm sure that by following their so to say guidelines you could come to a pretty good start. Besides you have to always start from somewhere. Thanks for your post!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Nick

personally, i dont care about the lineage of my snakes. i mean, one of my snakes could be a direct descendant of the snake that tempted Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden (hypothetically speaking, of course) and it wouldnt change my thoughts/feelings towards them.
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1.1.0 Colombian Redtail Boas
2.1.0 Sumatran Blood Pythons
1.0 Black Blood Python
1.0 Dumeril's Boa
0.1 Coastal Carpet Python
0.1 Jungle Carpet Python
1.0 Texas Tiger Salamander

I think comparisons to the AKC are misguided, actually. There's a world of difference between naturally-occuring species and subspecies on one hand, and man-made breeds on the other.

It's a complete mystery to me why people want AKC-registered animals. All it guarantees you is that it's descended from other AKC animals. The only benefit is that you can show it in AKC shows, but if you don't show your dogs there is no benefit at all. A dog can be AKC and be very far from the breed standard (not to mention inbred, genetically defective and unhealthy).

The only benefit of a registry for pet reptiles might be to verify locality information. This would of course require excluding animals with unverifiable localities, which is 99% of the reptiles on the market. Plus, most people just aren't that interested in locality data.

to prove the origin of the animal in question. Obviously this would require cooperation of all the big breeders first. The largest advantage I see is if you buy just for arguments sake a het T positive from Joe Blow or a big name like Jeremy Stone and you want to sell it in the future how do you prove it is what you say it is. If you have paperwork from a registry stating that it is a het with the lineage of the parents and a photo ID you can buy and sell with confidence. Or say you want a pure Hog Island if you get a registered animal from registered parents you can be sure it is pure. This would be a trickle down type of thing it starts up top with people that can prove the lineage of there animals and over time will end up covering most all animals produced hopefully.

if anyone is going to do it first I sy the Chondro coalition!

To me the heritage of my boas is very important, a number of my animals I have traced to their grandparents, often this is as far back the CBB line goes.

after reading some of the previous posts I would think it would be... well more of a burden to the hobby. And also in the AKC and so on they have specific guidelines for every breed as to how they should look (as oppose to dogs het. for snow and such). In the reptile hobby who is to say what should be the standard??? And also dogs don't have litters in the 30's and above so tracking specific pedigrees is not as hard as it would be for every snake born (I’m assuming this would apply to all species of snakes and not just boas). I feel that anyone could say yeah this is a pure bred Hogg or yep their parents were het. T positive or whatever. As long as you have documentation from the breeder of where your collection originated from what more do you need? I think people who sell fake hets have learned that there is no point now and days. Also I thought something like this was formed a couple of years ago and never caught on?

-Greg Reinert-

Nick,
A registry like you have suggested for boas has already been done for corn snakes. It's relatively new, but seems to have had a strong level of participation already.

It is called the American Cornsnake Registry at can be seen at:
http://www.herpregistry.com/acr/

Check it out, it might give you some further ideas.