Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a point I would like to make regarding herpetoculture. In defending against the arguments of anti-exotic politicians, we often say that breeding reptiles in captivity is one way to prevent the extinction of these animals. Since reptiles are disappearing across the planet, this is a very penetrating statement for someone who wants to conserve nature.

But is this really what we are doing? Let's look at the ball python, for example. Python regius has been bred en masse for decades, and this popularity has been fueled by the "production" of some very striking morphs, including albinos and leucistics. However, any biologist will tell you that such creatures cannot survive in the wild. Albinos can hardly be exposed to sunlight, or their health is threatened. Other morphs create problems as well; how on earth could a lavender ball python avoid detection by predators if its camouflage has been stripped away? Since many of these traits are recessive, the pythons' offspring wouldn't be any better off, though whether such an animal would live long enough to breed is debatable.

What I am saying is, if ball pythons were to become critically endangered in the wild, how could captive-bred individuals serve the wild populations if the vast majority of them were unable to survive in the wild? A reintroducing program would certainly be a dramatic failure if all of the captive pythons were genetically anomalous.

So is the captive breeding of such species as the ball python, corn snake, king snake, bearded dragon, and leopard gecko really giving us a reservoir of specimens in case wild populations were to become endangered? It would appear not. My point is this: perhaps it is unwise to continually be trying to "engineer" oddball reptiles simply because they are more visually pleasing to someone who cannot appreciate reptiles otherwise. Instead, why not concentrate on exploring "normal" animals for all their ordinary glory? Is a normal ball python really all that bad? And when the wolves come knocking at our doors with things like HR 669, can we really say that professional breeders are aiding conservation?

Best regards,
Pinstripe

The wild populations are threatened everywhere by habitat destruction that will never ever reverse. The captive population is just an alternative to nothing. You will never repopulate the wilderness, it will not exist.

Good point ...

Thanks for replying.

Best regards,
pinstripe

what's your purpose of posting the same post throughout the forums???

>>Good point ...
>>
>>Thanks for replying.
>>
>>Best regards,
>>pinstripe
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Your questions are good. Here is my view:

For most common species in the hobby the whole "saving for future reintroduction" argument isn't valid. Partly for the reason you listed...breeding for traits that aren't necessarily going to be successful in the wild. I happen to agree with you...a "normal" ball python is beautiful and I don't particularly want to create all sorts of inbred morphs just for appearance, rarity, or collecting's sake. There may be a lot of invisible mutations and health issues we are breeding into our animals along with that nice pattern. And, as the resulting animals aren't put to the rigors of life in the wild, we may never know the disadvantages we end up giving them. I for one don't select artifically produced morphs. Almost every herp I would choose has a perfectly beautiful character in its natural state. If I bred for anything it would be genetic vigor and overall health.

There is a bit of a myth about re-establishing a vanished species by using captive bred animals. For a very few critically endangered animals this might happen, but the expense and amount of work is huge, takes many years of extremely careful breeding and genetic work. Most re-introductions fail mostly because the genetic pool to work from is too limited, the habitat is destroyed or gone by that time, and any other reasons the species because endangered haven't been addressed (pesticides, poaching, predation by an invasive species, tiny gene pool, food or prey base also gone).

Look at frogs for example: chytrid fungus is wiping out species all over the planet. Keeping a captive refugia population would save some individuals from exposure to chytrid (so wild collecting has some value), but even if you produce lots of healthy frogs for re-introduction, chytrid is still present in the environment and they can easily pick it up anyway.

I happen to have a small captive group of frogs and yes, I do use the "saving them from chytrid" argument. Sure it makes me feel somewhat better, but it doesn't do it all. Whether I will ever be able to produce healthy cbb froglets for reintroduction to the wild is very doubtful. The other interest is in researching successful captive breeding for the species in the first place...hardly anyone has been successful anywhere in the world. But, I also use my frogs to educate anyone who will listen about conservation, why we should care about odd wildlife at all, respect for life other than human, why habitat preservation is needed, general good stewardship toward the planet.

There is one valid aspect of captive breeding as it relates to species conservation...if we end up supplying enough cbb animals to satisfy the global demand, we do take collection pressure off the wild population.