Re: Hypocricy in Herpetoculture

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: : Hypocrisy in Herpetoculture : : : : The term Herpetoculture means many things to many people. For some it is the (informal) study, understanding and love of reptiles. Oftentimes progressing to the level of purposeful animal reproduction. Still others pursue herpetoculture, to our county’s greatest and most intense endeavor, commercialism. Let’s not lose sight that professional ( anyone who performs a service or provides a product for fiscal gain-MONEY) reptile breeders maintain their breeding stock based on fecundity, maintenance, productivity, and return potential. I’ve known several breeders to discontinue working with a particular species, based solely on their projected monetary gains. If they can make more money working with something else, then they will go to that project and leave behind a less monetarily productive one. : : What is a hybrid? A hybrid is an animal produced by interbreeding or cross-fertilization. A very disturbing trend over the past 5-10 years has been echoed in magazines, behind the scenes at shows, and in numerous conversation between herpers. I have learned that many view the term hybrid as a blasphemous utterance in the religion of reptile worship. I believe that the orthodox (major) breeders have and will attempt to excommunicate any who have fallen from their faith. But, let’s examine the pure faith taught and practiced by these same breeders. Would they dare preach to us ( the masses ) not to produce hybrids, yet covertly produce and promote their own hybrids for profit? Allow me to present some situations and you make your own decision. : : Take for example, the recent flood of albino mutations that have appeared in various tricolors over the past 5-10 years. Some would dare speculate (or have heard rumors) that certain orthodox breeders, formulated a plan to increase the value of their productive yet highly common tricolors. What if someone produced (themselves coincidentally) a new albino tricolor. I would hazard a guess that those animals would be worth, Oh about 10-20 times their normal counterparts. Faced with this revelation, all you would have to do is produce a million or so animals to get that ONE albino. That might take a few decades, and worse, you may not be the one to produce it first! Hey, what if you took a closely related albino Cal-King and crossed it with say, a Ruthveni. The offspring would all be hetero for albinism. Even if their pattern was a mixture of the two. You would now have the albino gene present. Thus they could breed back these crosses and theoretically produce the first albino Ruthveni x Cal-King. Now take those albinos and breed them back to a normal Ruthveni. Again, you would have hetero’s, but this time their * Ruthveni, and their patterning should be more similar to normal Ruthveni. One could repeat this process to the point where the pattern differences(short the albino trait) would be indistinguishable. Is all this time, effort and energy worth it? Ask anyone who has sold some of those albino tricolors for $1000-2000 each! : : Aren’t those Tangerine Hondurans beautiful? I would agree, but their not cheap. At 2-3 times the price of normal Hondurans, that’s not too bad. Who wouldn’t mind their boss approaching them at work, telling them that their salary has been increased two fold! I suspect you would be ecstatic, over the prospect of a 100% raise. It has struck me, that those Orange Pueblans are quite striking too. Is it a coincidence that the terms used are Tangerine & Orange, and that some of these Hondurans have little tangerine coloring on the tips of their snouts, not unlike sockhead Pueblans? Maybe it’s just my imagination. : : Lastly, let’s really examine all of our own breeding choices. Reflect back on the beautiful Sinaloans that commanded top dollar 10 years ago. In 1997, is that same Sinaloan, the best you’ve ever seen? I think not, the color improvements are gorgeous, but more so significant. All or most breeders are selectively breeding their most colorful animals to improve the color or other desired traits over the previous generation. Has it occurred to anyone that Hondurans,Sinaloans,Cal-Kings,Boas,Bearded Dragons and especially CORNS are now significantly different in their phenotype characteristics. That although, they may not be hybrids(in the strictest sense), they may not survive in their natural habitat. Maybe this human preferred coloring would render their camouflage, and or defensive mimicry useless or unrecognizable to their predators. Thus making them more likely to be preyed upon, and or lessening their chances for survival in the wild. : : Is any of this wrong? I don’t think so, as long as these herps are sold with full disclosure, so the consumer knows exactly what he or she is purchasing. At times hybrids are : : described accurately to the consumer. However, I take exception to the pious attitude and Hypocrisy that many orthodox breeders profess but DO NOT practice. I have found that they(much like zoos) are in a source of power and are condescending in thoughts regarding the public. Which of course are their principal source of revenue. Most of us breeders (fledgling or experienced) engage in this frustrating endeavor, because we love working : : with reptiles. I truly believe, that almost all of the breeders out there, work with reptile vs. : : dogs or birds, because we all share an intrinsic affinity for them. Be mindful that reptile Import-Exporters may be working with these animals solely for monitory profit. This isn’t to condemn them(everyone has to make a living), but be extremely wary. : : Diversity is the spice of life. The reptiles with the most range of colors and variations, may be ones with the best protection from eradication. But why do we try to fool ourselves? Habitat destruction is what truly threatens all species of animals on earth. Predominantly the reptiles being actively bred and hybridized are not endangered. : : Reptiles like, Diamond pythons, Amazonian Emeralds, and Frilled Dragons are rare in the U.S., but not because there is a scarcity of these same animals in the wild. Rather, these animals were either infrequently bred or not at all, when their respective countries of origin : : disallowed exportation of their wildlife to the U.S.! When I hear any breeder discouraging others from producing their own hybrid. I become very suspicious and annoyed. These same individuals try to explain to me that I would be eroding away the original integrity of that species. I would dilute its gene pool, by out crossing it with some other species. I guess I’m confused. I didn’t think that we were splicing genes to create a new life form! My philosophy is more pragmatic. If you can combine any two snakes and they produce offspring capable of replicating themselves, then they are significantly similar in genetics. This seems like a byproduct of evolution(albeit in an artificially produced environment and introduction system). I can not cross a King Cobra with an Anaconda(to produce the largest venomous snake in the world)because they are not significantly similar in their genetics.Try as we might, nature oftentimes thwarts man’s dabbling in species mixing, by creating sterile progeny (mules). : : Let’s not overlook, that none of our reptiles(since we are not working with endangered animals) are intended or should be reintroduced into their native(wild)habitats. : : Releasing captive bred or maintained reptiles into the wild may do more harm than good(i.e., introducing the existing wild populations to new diseases that they may not be able to defend against). Thus if you shouldn’t return any of your animals into their native habitat, how are you damaging the gene pool of the existing (pure) reptiles out there? You simply have no : : effect on them, atleast not negatively. Infact, by producing more vividly colored reptiles than what can be found in the wild, will undeniably reduce the desire to collect from the wild. So who really cares why anybody is working with hybrid reptiles? Oftentimes those who care are, elitists (zoo keepers, museum caretakers), self serving capitalistic breeders trying to eliminate the competion(you), or just plain ignorant individuals. : : Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not against anyone who wants to and only produces just plain old common corns (whatever that is anymore, can anyone remember what they used to look like?) or Gray bands (some of which were collected south of neck-road just left of the broken beer bottle, a 44 oz. I believe). These people go about their business without so much as a whimper(they are likely to be speechless anyhow). But the preaching overbearing : : orthodox Breeder, who condescends my decision to work with hybrids is a HYPOCRITE. I’ve recently learned that a zoo accidentally produced hybrid offspring from a cross between : : a Morelia viridis and a Morelia spilota(maybe cheynei I’m not sure). If they followed their own preaching(zoo’s aren’t breeding to create new species), then all of those juveniles : : should have destroyed. Instead these snakes were sold to a self proclaimed famous breeder, for what I would gather to be a good deal of money. I love this country! : : : Sincerely, : : : : I've enjoied reading your letter because I breed fence swifts that are not your big [any for that matter] money herps. : I like them so I breed them. Igor

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