Re: Rerelease

Posted by Bill C. on December 27, 2001 at 13:04:16:

In Reply to: Rerelease posted by David on December 23, 2001 at 10:53:53:

When indigos became officially protected in FL in '79, Game & Fish adopted a very tough line on possession/breeding of eastern indigos, i.e. if you were someone as well known as Ross Allen, Bill Haast or George Van Horn , they'd consider it; if not - forget it. There was a breeding project several years ago that Wayne Hill and Curt Harbsmeier of the Central FL Herp Society almost got off the ground; their intent was more towards producing offspring that would be donated to herp educators (like me) to use for classroom and civic presentations. Oh well .. The main problem, in my view, with releasing captive-born indigos is the lack of contiguous habitat to support adequate home territories. There are areas in north Florida and the panhandle that might qualify, but give the slash-and-burn developers a few years and they'll take care of THAT. One possibility is to find rural residential and agricultural developments that are big enough, educate the property owners as to how beneficial indigos are (the fact that they eat venomous herps is a real selling point), get the owners to agree not to kill them on sight, and hope for the best.

: Does anyone know of any institution in Florida (hopefully) or elsewhere that is breeding Indigos for release into the wild?

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: When indigos became officially protected in FL in '79, Game & Fish adopted a very tough line on possession/breeding of eastern indigos, i.e. if you were someone as well known as Ross Allen, Bill Haast or George Van Horn , they'd consider it; if not - forget it. There was a breeding project several years ago that Wayne Hill and Curt Harbsmeier of the Central FL Herp Society almost got off the ground; their intent was more towards producing offspring that would be donated to herp educators (like me) to use for classroom and civic presentations. Oh well .. The main problem, in my view, with releasing captive-born indigos is the lack of contiguous habitat to support adequate home territories. There are areas in north Florida and the panhandle that might qualify, but give the slash-and-burn developers a few years and they'll take care of THAT. One possibility is to find rural residential and agricultural developments that are big enough, educate the property owners as to how beneficial indigos are (the fact that they eat venomous herps is a real selling point), get the owners to agree not to kill them on sight, and hope for the best. : : Does anyone know of any institution in Florida (hopefully) or elsewhere that is breeding Indigos for release into the wild?

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