Re: The Need for Subspecies

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: : : : : This is to Dave Beamer and everybody else that has been following this forum, : Realistically, it does not matter what laws Indiana pass or what laws or regulations any other agency passes. People are going : to collect, keep and sell what ever they want to. There is no possible way that anyone can stop a significant amount of these : activities. The more regulations that are passed, the more people just keep quiet and become a "basement herper". What I : mean by this is that hobbyists will just not be so open about what they do. I have seen this trend happening for the past 10 : years. The more regulated this hobby gets, the more isolationist we become. No law has slowed down these activitites, they : have just caused it to go underground. I am not defending the scum that rape the wild for profit and get away with it constantly. : I am talking about the people that(for example) live in these states(not Indiana) where you can't legally collect a pine snake or a : box turtle because "all native wildlife is protected". You can kill them with a shovel, run them over with a car or build your : house or store on the habitat but you can't keep one as a pet. Ya right!!!!!! I can't stand the unbelievible red tape involved in : keeping "endangered species". A few states are fair with this process, but most are unbelievible. ( Example) Florida I know a : woman who raised 8 gopher tortoises from eggs. She got these from "legal" adults. These tortoises are now 11 years old. They : can be bred next year. She went to the state and asked what she could do with the hatchlings. She is not interested in selling : them( good). They told her that she cannot release them because of the disease potential( that's a good reason too). She : knows a few people in the northern states who would love to be able to get their hands on some so they could raise them too. : The state refuses to allow her to give them to people out of state. In fact, they suggested that she had them surgically altered so : that they cannot breed. What kind of BS is this. If this woman has legal gopher tortoises and spent eleven years raising them : and does not want to sell them but give them away, then what is the problem. The state of Florida has allowed thousands of : these tortoises to be killed due to habitat loss. What about the countless hundreds that perish on local highways each year. : These animals are not wild caught, they were captive bred, captive born and captive raised. These have no tie, at all, with wild : populations. Why, why, why? Their reasoning probably has something to do with, " Well, if we allow these tortoises to be kept : out of state or in the private sector then they will be subject to commercialization". Gee, I wonder how many of these things : walk out(let's say drive out) of Florida each year. Most people are not even aware of the laws, yet obey them. Like there is : not a market on these already, especially overseas. I wonder is the main concern for protecting(concerving) reptiles and : amphibians because of non-game biodiversity or does it simply have to do with the amount of money that can be made by the : hobbyists? I have a solution, if an animal is really in trouble of dying out then do not allow the sale of that species at all and : allow people to breed them and disperse them at will. The people that really care for them will keep them and those that were : only in it for the money that can be made from a rare animal will no longer be interested. Oh ya, people are going to do : wahtever they want anyway. How about if I gave you some picta from eastern Illinois, south central Illinois, and central Ohio. In the range maps of Ernst, Lovich and Barbour no attempt is even made to map subspecies range as the whole thing is futile and uninformative. Though there may have been more than one species in this genus in the past it is clear that they now have the same evolutionary fate. If the genus becomes divided in the future and there is speciation I am sure the future herpetologists will be glad to change their taxonomic status. : : Dave Beamer

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