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Posted by patricia sherman on August 12, 2002 at 22:33:29:
In Reply to: I\'m with you, Tricia (on culling animals)... posted by Gerry Binczik on August 12, 2002 at 10:43:47:
:When an undesirable heritable trait appears in a captive animal population, the best course of action is to ruthlessly test for it and cull those carrying the trait from the breeding population.
It well may be the best course of action, but is it the course that breeders will take? Dealing with it from a strictly scientific standpoint, it is undoubtedly what has to be done. But, there's an emotional factor involved in this. Many breeders have a tremendous love for their animals, and would find themselves unable to cull by destroying the offspring. It is a drastic step, and can be heart-wrenching. Having bred show-dogs, and other livestock, in the past, I've had to confront this dilemma. With dogs and cats, there's always the option of neutering the progeny, so that they may be sold as pets without any worry of them perpetuating the problem. With our snakes, that really isn't a practical option.
:And the sooner begun the better for all concerned.
I rather doubt that it is going to happen, at least not any time soon. In the first place, I don't think is perceived by most as being a real problem. In the second place, I doubt there are enough breeders out there that feel as strongly about adhering to the scientific principles as you feel about it. I can applaud those that decide not to breed from carriers, but I can't do anything to prevent others from breeding them. It is a free-market economy, and as long as there's a demand, there'll be production. Not all buyers are informed enough to even ask about whether or not an animal carries undesireable hidden recessives. Euthanizing carrier progeny is an action only likely to be practiced if buyers are willing to pay a premium for livestock guaranteed free of the recessive. I'm not sure that the buyers would pay for it. It would certainly be an expensive project for a breeder, to subject every one of his potential breeding stock animals to a test-mating of which 100% of the progeny would have to be destroyed, and at the same time postponing production of saleable progeny for another year.
:Likewise the animal being tested if it turns out to indeed be a carrier.
This is even harder to envision as ever happening. Having kept an animal for several years, raised it from hatchling to breeder, how likely is it that the owner of that animal will then destroy it because it doesn't pass the test-breeding? Methinks, very few would destroy it.
:Two things have really begun to bother me:
:1) The tremendous overproduction which seems to be occurring.
Is it overproduction, so long as there's a market for the offspring? This is a hobby that is still in its infancy, when you compare it to the breeding of many other pet species. Until the buyers become more demanding of higher quality product, there'll be continued production of anything and everything that may sell for a few bucks.
:2) Hand-in-hand with the above, I've never heard of anyone actually culling snakes from a breeding population, for ANY cause (though this may just be a function of the species I'm familiar with, or of folks' unwillingness to openly discuss it).
I do wonder about that. Is there anyone posting here that does cull? If so, why is is not discussed? Does culling have to involve euthanizing?
:It's not my intention to upset or offend anyone. But I worry about the future of this hobby sometimes, and I decided that if I was going to write on this subject at all then I wanted to try to get through to people, some of whom I fear have their heads buried rather deeply in the aspen chips.
Whether or not you intended it, I suspect that your post has offended others. None of us likes to be the objective of the pointing finger of blame.
Tricia
