 | mobile - desktop |
|
| mobile - desktop |
|
 |
 Contact Sales! |
News & Events:
|
Posted by K.E. on October 11, 2002 at 09:09:46:
In Reply to: Re: keep digging... posted by sbogill on October 11, 2002 at 00:51:10:
::Oh, now I am delusional?? LOL. I'm not the one with the strong taste of foot in mouth right about now, eh?
:Actually foot is not half bad if served with a nice wine sauce and some fava beans. heh heh heh..
:I just seem to have a problem with someone making wild and outrageous claims without a shred of proof. I guess you don't have a problem with it. It's like I said a long time ago in a prior thread dealing with this same topic: Don't pee on me and tell me it's raining. I'm not going to buy it.
:Finding a mutant like that is a once in a lifetime occurrence (if even that). I think I remember you making the statement on one of our herp hunting expeditions that based on your own research the odds of finding an albino snake in the wild where 10,000,000 to one. I don't know where you came up with those figures, but since you are quite the researcher, I will stipulate to them for the sake of this discussion. ...and K.E. has what? 4 or 5 of them? Yeah! Right! So when it gets right down to it we are now to believe that 4 or 5 people all within the same vicinity found these mutant snakes within the time span of a few years?
:And remember, he's only going on hearsay as to the locality of them, since he didn't collect them himself. For all he ACTUALLY KNOWS they came strait from the pet shop and directly into his hands. For that matter, he admits that at least one of the DID IN FACT COME FROM A PET SHOP. All he has is the word of the individuals who "collected" them? That might be good enough for you, but third or fourth handed info is not good enough for me when dealing with a subject such as this.
:
:Basically this is a dead topic to me. I'm not going to change your mind and you're not going to change mine.
Let me think..... NO!!!
The fact that these snakes were found by people with no interest what so ever and not by some herp guy that wants his name on a paper speaks volumes for me. Also, here are the facts: 1.These snakes were found in Jefferson county Kentucky. 2. They are black rat snakes. 3. With the exception of the Amel collected in 88 and the white side that was collected in 93, the rest are the first and only of their kind. So, if you want to say that they are escaped pets the burden is on you to prove that they are. How does one go about making a calico black rat? How do you make a cowsucker that starts out white with black eyes and then turns yellow with yellow eyes? Prove to me that this is possible to do without these snakes and you may be on the way to proving that these are escaped pets if the morphs that you use were around before the years that these guys were found.
Also, I never said that any of these snakes "came from a pet shop." They all were collected in the wild. Two of them were brought to a petshop, they did not originate there. Finding mutants is not rare at all. In Meade co, KY there are albino deer, raccoons, and turkey. The Chatanooga Aquarium has an albino chain king and a melanistic copperhead. Bronx zoo has a large albino snapping turtle. Our zoo has an albino map turtle from this county as well as an albino slider. The list goes on and on. Basically, mutations are what sexual reproduction is all about. When genes are mixed you get diverse results that enable some individuals to cope with a changing environment while others fail. Without human interaction, these animals would most certainly be dead. I have noticed a growing trend recently that I would like to discuss. Talk to some Fish and Game officers and you will learn that fishing licence sales are down...way down in fact. The median age for those with hunting and fishing licenses is on a steady increase. There is a nation wide concept that it is dangerous to go outdoors with threats like West Nile virus from mosquitos and Lyme disease from tick bites. At the same time, people are spending more and more time watching their televisions inside their homes. There is a huge explosion of wildlife programs, and they are more popular than ever. It seems that people are getting their fill of nature on the couch. Obviously, TV is fake. The best educational programs do not come close to giving the educational expierience that can be obtained in nature. In my field travels I talk to locals and make observations. The more time I spend in the field, the more diversity I discover. TV babies do not get this expierience. All of these shows are about people, not wildlife. When I hear people talk about these shows I hear phrases like, "That guy is crazy!!" or "Did you see what that guy did last night?" The animals and nature in general is simply a stage. To get back to mutant rat snakes, I know people who have been contacted to provide animals for these guys to "find" in the field. The stuff is staged. It is fake. People are getting more and more disconnected with nature. They are gleaning their information from tv instead of from books, locals, and expierience. This tv information is cloudy at best. Book learning combined with field expierience and husbandry expierience will reveal bits of the natural world's reality. Disbelief in mutations that occur in our state can only come from a lack of expierience and book learning that has been combined with a deluge of misinformation that has been provided by our media. Go outdoors!! Discover the natural world!! Destroy your television, it convinces you of lies with half truths. My rat snakes are the real deal!! Never Doubt K.E.!!!
