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Posted by John Cherry/Cherryville Farms on August 22, 2001 at 13:46:36:
In Reply to: stop collecting posted by toby demetrovich on August 21, 2001 at 23:52:54:
Toby,
I read your post and wanted to respond to give you some different points of view. Here goes, first let me make clear that I personally have not taken anything from the wild in the last 7 years with the exception of a female trans pecos rat a friend needed for new blood in his colony of subocs.
With that said though, I would like you to consider the following:
1. The area of Texas you are talking about is very wide open ( covering 100's of square miles ) and in most cases privately owned.
2. Access to the general public is denied by most private landowners.
3. The animals that are collected are generally collected from Rock cuts etc. on road beds that represent way less than 1% of the range avalible to these animals.
4. As far as decimation of the natural resource, there never has been any studies done that in anyway indicated that this type of collecting is going to in any way destroy or adversely affect the wild populations of these animals.
5. The best news is that the type of road cut collecting that is most productive for these animals does not destroy the habitat like some types of collection. ( Habitat destruction is the most common plight/killer of wild populations of any type animal).
With all that said, I don't have any plans on taking any wild caught animals into my collection any time in the near future. But I would defend the right of the general public to utilize wild populations as long as it is a sustainable harvest and causes no negative effects on the wild population of whatever animal we are talking about. Additionally, I wish everyone could experience the thrill of seeing the animals we keep in the natural habitat they come from. Hopefully they will realize that captive born animals are much better pets and breeders and purchase those instead of massive wild collecting binges. But if the individual sees fit to take a few animals and it does not hurt the wild population, so be it. I will not have a problem with it. An alterna viewed in Val Verde county is a far cry from the same color morph alterna in a deli cup at a herp show. I intend to assist my grandchildren in having that thrill prior to allowing them to keep any of my captive borns animals to further the respect I think the animals deserve.
take care,
John Cherry
Cherryville Farms
