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working with copperheads
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by copperhead812 on December 18, 2004
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i am an 18 year old fresh out of high school and starting to work with copperheads breeding and releasing the babies into the wild should i wait till i am older and know a little more about the snake or help out to get the numbers back up in southern indiana because they are a very hated snake and its rare to see one now when you are out walking in the woods
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RE: working with copperheads
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by AquaHerp on December 18, 2004
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On the contrary. The copperhead is quite common in Southern Indiana. From the Shelbyville moraines (about Martinsville) on down to the Ohio river the Northern copperhead is rather plentiful throughout the unglaciated areas. I'll grant you that they are indeed not very popular, but then again, most venomous species aren't.
The problem I see you getting in to is two-fold. Number one is the law. In Indiana, the law regarding venomous snakes, and those that are native, is pretty strict. Any Northern copperheads that you would want to breed would have to have come directly from Indiana, so you would have to be able to have all of the proper permits and keep within Indiana's guidelines for breeding venomous snakes. Even the, I am almost 100% positive that it would be illegal to release the offspring into the wild. I have a friend who's a CO there I will ask again, bit I can almost assure you on the legality part.
Secondly is the biological part. Although the thought of breeding animals and releasing them back into the wild may sound wonderful, it is not always as simple as it seems. First of all, one must consider why is an animal species in need of replenishing? Habitat destruction? If so, then will replenishing them do anything more than simply add more to be destroyed along with the habitat? If there is no habitat, why would more animals help? Is it because of disease knocked back much of the population? Then would adding more only help to spread the disease further to more isolated populations? Are the number thin because of a natural swing in the bell curve of predator/prey relations? If so, then would disrupting that only bring about more serious consequences down the line? As you can see, there are so many variable to consider when thinking about simply tossing animals back into the wild because we think they are becoming scarce. Yet perhaps the biggest issue is that of unregulated and unchecked reintroductions and translocations of animals. These are the ones that have the potential to cause far more devastating damage to animal populations. All it takes is one animal to be released with a foreign disease, or a resistant strain of virus or bacteria, or even a weak or recessive bloodline that could cause a chain of events in the wild that would severely damage or even potentially wipe out an entire wild population. It really does not matter how careful we think we are, as we all know, we lose snake all the time to unknown causes in our home collections...all it takes is one. One little neonate copperhead with a hidden virus released into the hill of Southern Indiana could be the down fall of a quarter of the population by the time its done. Don't kid yourself into thinking that it couldn't happen. Just look at the scourge of Mycoplasma in the Desert tortoises in the Mojave.
Trust me, I wouldn't worry too much about the copperhead population in Indiana. They are doing well. As far as their popularity, now there’s something that you could definitely work on. As well, there are plenty of species in Indiana that are in need of help that you can get involved with in other fashions to help out. There's a million ways to do your part. Just do it logically, and legally. Good luck.
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RE: working with copperheads
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by bush_viper17 on December 18, 2004
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I would try to educate locals about the snakes. That does seem like a good to release them into the wild but in the long run it would have serious consequences. And if they breed with the wild populations their genetics would be altered.
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