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11-14 of 14 messages
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RE: albino copperheads
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by sceniccityreptiles on February 2, 2007
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Tj, I understand what Jamie is saying. If that place has animals that are that unique, what is the logic in not breeding them? It makes no sense what so ever. You talk like making money is an evil thing. If the Savannah project is like any other nature center I have seen, funding is always a problem. If you are going to occur the expense of keeping the snakes in the first place, why not breed them. I think the amel cane they have is a male. If they produced a litter of 10 babies off him, they could keep 2 females and sell the other 8 for enough to feed every snake on the project for over a year. Then once those females are old enough to produce, they could probably completely fund every animal on site just off those 3……or, if they are adamantly opposed to making money, why wouldn’t you breed those animals and share them with other educational facilities? I think almost any zoo or nature center would love to have an amel cane on display. Keeping exceptionally rare animals and refusing to breed them simply defies logic to me. –Chuck Hurd
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RE: albino copperheads
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by tj on February 2, 2007
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You made some excellent points, Chuck, and I can't disagree with them. I don't believe making money is a bad thing, and I do agree that other zoo's would benefit from having unique animals. Most of the time this isn't the case, though, and the dime a dollar dealers are quick to grab an animal, breed it and flood the market. Then you have the WDB's and EDB's that aren't so unique anymore. I also can't agrue with the fact that they don't want to breed them. They are an unsual animal and there are quite a few purists that want them to be unique and some that don't even like albinos, and would rather them not be available.
If they are no longer unique, then the original facility has nothing but an albino snake. Sure they may have made some money from it, but the snake isn't what it used to be. It's no longer their prized possession or a draw to see a rare animal.
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RE: albino copperheads
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by Cro on February 2, 2007
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There is this wierd attitude that some facilitys like the SRP and others seem to have concerning unique animals. They want to lock them up and keep them for themselves. Then when they die, they want to stick them in a pickle jar, and say, see, we once had an albino Canebrake Rattlesnake. I have seen this a few times happen over the years. I ran into this same attitude at Fernbank Science Center, with biologists who should have known better concerning an albino Eastern Garter Snake.
Once an animal dies, there is much less you can learn from it. If you breed it, and pass the genome along, you are providing research material for generations of researchers. It is worth the effort to pair up unique animals, if only to keep wierd abnomalitys alive so they can be studied. They do not have to reach the open market, but they should be preserved and kept going.
It would make sense to me that if you have a one in a million animal, such as an albino Canebrake Rattlesnake, you should try to pair it up, and breed it to keep the line going. There is a huge amount of scientific data that can be obtained by doing this. It really does not matter if it makes it to the public market or not, the fact that it is an unusual animal should require that these places keep the blood-line going.
I have seen incompetant scientists at FSC let lines of unique animals die, and hate to see this repeated. There is always something to be learned from keeping abbarent lines of genetics on-going.
Best Regards JohnZ
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RE: albino copperheads
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by JSargent on February 2, 2007
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thanks guys....that is all that i was trying to get out... and once they are established there is no reason not to release a few to the public...axantic neotropicals and albino easterns both originated from zoos. and their babies sold to people who took the time breeding these to make them available to guys like you and me...and why not make something for their years invested(years with new projects)...i have an albino canebreak and i will breed her,god willing,so savanna will not have the only one.i also know of two others,but the hypo cottonmouth is one of a kind as far as i know...the pic posted is 8 yrs old so they may not even have it anymore....and i don't think this place is open to the public anyway, just for students and research...i may be wrong, but i did call after i got my cane.i wanted to compare and someone told me "they weren't open to the public".....establishing these blood lines for future generations is what it is all about....not just money,heck the bottom already fell out on the snake industry.....not many people are dropplng big money on snakes anymore, unless it's something they "gotta" have... thanks again!!!!
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