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Postby froot » Tue Oct 10, 2006 11:13 pm

You hit the nail on the head Kynan. In my opinion that was well said. In the USA roadcruising is not a mortal sin as far as I know and yet there is no panic about the wellbeing of their snake populations barring habitat destruction. (Correct me if I'm wrong about this)

Think about it, what percentage of our countries surface area is taken up by tarred surfaces, on which the animals that choose to lie on can be considered roadkill anyway. If we all get in our cars and drive those roads permenantly, purposefully aiming at any living thing in front of us there is no way we will even remotely dent wild reptile population status's. This whole thing is totally devoid of logic.

These guys should have been shot on sight.


Once again another gross emotional overshoot.
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Postby Jev001 » Tue Oct 10, 2006 11:22 pm

ok well maybe we are acting a bit harsh but the fact of the matter is you cannot do that it is illegal. I know many people catch snakes and keep them and sell them but it is illegal and you may not have been caught but they did (the government is finally actually doing somethig) But why take 17 snakes out of the bush all at once

I think i may not understand the issue that well but please feel free to correct me if I am wrong
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Postby KYNAN » Tue Oct 10, 2006 11:34 pm

The issue her is that no matter how many snakes they try and keep in the wild more of them will be killed by humans than collected by humans.time and time again methods used by hobbiests are used in emergency conservasion projects that mostly fail .let us do what we do best breed reptiles.lemme put it this way ,we would not have foriegn poachers flying half way across the world to steal a horned adder from the wild if more permits were given to us to breed and sell captive bred quility animals.Capitalism=supply and demand
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Postby Bushviper » Wed Oct 11, 2006 6:12 am

This is once again a story where the truth is hidden behind smoke and mirrors.

Not one of these species is rare or endangered. The same people doing work collecting for the red data book would have collected and euthanased exactly the same snakes. The project leader himself said that the number of snakes that anyone can collect without destroying habitat is so minimal that it cannot be factored into being a threat to any species, and road cruising is the least invasive collection method.

Did anyone bother to find out how many dead specimens were not "collected" during the time these guys were road cruising? Research has shown that road kills make up 70 percent of all reptiles found on the road so therefore there should have been 35 dead specimens left behind on the same roads.

The prices are once again this age old problem of "street value" used by incompetent officials to try and bolster their value to employers. Horned adders do not cost more than $300 each and egg eaters and house snakes have virtually no value. Coral snakes are cheaper in Europe than what they are here, about 100 Euros. Venom from these species is not in demand and the only supplier of Bitis caudalis has never sold an entire gramme of venom in the whole time he has been extracting venom.

A good friend of mine who coincidently had horned adders, coral snakes, egg eaters and house snakes on his permits when he was murdered in cold blood, also used to go road cruising with me on occassion. Despite the cops having the name of the murderer, after 3 years they have not found any of the perpetrators, and nobody is going to jail not even for 6 years as in this case. I guess that is not important.

If those prices were used by the prosecutor to assist the magistrate to determine sentencing (which is usually what happens) then possibly on appeal these guys should look into a charge of perjury over the inflated prices. The magistrate was lied to in court about the status of the snakes and their value. If they were endangered then why have the same authorities not had them listed on CITES 1.

If the MEC has this as his 3rd biggest concern following drugs and guns then we need to really worry. Do farm murders and child rape not concern him as much.

Smells like a mixture of bull dust and scape goat!

I hope they have appealed the sentencing. This is a bloody ordinance offence, meaning what is illegal in one province is legal in certain other provinces, not a capital offence.
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Postby Snakes Incorporated » Wed Oct 11, 2006 8:59 am

I agree that we the public have some acceptable points and explanations on why things should be changed for the better but as things stand it is illegal to go around picking up wild caught reptiles for personal entertainment without the correct paperwork.

So what… if we all may have done it in the past but we must expect the consequences when or if we transgress this LAW and caught.

If the uncontrolled removal of animals from their natural habitat was encouraged due to indifferent where would we be and what can we expect will happen to the ecosystem?? :?:
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Postby Sean » Wed Oct 11, 2006 9:11 am

I agree with Kynan on this one.

The LAWS could be designed to work for both the herpers and nature.

When natural or man made disaster strikes an area and wipes out an entire species the only hope they would have of repopulation in future would be collections (if these are in zoos or in personal collections, but i think the more there are the easier it would be).

Ive seen and heared alot of back stabbing and vindictive "self Righteous" attacks by induviduals in the herping community toward other herpers lately and i can read between the lines here, just some disgruntled herper trying to make others lifes hell. Well done you have finally got it right now go join the KGB or something and do your true hobby as a job, leave the rest of the herpers alone.

If our "social democratic" (ie communist/marksist) goverment were to work together with animal enthusiasts it will problably smell to much of capitalism to them. Welcome to SA where capitalism is frowned apon.

Oh yes my mother got attacked by 2 guys yesterday that beat her senseless and stole her bag, where were the goverment then?
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Postby Snakes Incorporated » Wed Oct 11, 2006 9:28 am

my mother got attacked by 2 guys yesterday that beat her senseless and stole her bag, where were the goverment then?


Cant agree more regards the public and the government working together as this makes sense and can only be a good think. :-P

Sorry about your Mom Sean, I hope a quick recovery is in order.
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Postby Sean » Wed Oct 11, 2006 10:05 am

yea shes fine snakesinc just blue eyes, brused and petrified, sorry didnt meen to hijack forum, but there are many more things the bloody goverment can do than just trying to sensationalise stupid stories.

3 kids torture a mouse and record it on a cellphone it makes headline news for 2 days! an 80 year old woman gets raped repetedly tortured burned and killed in an 8 hour period and you are lucky to see it mentioned on etv news.
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Postby Snakes Incorporated » Wed Oct 11, 2006 10:13 am

Yea, I hear you.

Don’t pay your TV license and get three years or something silly.
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Postby Bushviper » Wed Oct 11, 2006 10:43 am

Okay guys lets get this back on track here.

Sorry to hear about your mom Sean. Hope she gets better soon.
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Postby Sean » Wed Oct 11, 2006 11:14 am

Weve all seen how stories get sensationalised by the spca, we all know how natcon love to brag and stretch the truth to breaking point and we all know the media make mountains out of molehills.

So 3 guys are in deep doodoo cause they caught a couple of snakes what can we do to help them?

I would understand if it was armadillos or sungazers but this was just another obvious attempt at getting some airtime if you ask me.
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Postby Snakes Incorporated » Wed Oct 11, 2006 12:32 pm

So 3 guys are in deep doodoo cause they caught a couple of snakes what can we do to help them?


The question is what would happen if everyone was allowed to go and pillage our wildlife for whatever reason without consequence. :roll: :?: :?:
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Postby Kouthia » Wed Oct 11, 2006 12:51 pm


If the uncontrolled removal of animals from their natural habitat was encouraged due to indifferent where would we be and what can we expect will happen to the ecosystem?? :?:


What I have never understood about this argument is why there are still shed loads of reptiles in KZN? Surely if this were true the province should be devoid of all animal life by now?

Study after study can be looked at to support the argument that collecting for the pet/hobby trade has an insignificant effect compared to habit loss/development.

In my opinion the people that should be shot SnakesINC are the developers and their corrupt counterparts in the government who grease each others palms to push these projects through not three local herpers with good intentions.

Kynan is perfectly correct. The reasons for the high prices of these animals are based on demand. Allow local breeding and exporting of CB and the demand disappears.
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Postby Snakes Incorporated » Wed Oct 11, 2006 1:26 pm

Kouthia I agree that habitat loss is the most devastating of all human endeavors so have no argument from me there, but if we add all this together it’s a catastrophe.

At the Cape the pearlemeun thieves have striped the coast so bad that they have to go into reserves to keep in business. Should we accept this and allow what is left to be taken or should we let the law take its course if the thieves are caught??: :?: :roll:
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Postby Sean » Wed Oct 11, 2006 3:01 pm

Id say looking at the bigger picture when it comes to cape aquatic life one will also see that all the fishing quotas each year are getting less and less, Im sure the perlemoen commercial Quotas also involve alot of greased palms, but yet the commercial side is still allowed... whereas when it comes to reptiles..
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