Inbreeding

[Eric East]

I posted this on the other forum too.

With the limited gene pool we have been given to work with I realize it is going to be tough to know for sure if we are inbreeding our couperi. However, I believe that we have a responsibility to avoid this in order to preserve these snakes in captive populations.

Our (i'm not breeding yet) captive breeding efforts in my opinion are the single most important thing we can do to preserve these awesome creatures, even more so than conservation.

I have 1.2 easterns, all obtained from the same breeder but, the male is from different (unrelated??) parents. I strongly believe that this is the best way to go for now, until we get a stud book up on line.

I don't want to step on any toes or make any enemies here but, I would like to see you all (I know I will) make every attempt to avoid selling sibling pairs to people to avoid the temptation to breed them together.
Most but certainly not all people who obtain a pair WILL breed that pair together, siblings or not. WE CAN NOT ALLOW THIS!!!

Thanks for listening & I look forward to reading your replies.

Eric

[thesnakeman]

I saw the conversation on this subject on the old forum, and I really wanted to jump in, but I'm no longer allowed. If you scroll down about 8 or 9 threads below this one to the thread entitled "scale anomaly" , you will see that I tried to get such a conversation going here. I think the picture is proof positive. So do me a favor, and post over there, for those guys to bring it back over here!

I am glad you mentioned this. I tried to open this can before, but did not get a very good response. I very much agree that we need to protect the captive gene pool by being selective about what we sell, to who. I am all for the stud book, and a DNA data base. I would be more than willing to paricipate.

This does raise another issue however, and that is the issue for funding. I would be willing to donate. And I think we need to formaly put together some type of private institution and foundation for the protection, propagation, conservation, education, and research of indigos. And to lobby for changes in the current laws to allow people in all states to posess, breed, and sell captive bred/born indigos. This institution should not be an exclusive click, or eleatest club, rather a grass roots organization which welcomes all who love the Indigo. It should focus only on the indigo.

The current laws only make it more difficult for breeders to exchange breeding stock interstate, and make it more likely for people to go out and catch one from the wild, and less likely for someone to diversify. I will be attending the upcoming meeting of PARC. So will Jeff S. I hope to see you there as well. I'd like very much to discuss this in detail.

But back to the issue at hand. I think there is some deffinate inbreeding going on out there. And I think I have shown a picture of the proof in the aformentioned post. Go back to the index and check it out. Then get some others over here to take a look. I anxiously await all input!
T.

[epidemic]

Hello Tony / Eric,

I suppose you are both now aware of the project I attempted to put together regarding P. ruthveni, if you have read the thread, to this regard, on the "other" forum.
While I respect the opinions of everyone else, I must say, I was dismayed that a "professional" herpetologist indicated he believed there was no need for DNA analysis to effectively manage the captive gene pool, regarding D. couperi.
Being an academic biologist / herpetologist, I believe his view to be the minority opinion among such colleagues; as such a view seems very short-sighted.
If there are to be viable specimens within the private sector 20 years down the road, then there needs to be a lot of work done, within the very near future, to diversify captive husbandry projects as much as possible.
Anyone who does not see the point of such a project, need look only as far as the AZA, as they will describe the inherent problems, as incurred by zoological institutions nationwide, when working with a finite gene pool of any captive species.
Also, our cohorts in Europe are already experiencing a host of systematic anomalies, believed to be the side effect of captive inbreeding..

Best regards,

Jeff Snodgres