Oklahoma state law issues

State Homepage - http://www.state.ok.us/

State Legislature - http://www.lsb.state.ok.us/

State Statutes/Code - http://www.lsb.state.ok.us/

State Wildlife Dept. - www.wildlifedepartment.com

From the wildlifedepartment.com webisite it seems you need a liscense to breed reptiles even if for non-commercial purposes.

Well I don't have a problem with that, but it says that all breeding stock must be PURCHASED. So does that mean I can't breed my legally wild caught Treefrogs? Does that mean I can't go to ,say florida, and catch some non-native anoles to breed in OK.?

To get around this could I give my breeding stock to someone and then buy it back from them to get the proper reciepts?

Whats the sense in paying someone for wild-caught animals anyway ( when you can easily obtain them yourself)?

Well he said I need a Permit to breed ( I told him I knew that already). He said I could breed them. He also said to keep the paper work, but I don't have any. Well If I get in trouble at least I'll have the email.

Oklahoma State Wildlife Department officials are only concerned about herps which are native to Oklahoma. So, if you breed boas, pythons, tortoises and other non-natives, they do not concern themselves with your activity as it does not fall within their purview of law enforcement. It's also danged near impossible to get clear and consistant answers concerning native species for any snakes other than rattlesnakes. It's only been in the past couple of years that they've made any effort at all to address these questions at all and even so they can't seem to get their act together worth a darn. I breed corn snakes (non-native to OK) and looked into the breeding license since they are somewhat related to black rats and the Texas rat which are native and was told that it isn't needed.

As I once considered field collecting (with a legal huning license) and breeding a few quality animals I began the inquiry process to make certain that I would remain legal. I used their state regs on the issue which said that I'd be legal to "take" reptiles. I was informed that even with their "breeder's license" and proper records of breeding that it would be illegal for me to keep or sell any of these snakes and/or sell the offspring. And that came from a dept. official in Oklahoma City. However, my local game wardens said that the response was full of nonsense as it was obviously contradictory to the written and distributed statements. (BTW, the local game officials have seen our collection first-hand and came to pick up a large alligator snapper that was dropped off a few years ago because they're a protected species here and know what we keep, breed and sell.)

The best, and easiest, thing to do for people living in Oklahoma is to steer clear of native species unless you can get air-tight documentation of them being captive born elsewhere. However, it was made clear that unless it's a rattlesnake they really don't want to mess with hearing about it. Oh, unless you are caught collecting a mess of box turtles to take out of state to sell like somebody about 7 or 8 years ago who was caught with a pick-up full headed out to California...this made a small blurb on the news and was pushed aside quickly...his real crime according to the regs at that time was not possessing a vaid hunting license, breeding permit and the animals he was looking to sell weren't rattlesnakes.

You can keep asking questions of officials at the state office for weeks and months (I dare you to do so and keep records of their replies along with a copy of current regs as distributed to the public) and you won't get consistent answers or answers which correspond to the regs as you see them.

David