Texas Blue Spiny Lizards-- will pay top $$$$

[GSC]

I'm needing a group of Texas Blue Spiny lizards- endemic to South Texas. Sceloporus serrifer cyanogenys They are a live bearing species.

I am willing to purchase one male (already have one) and up to 5 or 6 females.

Please email me at gcriglow@gmail.com with sizes,sexes and prices.

Thanks,
Graham

[SpontaneousOld]

You live right there! I'd go hunt them myself, net, set traps oh yeah I'd catch a few.

[ReptileNewbie]

I have about 12 blue spiny with a mixture of slightly different color patterns. mannyagm713@gmail.com is the email, check out my recent and only post.!

[Bonnie K.]

Hi Reptile Newbie...

I sent you another message to your e-mail address.

Bonnie K.

[Socratic Monologue]

Hey Bonnie K, you're emailing a resident of Mexico, a country that does not allow exports of their wildlife, and you're in the US, a country that has strong federal laws against importing animals illegally.

[Bonnie K.]

But should've. Red tape everywhere these days. I guess that the same lizard species in each country is verboten. Maybe I could persuade them to cross the Rio Grande. I still have feelers out, having been to Laredo three times in the past with hunt permits until I finally caught a female for my existing male in 2014. She had babies the next year...Jack and Jill. Jack passed away on Labor Day of this year. Jill is pining. Anyway, I met a few good folks down there. Some are looking for me...on this side of the border.

[Socratic Monologue]

Red tape everywhere these days. I guess that the same lizard species in each country is verboten.

Yeah, pesky wildlife laws. Sheesh.

FWIW, the Lacey Act is over 100 years old, and ESA almost fifty, so there's nothing 'these days' about protecting native wildlife populations. It isn't just the species, either -- Mexico simply doesn't permit export of native WC animals, and hasn't since about 1990 or thereabouts.

[Bonnie K.]

any Sceloporus serrifer cyanogenys? I see that you are a dealer. And I had heard of the Lacey Act, but dealt with only reputable pet shops and dealers in the past. Next March, I will have kept lizards for 50 years, having gotten my first two, (Green anoles), for my eighteenth birthday. I've been mostly dealing with "my charges" over the years on the medical side of things... using homeopathic medicine for them, and also a bit of laser acupuncture. Between my veterinarian and myself, Jack, (the one I'd mentioned in my last post), was kept alive for years using alternative methods of care. The years passed quickly, and he finally died of "old age." But back to my point. Obtaining reptiles was a lot different back then. We had small, privately owned pet shops in my area that dealt primarily with exotics only. I practically lived at "Butch's Fishnet" for years, buying animals on occasion, and food, and books. These places are gone...replaced by the "PetSmarts," etc. Underpaid kids, with very little knowledge, and no passion for their charges. Even the reptiles only get a small endcap display. It's a shame. And the variety of animals in the "herp world" is no longer with us. I went to a "Repticon" recently. I could've had 10,000 "designer" beardies, or geckoes, but no Sceloporus whatsoever. I'd been "in the bush" hunting for Sceloporus. It's not easy. Have the breeders and dealers just gotten a bit "lazy," offering only a few easily-bred animals? By the way, I can remember when Australian beardies were not sent to this country either. It's just a shame that there is very little variety in the reptile world anymore.

[Socratic Monologue]

I'm a breeder, not a dealer. No, I don't breed that species.

No idea what you're talking about in regards to species availability. You won't get a good idea of availability by going to a Repticon, though, that's for sure. There are many more herp species available than in past decades (but see next paragraph) -- well, captive bred ones that are going to live, anyway. Many of the frog species, many (most?) of the gecko species, many of the less-common turtles that will soon be extinct because of the hobby -- those are all fairly new additions to captivity, and are being bred by people who are far from lazy.

Bearded dragons weren't exported, they were smuggled, as were all the other AU species in the trade.