Thoughts on intentionally breeding intergrades?
 

I have never been a fan of the man made hybrids and wouldn't personally go there. I've never given much thought to an intentional intergrade breeding though e.g. sayi/affinis. I'm in former L. getula range, I could easily find californiae, splendida, and nigrita on a single night of road herping. Right by my house they're very very low yellow californiae but what if I intentionally bred one of those to a nigrita?

Just curious what some of your thoughts are on this personally as well as from a breeder/ethical standpoint? I know there are some species in the hobby who have had there purity called more into question than others but I'm guessing some others (pituophis c. comes to mind) are much more common than we know.

From one perspective, it could be said to be even worse than creating hybrids, because the animal is even more likely to be mislabled down the road.

But wouldn't it stand to reason that plenty of them are already mislabled? Most specifically with the pituophis since there is a lot of overlap.

The fact that there is a problem does not make it a good idea to add to the problem. That's my opinion anyway.

I don't disagree but the fact that many of these animals were classified as the same animal to me means that at one point the question I'm asking was no problem so it's likely the captive population is a reflection of that. I guess my question is mostly about the less obvious lines relating to natural populations of animals.

I'm all about the Localities and the need in the future to preserve them while so many morphs continue to muddy the waters and marketing worsens the issue further nowadays. I detest crossbreeding as well. However, when localities or integrades overlap one could argue also that it could and may well be happening in the wild. I would still say preserve the intergrades and localities as much as possible.