Anophthalmia (anophthalmos) is a condition that means one or both eyes didn’t form during the early stages of feotal development. There are three classifications for this condition.
Primary anophthalmia is a complete absence of eye tissue due to a failure of the part of the brain that forms the eye.
In secondary anophthalmia the eye starts to develop and for some reason stops, leaving the infant with only residual eye tissue or extremely tiny eyes which can only be seen under close examination.
In degenerative anophthalmia the eye started to form and, for some reason, degenerated. One reason for this occurring could be a lack of blood supply to the eye.
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I don't breed snakes but I do breed tortoises. I have seen the issue of the no eyed turtles being brought up . In fact there is a company on the web, turtlesale.com that actually breeds no eyed turtles specifically so they can overprice them and sell them as oddities. Stevie the no eyed red eared slider was a genetic throwback due to inbreeding of the red eared slider population that the person was dealing with. He was at first the only one and not up for sale, he was a mascot. Then there were so many requests to buy Stevie that the owner began breeding him with siblings. The result? 20% no eyed hatchling rate. I really feel that intentionally breeding a genetically defective animal and selling it for a profit simply because it's a genetic anomaly is despicable. I've seen no eyed sulcata tortoises end up being sold both as special needs animals and as genetic freaks.
I'd like to step back for a moment and address that the scrub in question is in fact 5 years old and must be feeding normally to have lived so long, but it makes me wonder if there were others in the clutch that were hatched so and if they ended up dying because they starved to death. Also was this supposedly captive born scrub force fed for his first months until he could figure out where and what the food was? You see I am very curious about this because what has been noted in the eyeless turtles is that there is a 99% mortality rate on unassisted care of these poor deformed turtles. They have to be force fed in order to remain healthy because they can not see their food. Most reptiles rely on visual acuity in order to find their food. While there are those that have the additional advantage of heat detection I do not believe this is enough for an animal to distinguish food sources. I know that turtles have no such advantage.
Some say it is cruel to euthanize such an animal. I tend to disagree. With a human there is some form of communication, you can explain what is going on and guide that person to compensation for being blind. But how can you explain to an animal such as a snake that it is blind and must rely on other senses to find it's way around and find food. You can not put food in front of it and expect it to realize that you are trying to feed it. What kind of life is it to force one's mouth open every feeding and have something shoved down your throat? What kind of life is it to remain fearful anytime your cage is invaded by something you can't see. If even a rock is moved once the animal has acclimated itself it can cause pain bumping into things. Even the acclimatization process for such an animal can result in harm. Biting at heat lamps, bumping into sharp objects, falling from branches or rocks. OR the alternative, sitting in the middle of a cage never moving because it can't see where to go, slowly atrophying muscles. You want to bring god into this picture? because even god (if you believe in such) and/or nature has provided the means to end suffering, it is only humans that prolong such atrocities. Now you have this creature that has survived at the hands of humans and NOW it is in a position that it can pass on this horrible deformity to its young.
How many will die of starvation or infection from repeated injuries? How many will be purchased as oddities and left to fend for itself and die a horrible death? And how many more will live and pass on the gene to other offspring, perpetuating the suffering and cruelty that only humans are capable of inducing.This isn't a pretty color, this isn't a cool pattern in the scales, this isn't albinoism or melanism, this is a severe deformity which can lead to suffering for the animal. How is it that people can rant and rave about saving an unborn fetus because it is cruelty to deprive it of life and yet there is no compassion to end the suffering of a simple animal. It is compassion that is supposed to separate humans from the animal world and yet it seems the animal kingdom has more compassion when it comes to euthanasia.
Would I euthanize a blind hatchling? Absolutely. Not just because it might one day breed, but because I would never want to see an animal suffer the way humans make even their own species suffer. It it unethical to produce and sell deformed animals for profit? Absolutely.
Rachel Puckett
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to see its food? lol