DNA collection by the D.E.C

[Waterrat]

Sdaji, you seem to be putting lot of emphasis on "killing snakes" by the public. Do you see that as a real problem affecting snake conservation? I would have thought that number one threat is land clearing / development, number two; road traffic, number three: the indiscriminate use of chemicals in pest control and very lastly: poaching.
Public education is very important but I really think that the number of people reaching out for stick to kill a snake is totally insignificant.

 

[Sdaji]

Sdaji, you seem to be putting lot of emphasis on "killing snakes" by the public. Do you see that as a real problem affecting snake conservation? I would have thought that number one threat is land clearing / development, number two; road traffic, number three: the indiscriminate use of chemicals in pest control and very lastly: poaching.
Public education is very important but I really think that the number of people reaching out for stick to kill a snake is totally insignificant.

I agree entirely, I don't think that Joe Average putting a shovel through the neck of every snake he sees is going to have a big impact on populations, except maybe in a few isolated areas. I was responding to Moosenoose's post, which I thought implied that Joe Average's shovel probably does more damage to snake populations than Joe Reptile Keeper, which I'd say is true. Obviously those two put together are nothing compared to some of the other problems.

I would say the big two are introduced species and habitat destruction. Everything else is tiny in comparison to the big two. Road traffic is probably hundreds of times worse than poaching and if it's not hundreds of times worse it's thousands, but still it's nothing compared to introduced species and land clearance/habitat loss. The heavy use of chemicals is largely restricted to areas which have already been converted to agriculture or urban usage, although I suppose you could call it a threat because developed land can support reptile populations, and chemicals still probably kill more snakes than blokes with shovels.

Moosenoose might have been thinking more in terms of public opinion having more far reaching affects than simply bloked whacking snakes to death. If the public wants to whack snakes to death, they have a mentality which is not likely to lead to them saying "Gee, I think I'll oppose the building of that new shopping center, because there is a valuable population of snakes which lives on that land". If we were to say "Please oppose this development, save the snakes" they would respond with "Clear the land now so all those bloody snakes can die ASAP!". It's people who make the decision to destroy habitat or introduce new species, or to protect land or wipe out exotic species. Because of that, public education is more valuable than simply stopping a few guys from whacking the odd snake.

 

[Waterrat]

Ditto.

I think we are all waiting for more news from Dave - very interesting events happening in the Wild West.

 

[stencorp69]

I can see some real positives from DNA records particularly in WA. It is possible Dave Pearson and other may use the information for research purposes of Woma and Olives. This information will be availalble under FOI at a later date.

It would be good to know the motivations for the testing to help facilitate DEC and build a partnership between them and the hobby. WAHS has a meeting with DEC tomorrow so I'll raise it with Gordon Wire and see if we can get some clarification.

SW

 

[carpetmuncher]

any news on the seizure, c'mon 80 animals must be the record bust and dec aren't bragging about it. what is going on!

 

[hardcorey007]

My first thought when I saw that this was being done to BHP's was because they are trying to prevent people claiming that they have bred albino BHP's when indeed they were smuggeled into the country. I think it is a fair statement that some of the albino and\or het BHP's have already been smuggled into the country. So I believe there will be posts in the near future along the lines of 'wow look what popped out in this clutch of BHP's that I produced'. If they have a DNA line they can at least prove or disprove these cases. The more generations of DNA they have the harder it is to slip in smuggled animals. Same goes for any other smuggled in morphs. Jags are another example. I guess their only concern then is from people who are allowed to collect from the wild because they can smuggle, or have animals smuggled on their behalf, and say they collected them from the wild. It's pretty hard to prove other wise because they can't DNA the parents.

This theory was however blown out of the water when I re-read the post and saw that they sampled Womas too. ***Maybe the womas are a smoke screen****OH conspiracy theory*** LOL

 

[Jonno from ERD]

My first thought when I saw that this was being done to BHP's was because they are trying to prevent people claiming that they have bred albino BHP's when indeed they were smuggeled into the country. I think it is a fair statement that some of the albino and\or het BHP's have already been smuggled into the country. So I believe there will be posts in the near future along the lines of 'wow look what popped out in this clutch of BHP's that I produced'. If they have a DNA line they can at least prove or disprove these cases. The more generations of DNA they have the harder it is to slip in smuggled animals. Same goes for any other smuggled in morphs. Jags are another example. I guess their only concern then is from people who are allowed to collect from the wild because they can smuggle, or have animals smuggled on their behalf, and say they collected them from the wild. It's pretty hard to prove other wise because they can't DNA the parents.

This theory was however blown out of the water when I re-read the post and saw that they sampled Womas too. ***Maybe the womas are a smoke screen****OH conspiracy theory*** LOL

There are way too many animals in captivity and loopholes in the law to guard against the "legalisation" of imported native morphs.

 

[CodeRed]

My first thought when I saw that this was being done to BHP's was because they are trying to prevent people claiming that they have bred albino BHP's when indeed they were smuggeled into the country. I think it is a fair statement that some of the albino and\or het BHP's have already been smuggled into the country. So I believe there will be posts in the near future along the lines of 'wow look what popped out in this clutch of BHP's that I produced'. If they have a DNA line they can at least prove or disprove these cases. The more generations of DNA they have the harder it is to slip in smuggled animals. Same goes for any other smuggled in morphs. Jags are another example. I guess their only concern then is from people who are allowed to collect from the wild because they can smuggle, or have animals smuggled on their behalf, and say they collected them from the wild. It's pretty hard to prove other wise because they can't DNA the parents.

This theory was however blown out of the water when I re-read the post and saw that they sampled Womas too. ***Maybe the womas are a smoke screen****OH conspiracy theory*** LOL

There are albino womas too , but I dont think thats the reason behind it all

 

[moosenoose]

I'm not sure why you said "Sdaji will have a fit".

Because I could imagine this case scenario if they dropped in to visit you …and before you mention that quarantine issues shouldn’t be taken lightly, I’m not actually disagreeing with you :lol:

Moosenoose might have been thinking more in terms of public opinion having more far reaching affects than simply bloked whacking snakes to death. If the public wants to whack snakes to death, they have a mentality which is not likely to lead to them saying "Gee, I think I'll oppose the building of that new shopping center, because there is a valuable population of snakes which lives on that land". If we were to say "Please oppose this development, save the snakes" they would respond with "Clear the land now so all those bloody snakes can die ASAP!". It's people who make the decision to destroy habitat or introduce new species, or to protect land or wipe out exotic species. Because of that, public education is more valuable than simply stopping a few guys from whacking the odd snake.

You are correct here Sdaji; I probably didn’t word it all that well (but maybe I sort of did as you’ve summed it up in the paragraph above).

I am talking about the “overall” problems for reptiles in the sense of the bigger picture. These bodies are trying to control one tiny aspect of people who are generally all for the conservation of these animals (admittedly a minority out there are exploiting it), but here they are prepared to potentially “soft-target” various keepers and breeders and throwing what appears to be expensive resources at a lesser problem. It’s like (in my opinion) someone erecting a large expensive sign that says “reptiles, please look before crossing the road” and banging that on an 8 lane freeway and saying you’ve done something wonderful for conservation – pointless! Is it being done to satisfy a budget or something? Perhaps? I’d love to know the real reason behind it, but we shouldn’t expect any transparency from these people. Like driving a car, owning reptiles is a privilege, not a right. One thing you could almost bank on is the fact that this work is not being done because some “good, kind-hearted group” wants to do some investigative DNA work, this is obviously being done to check up on people and tighten the screws on the hobby.

ON the other hand, perhaps rattling a few cages is all it’s designed to do? Is that a bad thing? I can’t help always feeling a little sceptical when stuff like this goes on.

 

[AndrewHenderson]

any news on the seizure, c'mon 80 animals must be the record bust and dec aren't bragging about it. what is going on!

Pretty sure they are getting the evidence, statements and story in order before going out to the media with their balloons and party hats on....


Andrew

 

[Sdaji]

Because I could imagine this case scenario if they dropped in to visit you …and before you mention that quarantine issues shouldn’t be taken lightly, I’m not actually disagreeing with you :lol:

But why me? Seems strange. When I've had DSE staff inspect my animals I have actually offered to provide DNA samples (which as I expected, they refused because it is prohibitively expensive to do anything with them unless it involves a heavily suspected case of chondro smuggling or something). The staff were very reasonable and courteous, they gave me no reason to be any different to them, I can't see why I would have a fit.

 

[carpetmuncher]

Pretty sure they are getting the evidence, statements and story in order before going out to the media with their balloons and party hats on....


Andrew

are you sure they do it in that order? or do they have a new policy?

 

[stencorp69]

One thing you could almost bank on is the fact that this work is not being done because some “good, kind-hearted group” wants to do some investigative DNA work, this is obviously being done to check up on people and tighten the screws on the hobby.

ON the other hand, perhaps rattling a few cages is all it’s designed to do? Is that a bad thing? I can’t help always feeling a little sceptical when stuff like this goes on.

WAHS had a meeting with DEC yesterday and I bought up the DNA testing. The response from David Mel and Peter Mawson was that swabs were being taking to track progeny.

The practise was first undertaken for breeders of black cockatoos. The season previous to DNA sampling in Black Cockatoos there were 189 captive bred chicks recorded, the season after there was one. It apparently took 5 years for CB levels to get back up to pre DNA testing levels.

DEC stated motivation is similar for herps - too ensure there is an incentive to CB that is harder to circumvented by taking from the wild illegally.

SW

 

[moosenoose]

But why me? Seems strange. When I've had DSE staff inspect my animals I have actually offered to provide DNA samples (which as I expected, they refused because it is prohibitively expensive to do anything with them unless it involves a heavily suspected case of chondro smuggling or something). The staff were very reasonable and courteous, they gave me no reason to be any different to them, I can't see why I would have a fit.

You always seems overly paranoid, that's all :lol: Get over it, before you have a fit

WAHS had a meeting with DEC yesterday and I bought up the DNA testing. The response from David Mel and Peter Mawson was that swabs were being taking to track progeny.

The practise was first undertaken for breeders of black cockatoos. The season previous to DNA sampling in Black Cockatoos there were 189 captive bred chicks recorded, the season after there was one. It apparently took 5 years for CB levels to get back up to pre DNA testing levels.

DEC stated motivation is similar for herps - too ensure there is an incentive to CB that is harder to circumvented by taking from the wild illegally.

SW

Thanks Stencorp