Spankenstyne

Hrmm well I s'pose I'll offer up a few sacrificial babies for "the cause". My first snake breeding after more than 20 years in the hobby... Appropriately little worm & fish eating worthlessers:

Interesting... I do wonder why it took over 3 months and 12 pages of posts before an all-inclusive, anti-censorship thread inviting difference of opinion & respectful open debate is suddenly without warning being silenced under the weak argument of elitism and being exclusionary. Wouldn't pushing to exclude and silence the voices here due to disagreeing with opinion in fact be that very thing? Ironic. Stav it's your site to do as you please. You can certainly just ask us to cease and leave your site without any further word. There's no need to get into the details of what you posted, other than to say it's unfortunate if one got that view from reading the thread, even more unfortunate for anyone to feel challenged by the content. Instead I'll leave it at thanks for the invite and the use of the site for as long as it lasted. Au revoir... Last one left please turn out the lights. Don't forget to tip your waitress...

Can I still get one even if I don't feel pointed at or angry?

Interesting to see how it's going to play out. I feel pretty fortunate to live in Alberta all things considered.. It was about 25 years ago a group of respected hobbyists & academics out here saw the writing on the wall and pre-emptively got together to work with the provincial government to come up with regulations & restrictions. This is the short version of how TARAS came to be. While our regs are far from perfect, they're certainly reasonable and workable. Some of the big box folk out in BC for example scoffed at our regs for years as they essentially were unregulated (provincially anyways), and now they've come to their own broken arrow situation with some extremely restrictive regulations forced onto them. Not only have they lost the giants, crocs, and hots but also a ton of very commonly kept species. They had no voice in the process because they refused to believe it could happen. It's much tougher to change stuff after the fact than to be proactive. Sadly it appears it's a necessary evil if it cleans up the hobby some.

Happy lil blues number goes nice with the smiling avatar. Unfortunately like most great artists you'll only truly be appreciated long after the big dirtnap.

I agree, very well said rancor_. Fortunately I also live in a province where people worked with the legislators in creating the bylaws, instead of butting heads after the fact. While not perfect what we have are a very workable set of regulations. I can live with not keeping a few species I'd love to keep to be able to choose from so many alternatives. The very same points you're making (though not as well stated as yours) have been repeatedly made in regards to some situations out west here, but had long since fallen on deaf ears to the I'll keep whatever I damn well want set.

Proof that Garter snakes are cool: "It's science" - Ron Burgundy Easter ps: pps: ppps:

Another incredible photo essay, thanks for posting those. I always get a chuckle out of the lookout pose. The snow's rapidly melting out here but those kinds of shots only help fuel the fire in the meantime. Nice comparison shot with the Dekay there. That ps sure looks like Gina has been by already.

Well I was everywhere from Calgary to Medicine Hat to Lethbbridge all week and only managed to *hear* a couple of those funny short n' rubbery snakes with legs that Nir posted. No pics yet to contribute to all things Thamnophis & dirty... Nice pic(s) Nir. Happy Easter indeed:

Jon, absolutely. Don & Jeremy thanks for the synopsis. It's what I figured and although it'll irritate and anger me, I'll probably end up picking it up anyways. Thanks for the other suggestions as well Jeremy, I haven't read either of those.

I haven't yet. Have heard some of the stories over the years but kinda torn on buying the book or not. I have a feeling my morbid curiousity will take over in the end though hah. It'll probably just make me mad.

Feeling much better today ...and now for something completely different..... Happy to also report that our female horsfieldi dropped two more eggs. She started digging yesterday so we knew it was coming, but surprising overall. I've read that two or three clutches are possible but I had expected if it happened, to be much later in the year. ...In 1945, peace broke out. ...

Great questions (and great pionts brought up in the posts following). Too bad it has to be rhetorical what ifs... The tiny step forward out here has been embarassingly long overdue but is at least a small step in the right direction, with hopefully many more to follow. There's some small solace when one considers who and where the majority of dollars donated came from Well said as well Jon... but to be honest I do find myself feeling a bit dirty & hypocritical as well though considering I do have a small collection of mutant sand boas that's a guilty pleasure of mine

P. m. melanoleucus aka Northern Pine snake. Thanks for the kind words I love these serpents. Still anxiously waiting to see how the expert snake breeder replies to "Jeffy" and his perplexing conundrum..

Haha I think I would almost pay to see that SSAR definitely deserves our support. I'm kind of embarrassed to say i've thought of it many times before and have no good excuse to have not done anything about it. I will throw in that I'm quite proud to say that the non-profit organization I'm currently president of: The Alberta Reptile and Amphibian Society (TARAS) on April 25th will be donating $3,000.00 for scientific research on our native Short Horned Lizard (Phrynosoma hernandesi). The first of what we hope to be yearly grants towards scientific research and conservation. Proud to say that the entire board was unanimous, so there's always some hope for the hobby yet

Well dealing with some stones of the kidney variety so I'm temorarily outta smart assedness .. I assure you it is only temporary... Once the meds wear off..... Everything I wanted to address while reading seems to have been tackled already. Also another random anonymous, weak attempt at embarassment yet again deflected right back and likely will go unresponded to...again... So I guess all that's left is to share my newest Sterile-ite serpent, in-situ He's delightfully worthless and cranky looking Chris

I hate to keep saying it but I feel rude not mentioning: nice photos people! Well said Jon I 100% agree. Duff, with the Rhamphiophis how do you find their behaviour? In my short interactions with them I found them very... bird-like would be the best way I can describe. Interesting snakes for sure. I'll try and convince K & D to start posting, to offer some better first hand experience. I'm sure a little persuasion from a misreable vieille personne would likely be quite effective

Duff, welcome and nice collection. Any other pictures you have of the Rhamphiophis would be appreciated, don't see them much up here. A friend has Rhamphiophis oxyryhchus but his are the only ones I've seen in person. I'm jealous of the visitors you get in the yard, hope we'll be seeing some shots of those as well. LD/50, they may be muddy but *gasp* luckily they only eat on paper towels.. I mean imagine the impactions just waiting to happen if they actually ate in that stuff... It must be true, my tubs n' towels google gurus can't be wrong...

Thanks for the kind words. Being my first tortoise breeding, I'm very excited. Don, anger management? I only see smiling faces Sadly after a couple of nice days I was prepared to head out in the sunshine this morning for some hiking & possibly a few pictures of some early baskers... Unfortunately last night 15 cm of postponed until further noticed interfered...

Apparently we've stumped the band Nir While deliberations continue & while it's technically the other snakes section it is still the VIP lounge... Just wanted to share some excitement from the basement. Just think of them as heavily armoured, legged snakes...Yeah that's it... Happy to say that after a couple of days of major excavation & soil relocation by our big boned girl, this Has happily turned into these: So far so good but a long ways to go yet. Both came in at 1-13/16" and 25g. I knew they would be big but I still have no idea how she pushed those monsters out. They're nicely tucked into the incubator and now for the waiting... no Russian here...

Thallo still needs some thawing out on this end of the world... We have had a couple of nice days so if it keeps up and can stay closer to 10ish I'm hoping to see something similar to Don's great pictures.. A query for those more experienced with lodingi, but is it normal for the shed skin to be so thick? It's my only Pituophis currently 4'+ and keeled scales aside, the shed skins seem to consistantly be quite thick compared to other colubrids I'm used to (Kings, Milks & Rats).

Wow I leave you kids alone for a few days and look at the mess you've made. It's going to take days to get the stains out.. Fortunately for the lounge the doors aren't to protect it from the big-bad outside world, but rather to protect the outside world from what lurks within...

Oh I needed some of those kinds of pictures today. Am I the only one who keeps scrolling back to just stare and soak them in? The Donmarchon mooseheadbrewsicus are very nice

I see waldo, I mean part of a yellow plastron from one also facing the camera on the far right about 2/3 the way up.

Don to expand on the chelonian cottage crushers... I recall a study done with rubber turtles on roads & roadsides where the greater number of drivers were actually witnessed to swerve towards the animal rather than just following their course or even making an attempt at swerving out of the way. I'll see if I can find it later but it frankly just filled me with well....rancor "Hey Cleetus...aim for it!"