DNA collection by the D.E.C

[kupper]

i still dont know what they are trying to acheive with your collections dave , as your legally allowed to collect animals from the wild ?

 

[carpetmuncher]

i'm surprised they let their photos be taken and published on the web, especially since their melons look like dropped pies.

hey pilbara, did they ask you about perthensis and depressa, as that seems to be what's getting them all excited.

 

[Radar]

Hahaha, Im no geneticist, just a dabbler, walk down any hallway in Cairns JCU and you'll bump into plenty that know more than me.

I daresay with the animals owned by Pilbara Pythons, they are merely trying to see if those claimed to be captive bred actually are. I mean, there would be some kind of limit on wild collection, would be all to easy to overcollect and claim the extras as 'captive bred'. It's pretty simple testing really, they just look at short hypervariable regions in the DNA that are inherited from both parents, basically the same as human paternity testing. If the 'offspring' don't have the same repeated sections of DNA as the parents, it's a pretty obvious they weren't bred from those parents.....

 

[kupper]

But the breeding animals could quiet easily be claimed to have been sold and subsiquent offspring are left with no parents to reference too
by no means do I think that that is what's happening but I just feel as with everything the governing bodies seem to do this practice although a good one is flawed and pointless

 

[PilbaraPythons]

No they didn't, but I did mention a favourite spot of mine close by that has been destroyed by people alledgely targeting depressa.

 

[carpetmuncher]

pilbara, i don't think they were chasing statements about what is allowed to be taken. more the recipients in nsw and qld of stuff not allowed to be taken. some high profile names being investigated i hear.

 

[Radar]

But the breeding animals could quiet easily be claimed to have been sold and subsiquent offspring are left with no parents to reference too
by no means do I think that that is what's happening but I just feel as with everything the governing bodies seem to do this practice although a good one is flawed and pointless

I see what you're saying, but this is the point of license books, if they wanted to push the issue they've just got to track the sale. It helps pick 'ring-ins' out of genuine clutches as well, you don't need the parents to tell if animals that are claimed to be siblings actually are. On top of this, unless all 'siblings' in a clutch from a pair of animals that was sold have the same microsat (or whatever DNA region is used) bands, it's clear something suss is going on (ie, collecting a whole bunch similar aged/sized animals and claiming them to be a clutch).

Im pretty sure by law, we are also required to keep any animals that die incase the officials want to inspect them? Not sure how often that one is enforced though.

 

[Waterrat]

But the breeding animals could quiet easily be claimed to have been sold and subsiquent offspring are left with no parents to reference too
by no means do I think that that is what's happening but I just feel as with everything the governing bodies seem to do this practice although a good one is flawed and pointless

Kupper, all the movements can be traced through fauna books, import, export permits, movement advice, etc.. OK, lets say the parents are gone but the clutch (or most of it) is still there. The testing could easily reveal if any "siblings" were added from the wild. God forbid if chondros on the east coast ever get DNA tested for relatedness. "Sorry, mom and dad live in Indonesia"


You beat me to it mate!

 

[carpetmuncher]

that still doesn't tell you who did the switcheroo, and once you've crossed state lines you can't achieve any prosecution unless they were dna'd at the airport on the day of despatch.

it will always be an 'i said, he said' affair

 

[Waterrat]

that still doesn't tell you who did the switcheroo, and once you've crossed state lines you can't achieve any prosecution unless they were dna'd at the airport on the day of despatch.

it will always be an 'i said, he said' affair

The switcheroo will be pinned onto the person in possession unless he sings a song. "I said, he said" will not be listened to in a court. The solicitors will do the talking and there will be no "I said, he said". Maybe this is the sort of unity and consistency between state / territory departments we have been asking for ages.

 

[pythonmum]

Pilbara is the only major legal collector/seller that I have heard of on APS. If only a few people are providing the wild bloodlines, perhaps testing these wild-caught animals will help with tracing descent down the road. One hopes that this is the reason. Of course, they need to collect swabs from breeders of multi-generation captive animals, too.

 

[Renagade]

I think it's great to see DEC proactivly doing something... pilbra do you get any dna paperwork back for your animals? papers with snake purchases has been bought up numerous times... top sales pitch i would think.

 

[Jonno from ERD]

It looks like a very expensive project considering it has virtually no positive conservation based outcome.

 

[Radar]

It looks like a very expensive project considering it has virtually no positive conservation based outcome.

It may simply be as much about enforcing the law as it is about conservation?

It probably also has higher relevance for species other than Carpet Pythons and Eastern Browns? Admittedly there are many species that a small amount of collection wouldn't affect, however other more tightly controlled, economically higher-end species are probably the focus here. Having said that.....Government departments = pffftahaha.

 

[Sdaji]

I like playing the devils advocate on this So yeah, like when they get home they'd make sure they washed their hands before touching their own animals. There’s certainly not much of an opportunity or recourse for action should an introduced virus wipe out three quarters of someone’s collection, simply because Officer Smith forgot to wash his grubby hands! No wonder OPMV and a host of other viruses are rampant these days. Such a dirty skanky little community! :lol:

Sdaji will have a fit when he reads about this! :lol:

Why? Because of the genetics side of things or the quarantine issue? They can already come and inspect your animals, so the quarantine issue hasn't substantially changed. When collecting DNA they would need to use sterile technique, so disease transfer would be reasonably unlikely. When the department's staff have viewed my animals they have been happy for me to show them the animals without having to handle or touch the animals themselves, which I have appreciated. It would be a bit of a nuisance to have this done to the animals, especially if they chose a time when feeding, sloughing or breeding was going to an issue.

I think it's valuable to be doing the genetic work, but in most cases I can't see it being value for money. I have wanted to do genetic paternity testing on my animals, but it has been prohibitively expensive. A couple of years ago I actually joked with DSE staff about my Water Pythons, saying I should have someone accuse me of doing the wrong thing so that DNA tests could be done, which would confirm that one of my males was the father (and importantly to me, which of the possible males it was). They knew I was joking, but pointed out that the testing is very expensive. Having worked in genetics labs I know what these tests cost, and I am concerned about the waste of money (where would this money be coming from?), but at the same time I am interested to see genetic technology advance, so part of me is happy whenever I see the technology applied.

I would be very interested to know what genetic methods they are using to test paternity. Assuming it is not a crude method of questionable accuracy, and since they can get enough DNA from an oral swab that's a fairly safe assumption, they must be looking at specific polymorphisms, which would require the development of protocols for each species, and potentially each locality/population. That might explain why they were only going for Aspidites. Alternatively they might just be looking at mtDNA haplotypes with a high chance of coming up with false positives but a very low chance of giving a false negative (they might find the animals to be related, even if they're not, but if they show up as unrelated it means they are unrelated... unless samples were mixed up or there was a system failure).

I wonder if some people will be bothered by this from an 'invasion'/big brother point of view. I know a lot of people already avoid being licensed because they don't want to sign up to something which allows for wildlife inspectors to show up an have the right to go through all their babies. I wouldn't want to see people saying something like "Well, that's the straw that broke the camel's back, stuff it, I'm not going to get the license, hey, as long as I'm off license I might as well get Corns and Boas too"

If they are going to get serious about DNA work, I have some animals I would really love them to swab if they are able to keep the DNA samples on the shelf.

In any case, cheap albino Carpets and Spotted Pythons are just around the corner (neither of which can be poached), regular Womas and Black-headeds are cheap now (I assume cheap enough not to be worth bothering to poach), so illegal take from the wild isn't going to be big issue for much longer.

Anyway, the use of DNA technology for keeping tabs on captive reptiles is interesting. I look forward to seeing how it develops.

 

[Waterrat]

Just going back to the two pictured Dave posted, I wonder what qualification these officers have in handling snakes and taking swabs, since every relocator / demostrator / keeper has to have appropriate "qualifications" in every state.
Also, I don't see them wearing gloves - one thing I would definitely stipulate if someone insisted on handling my snakes.

 

[AndrewHenderson]

Just going back to the two pictured Dave posted, I wonder what qualification these officers have in handling snakes and taking swabs, since every relocator / demostrator / keeper has to have appropriate "qualifications" in every state.
Also, I don't see them wearing gloves - one thing I would definitely stipulate if someone insisted on handling my snakes.

HAHA and some extra DNA accidently gets mixed in there.... the results come back saying the snake is related to a DEC officer....

 

[Bushfire]

I think most of you are looking too hard or giving the WA DEC way too much credit in this exercise. Having had experienced WA DEC and knowing their inner working, this exercise smells of one thing, to pin someone (plain and simple). Its the only reason why they would go to such lengths and costs. If not to me its a complete waste of resources that will achieve nothing at all. I remember seeing the DEC spending over $15,000 in costs pursuing a keeper which failed in three separate cases and after which they were still considering appealling the results after two appeals went unsecessful. WA DEC have a well documented history of demonstrating their desire to restrict, intimidate, and limit reptile keeping in that state AT ALL COST.

Pilbara you are right about one thing, if you had of refused, they would of been back within an hour with a warrant (but at least the reasons why would of been much clearer, instead of something made up).

Someone touched on it earlier, and I also agree, wildlife officers are not trained lab tecs (that also goes for all the other states officers too) and are unqualified to perform such tests. Since they are claiming to have a special lab set up for this, why didn't they fly a specialist from it up to over see the first significant test and to ensure the testing procedure was being implemented correctly, a BS story IMO.

 

[moosenoose]

Why? Because of the genetics side of things or the quarantine issue? They can already come and inspect your animals, so the quarantine issue hasn't substantially changed. When collecting DNA they would need to use sterile technique, so disease transfer would be reasonably unlikely. When the department's staff have viewed my animals they have been happy for me to show them the animals without having to handle or touch the animals themselves, which I have appreciated. It would be a bit of a nuisance to have this done to the animals, especially if they chose a time when feeding, sloughing or breeding was going to an issue.

I think it's valuable to be doing the genetic work, but in most cases I can't see it being value for money. I have wanted to do genetic paternity testing on my animals, but it has been prohibitively expensive. A couple of years ago I actually joked with DSE staff about my Water Pythons, saying I should have someone accuse me of doing the wrong thing so that DNA tests could be done, which would confirm that one of my males was the father (and importantly to me, which of the possible males it was). They knew I was joking, but pointed out that the testing is very expensive. Having worked in genetics labs I know what these tests cost, and I am concerned about the waste of money (where would this money be coming from?), but at the same time I am interested to see genetic technology advance, so part of me is happy whenever I see the technology applied.

I would be very interested to know what genetic methods they are using to test paternity. Assuming it is not a crude method of questionable accuracy, and since they can get enough DNA from an oral swab that's a fairly safe assumption, they must be looking at specific polymorphisms, which would require the development of protocols for each species, and potentially each locality/population. That might explain why they were only going for Aspidites. Alternatively they might just be looking at mtDNA haplotypes with a high chance of coming up with false positives but a very low chance of giving a false negative (they might find the animals to be related, even if they're not, but if they show up as unrelated it means they are unrelated... unless samples were mixed up or there was a system failure).

I wonder if some people will be bothered by this from an 'invasion'/big brother point of view. I know a lot of people already avoid being licensed because they don't want to sign up to something which allows for wildlife inspectors to show up an have the right to go through all their babies. I wouldn't want to see people saying something like "Well, that's the straw that broke the camel's back, stuff it, I'm not going to get the license, hey, as long as I'm off license I might as well get Corns and Boas too"

If they are going to get serious about DNA work, I have some animals I would really love them to swab if they are able to keep the DNA samples on the shelf.

In any case, cheap albino Carpets and Spotted Pythons are just around the corner (neither of which can be poached), regular Womas and Black-headeds are cheap now (I assume cheap enough not to be worth bothering to poach), so illegal take from the wild isn't going to be big issue for much longer.

Anyway, the use of DNA technology for keeping tabs on captive reptiles is interesting. I look forward to seeing how it develops.

Why??????? :lol: I think you already partially answered my question yourself.

I think the main question that needs to be answered is WHY they are doing this? My personal opinion is that "we're" an easy target! They just look at their online records and check who's got what. Those people who aren't doing the right thing and who aren't registered won't get this interference. Does anyone actually think the latter will get checked first??....nope, of course not! We're soft targets for a bunch of "softies"!!!

If these bodies start targeting people who are flaunting the law and admitting they are actively killing Aussie natives maybe I'd have a little more respect for them. Right now, I don't want to say how I'm thinking. Personally I've got doubts on the reasoning behind it. Of course it'll all be financial! Everything comes back to money! Conservation of these animals would be something along the lines of public education. Something I have seen NOTHING OF!

 

[AndrewHenderson]

As Dave said in his original post, Their concerns I guess is that each year across Australia many hundreds of reptiles are been illegally collected and passed off as captive bred and this is fairly common knowledge. <----basically saying the have bred within their collection but actually catching wild reptiles and passing them off as captive bred.


Andrew