PilbaraPythons
Very Well-Known Member
Why am I still reading this post, its making my brain hurt
Two last comments related to captives in the wild. I think it important to have an understanding of both.
“No one is pretending that morphs are viable in the wild, they scream "hey kookaburras, over here"...
It is a fact that morphs can and do survive in the wild. They tend to fairly quickly revert to the ‘wild type’ characteristics. You are extremely unlikely to see soft fluffy white feral cat. A number of Brisbane creeks have populations of Swordtail aquarium fish but they are not your usual orange colour. Florida’s Burmese wild pythons lack the designer patterns of those that were released or escaped.
There was comment related to genetic pollution....
Consider the scenario where a single Darwin carpet escapes or is released on the east coast amongst a population of Coastal carpets. If the Darwin breeds, it will pass on only half of its genes. Its offspring will pass on only half of theirs, which is one quarter of the original Darwin genes. Their offspring will pass on one eighth... the 1/16[SUP]th[/SUP], 1/32[SUP]nd[/SUP], 1/64[SUP]th[/SUP] and so forth. In other words, within the matter of a few generations those genes will effectively disappear.
Now consider the situation of an unlicensed keeper, in the same location, trying to breed albino Darwins. They put a known het male over 3 66% het females and get 2 albino offspring out of a total of 62. Rather than euthanize the unwanted young, they are released. If sufficient survive to reproductive age, they will be able to breed with each and their offspring will be able to breed with related individuals and so on for future generations. Effectively, they can establish a self sustaining population which contributes ongoing multiple contributions of foreign genetic information to the local population of Coastals i.e. genetic pollution.
Sean, I only tend to correct statements in those areas where I feel competent. I do so for the sake of the other readers rather than trying to convince the author. Your last comment reflects very positively on you!
Blue
Im talking 10m x 10m enclosure here, minimum. If only I had the space for each species.
Each enclosure would contain the same plants/ substrate and accessories as the animals original habitat. I get a kick out of that.
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Thats life. Its tuff. (in response to weaker males)
As long as numbers were kept within reason, I dont see too much of a problem.
This is the scale that is required not a 10m x 10m enclosure.This thread has taken off far more than I ever anticipated! Thanks again @Rob72 for moving the first few comments over from the olive thread for me, I thought it would be a good topic to discuss and others have obviously thought so too
Nearly every point raised has been discussed in depth and I've learnt so much, thank you everyone!
One semi-recent post that raised my eyebrows and I didn't feel was addressed was this:
My mind boggles at how that would be simulating a natural environment for the reptiles in question. Regardless of how large an "enclosure" you create for them you are essentially still keeping them in a box, albeit a rather large one, but a box nonetheless.
Your posts seem to jump from left to right field so I'm not quite sure where you stand on all of it but @butters seems to have the right idea about making your backyard into a wildlife haven. That's a fantastic idea!
I thought I'd jump in with this (somewhat irrelevant) train of thought as I've been reading but not joining in on any of the discussions thus far mainly because I didn't know where to begin!
I'd better also apologise to @Beans as I mainly started the thread because of her initial post. I didn't mean to single you out to be flamed, I just found your pov rather outside the box and was curious to find out how you came up with the notion.
This is the scale that is required not a 10m x 10m enclosure.
Past Programs - Adelaide Zoo and Monarto Zoo. Australian Panda home.
What about?Still confused
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