לחלק מהדברים שכתבת עכשיו
התייחסתי כבר בשרשור שאליו קישרתי קודם. ראשית, כפי שהעיר naja, דוגמת הכלבים (שעלתה לדיון גם בשרשור ההוא) אינה רלוונטית כאן: כל הכלבים שייכים לא רק לאותו סוג זואולוגי, אלא לאותו מין (Canis familiaris). לעומת זאת, כשאתה מזווג אנקונדה עם בואה קונסטריקטור, אתה מכליא בין פרטים שלא רק שייכים למינים שונים, אלא אף לסוגים שונים. שנית, אם מה שמדאיג אותך הוא נושאים של שמירת טבע, אתה שוב מוזמן לקרוא את השרשור שאליו הפניתי קודם. הסברתי שם בפירוט רב יחסית מדוע הכלאות כאלה מדאיגות אותי מהפן של שימור מיני הזוחלים הקיימים כיום בטבע. ולבסוף, התייחסות לדברים האחרונים שכתבת: "בשורה התחתונה, הכלאה היא לא כזה ביג דיל וכל עוד הנחש מיועד לחיים בשבי אין לכך משמעות רבה." אני לא חושב שאתה צודק כאן. לדעתי, לגידול נחשים בשבי יש משמעות רבה בפן של שימור המינים. ומשום כך, הכלאות מהסוג הנדון בהחלט אינן עניין חסר משמעות. זאת במיוחד כשהן הופכות לדבר פופולארי, כמו שקרה כאן במשך תקופה מסוימת (בהשראת מר יעקב פסח/סלע, להערכתי) עם מספר מיני זעמניים. בעניין החשיבות שיש לגידול זוחלים בשבי על-ידי מגדלים פרטיים אני יכול להפנות אותך לדברים שכתב לי בזמנו דייב ברקר. מכיוון שפינת ה-MailBag באתר של VPI (שבה פורסמו הדברים בזמנו) אינה פועלת כרגע, אעתיק את הדברים לכאן. בבקשה: השאלה שלי (שנגעה במקור לא בהכלאות, אלא בטיפוח מופעים שונים): I also have another question for you, totally unconnected to the previous ones. This one concerns the breeding of different morphs and the value of herpetoculture for wildlife conservation. I used to think that one of the goals of breeding reptiles in captivity, and the ones whose wild populations are declining - in particular, was sustaining a captive population of creatures that might some day go extinct in the wild. Now, the selective breeding of reptiles for color and pattern morphs seems to undermine that goal; it seems to make the captive populations less and less similar to the original wild ones. To give an example, which, I hope, is not a very realistic one, I think it would be a pity if some day there are no more reticulated pythons in the wild, and all that is left in captivity is, say, a certain strain of dwarf-albino-super-tiger retics. Since I very much appreciate your opinion on any reptile-related issue, and since you seem to have no objection to selectively breeding for morphs, I thought it would be very interesting to get your opinion on this matter. Of course, it's not all a matter of opinion. I'm sure that you are familiar with many relevant facts with which I am not. And if you find the views I expressed based on some sort of misconception, I will be glad if you could clear things up for me. Many thanks, Ran Lanzet והתשובה של ברקר: Your questions about the conservation value of captive breeding are important and timely. My own feelings are that we all are still living and learning a very early period of the history of true herpetoculture. Lots of people and lots of institutions talk about breeding species, but in fact, most keepers have very little experience and institutions in general are way behind private herpetoculture. Tracy and I have come to think that the most important contributions that any of us can make at this point in time is to gain all the experience possible and then DOCUMENT IT! The fact is, you can be a herpetocultural genius with a giant body of experience and information, but if you don’t record the information and make it available for future keepers, you have accomplished NOTHING. Breeding colonies of albino ball pythons creates the same body of information as working with a colony of normal ball pythons, except that we can pay the bills. Remember that albino ball pythons differ from normal ball pythons by probably only one base-pair out of their total DNA sequence of what? maybe 20,000 base pairs—they look different, but they are still ball pythons. And today’s captive-breeding programs selecting for unusual inheritable appearances generate extremely valuable information about the possible problems of inbreeding snakes (about which many people are happy to speculate, but about which there is no actual research or published data.) Future conservation projects will rely heavily on the information we keepers today are able to generate and record. It’s very difficult for a single entity to create a viable self-sustaining captive population of a species of snake, and it’s impossible that all of the institutions in the world working together in perfect harmony could maintain more than a handful of species in captivity for say a century or two. It’s a numbers game, and the only way the game can be played to win will be if private herpetoculture can be convinced to participate. All the zoos in the US keep a combined total of about 20,000 herps. There are an estimated more than 7 million US homes with at least one herp and the US captive population of herps in private hands number at least 25 million herps. That’s got to be encouraged and incorporated into any future conservation programs. And it’s OK if the incentive is monetary to do it, that’s actually an advantage. The average citizen simply cannot do much in the way of hands-on conservation of gorillas, pandas or okapis. But the average citizen, given the proper incentives (such as tax breaks) could keep any number of endangered herps, along with other small animals and plants, too. That will be how it happens someday, if it happens at all. I do feel that in the future many snake species will be faced with the option of captivity or extinction, and it is my belief that maintaining as many species into the future by any means is the main obligation of the human race. I personally do not belief that habitat preservation will work, given the pressures from the world’s starving human population. For many species captivity or semi-domestication will be their only chance to avoid extinction. None of the python species are currently endangered by human activities. Realize that retics live on probably 10,000 islands and the SE Asian mainland. It will be decades and possibly centuries before that species is endangered. It’s our belief that now is the time to learn everything possible about every kind of snake. Now is the time to make mistakes. Now is the time to discover the incentives for the conservation of a species. And I agree with you that it will be a shame if someday the only remaining retics are albino mutts, but as I see it, if it comes to that, it’s better than nothing. Dave