Quote Originally Posted by rancor_ View Post
To me, its not really a black and white issue of right and wrong. Look at it from the snakes actual prospective, (not a human thinking like a snake). If your snake is CB which its really a shame that so many people seem to have acquired their garters in less than ideal ways, it knows no life in the wild. A snake isnt like a mammal, so scratch the mammalian thought process. It doesnt care that it lives in a box, it doesnt care that its fed one type of food, it just doesnt care at all....its a snake. they operate only on instinct with very little altered behavior. In nature, animals specialize on one food item all the time... a balanced meal is a balanced meal...toads, frogs and other captured prey only increase introduction to parasites and other dangers that, while encountered in the woods, are much different inside a glass box.
Garters and other active colubrids are unique in the fact that they dont spend all their active hours in a hole, like pythons for instance. Room to roam and stuff to explore is what provides stimulation, not their lunch.
You make some good points, but I take issue with your insinuation (what with the italics and all) that anyone who keeps WC animals is doing a bad thing. In most of the cases in this forum we are talking about people who have captured their own snakes or maybe two or even three. We are not talking about people who have gone out and collected hundreds or even thousands or have bought from people who have contributed in such wholesale collection, even though this thread is a direct result of that. ( I think the snakes originally discussed were WC, and people have purchased other WC snakes,) In areas where wild populations are healthy and steady I see absolutely nothing wrong with people catching and keep wild animals as long as they can provide for them. Some animals simply are not available as CBB specimens. They either won't breed or no one tries to breed them because there is no money in it. No offense but I get a little tired of seeing responses like "let the snake go, if your kid wants a snake buy him a CBB corn snake" I know if any of my kids (if I had kids) came home with a garter snake or an American toad and said they wanted to keep it I would have absolutely no problem letting him or her do so even though I have access to any CBB snake or frog they may want. Don't get me wrong. I encourage CBB over WC any chance I get but I am not about to tell some mother who brings their 5 year old in with a garter snake he just caught under their back porch that he is doing a bad thing by wanting to keep it and that he should let it go and buy a CBB snake from me. If I feel that he, and the parents of course, can take care of the snake in question, (if it were a red belly or a brown snake that would be a different story because they are typically harder to take care of,) I will tell them what they need to do to keep it. If I feel they can't take care of it why on earth would I try to sell them a CBB one of mine. I talk so many people out of keeping baby turtles simply by telling them how much a proper setup would cost but its not the same for many other animals.

I have a tank with blue spotted salamanders and small American toads in it right now and It is one of my favorite tanks even though I haven't seen the sallys in about a month. My favorite frogs of all are Gray tree frogs and when I get some space freed up I will have a tank of them as well.

I certainly don't mean to single you out or belittle your opinion rancor, and I suspect that you may have some of the same feelings. I's just that some people go way over the top on subjects like WC and mixing (please, you don't want to get me started on that subject) that they have no room for reason or compromise.