Culling Healthy Animals

[p3titexburial]

That's not what I said or meant. Everyone has the right to their own "truths" and "rights" and "wrongs" and can view the world in terms of black and white should they /choose/ to.

But I abhor it when people condemn others for their choices. Yes, they may be base and low and disgusting to one person, but the person who does so have their own circumstances, their own minds and the consequences of their actions are theirs.

We talked about educating people and that's all we can really do--if one day we tell a child 2+2 is 4, show him why, and he still insists it's 3, what do we do? Yell at the kid into submission? If shown all the alternatives and given all the information, people still walk their own roads, do we have the right to take away their rights if it doesn't hurt anyone else?

I'm just asking people to reflect, question, empathize. Why do we always have to be in extremes?

Under no circumstances have I been rude or disrespectful, and I make a lot of effort to not treat anyone sarcastically even if I don't agree with them. I'd like the same respect in return.

[wilomn]

Under no circumstances have I been rude or disrespectful, and I make a lot of effort to not treat anyone sarcastically even if I don't agree with them. I'd like the same respect in return.

Good luck with that.

[WingedWolfPsion]

Well, no...we explain why 2 + 2 is 4 again, and we make him work with little markers and number lines and other things until he actually understands that 2+2 IS 4. Because mathematics isn't an opinion, it never changes. And because he's a kid, and he needs to learn. If he can't learn basic math, he sure isn't going to get very far in life.

A lack of critical thinking is a huge part of the problem...well, in the entire world, actually.
Sure, people have the right to be illogical, but they are stupid if they exercise it. I have the right to recognize that.

[h00blah]

Good luck with that.

ya lol, online forum trolls are ruthless. i wouldnt get my hopes up either

Well, no...we explain why 2 + 2 is 4 again, and we make him work with little markers and number lines and other things until he actually understands that 2+2 IS 4. Because mathematics isn't an opinion, it never changes. And because he's a kid, and he needs to learn. If he can't learn basic math, he sure isn't going to get very far in life.

perhaps math was a bad example, bc math IS about right and wrong theres no opinion involved.

[rabernet]

Yes, the OP does this practice himself but I didn't get the impression that he said everyone else /should do it/

No, he just said that my normal males that I very carefully chose homes for will be dead in two years, and he's "saved" his "castoffs" from that fate.

My "dog in this fight" if you will, is that I don't happen to agree with him, that his fed off animals are better off because they were culled, as opposed to the choice that I make to place them in responsible pet homes.

[p3titexburial]

Yeah, that and I'm not particularly sure whether he's joking so it's better not to take offense to something that could easily be misinterpreted. There's no tone in posts ^^;;.

It's not really about whether opinion in math is right or wrong but what to do in the case that someone is convinced it's that answer--you can (maybe, depending on how stubborn someone is) force them to tell you your answer is right, but whether they change their belief or not will be based on their experiences later and their choice to do so alone. Math was just the first thing that came to mind but not the best example.

The way the OP writes and composes his posts can really be confrontational and assuming and that's something that may or may not be intentional--and even though I don't agree with them personally, I can see where he's coming from and understand his right to make that decision--just like everyone else has to right to their own. But to go into a "I'm right" "no I'm right" argument gets nobody anywhere. I just thought it might be important to remember that.

I noticed there's not a lot of responses to breeders of other species of animals in terms of whether what they're doing is right or wrong when the practices are essentially the same. We do hold double standards sometimes, but life is life--if we're counting value by species, we've got /our/ math wrong.

I'm not saying we stand by and do nothing when something violates our principles, but after you've said everything you could and the other person still chooses to go their way, it may be seen as hypocritical if you try to force them to see things your way--to imply their intelligence, their ethics, morals, and general attitude as a human being subpar to your own based on one idea they have.

It's different, is all.

I really enjoy the fact that things can remain civil even if the topic gets heated, and it becomes a way to organize thoughts and broaden our horizons just a little bit. =)

[wuffielover]

Ok, I'll dip my toes in...

I can see using snakes as feeders. I have a coworker who keeps some species of snakes which only eat lizards, and I know people who own snakes that will only eat other snakes. I have no problem with this, or with killing any animal which will be used for food. I, personally, would probably eat snake meat if I were hungry.

I do have a problem with the OP's argument that, since there is a *chance* that an 'ugly' or low-value snake (let's stick with BPs only and use normal males as the 'uglies' here) may suffer neglect and abuse, that the best solution is to kill these potentially unwanted snakes without going to any effort to try and find them homes. Although I don't have a problem with him feeding these snakes to other animals, I must disagree that this is the 'best' fate for them. In eighth grade, I bought my first snake. It was- guess what!- a normal male ball python. 10 years later I still have that snake, and I plan on keeping him for the rest of his natural life span. The OP would have (according to his logic) killed this snake because there was a chance, increased by the fact that I was a first-time snake owner, and a child, that I would neglect or abuse the snake once the 'new pet' factor wore off, or pass it off to someone else who would. He would have made this judgment based on no personal knowledge about me, with only his general lack of faith in humanity as a guideline. *This* is what I have a problem with. Sure, there are probably people who buy a cheap snake and neglect/abuse/abandon it when they lose interest. There are also people who get a cheap snake and because of that purchase, become interested in snakes for the rest of their lives, and keep that first snake very well for the rest of *its* life. The same could be said of cheap cats, or cheap dogs, or any 'cheap' animal. Does that mean we should euthanize every low-value animal because it *might* be abused, based on our own prejudices about other people, without ever giving the animal, or the person, a chance? ....I'll let ya'll answer that one.

[Adam_Wysocki]

I wouldn't feed them to fish or lizards either. But to say that it's wrong to do so BECAUSE they're less desirable only due to their lower price tag doesn't seem like a valid moral argument.

We've heard that they're being killed and used as feeders, but then we heard that the OP actually bought a lizard for the sole purpose of eating the "lesser valued" animals he produced.

We've heard that the OP feels he has to kill these animals to save them from a life of abuse, neglect, and misery.

We've heard that the OP feels that releasing these animals into the pet trade will "muddy" up a gene pool so in order to prevent that, they must be killed.

We've heard that the OP feels that killing "cheap" animals is imperative in order to reduce the hobby/businesses "footprint" and keep law makers off of our backs.

And finally, what we didn't hear is this gem (from the OP's own message board posted back in April of 09)

"This year, I expect to produce up to a couple of dozen normal appearing, IJ/Jag siblings, Het for Granite hybrids. Although they will be completely healthy, I think I am going to feed them all to my arrowanna at my office. No, I am not kidding. Why? I honestly do think that they will eventually be misrepresented as pure carpets, which they are not, and because they carry a gene that is desirable, this is more likely to occur than not. So, to prevent this ultimate eventuality, I am going to cull each and every one of them. It seems to me that the siblings that are hybrids will cause more problems than they are worth down the road, and I honestly would rather cull them than sell them. I understand that ultimately, this is a multiple thousand dollar decision, but at the end of the day, I think it's important to lead by example when I think something is right. And I think selling Mutt's that are very likely to do damage is something I no longer want to do." -ShawnC

I more consider [my snakes] as the basis for a hobby, and something to work with. Something to refine, and perfect. I want to perfect a high percentage Jungle granite. I want to perfect a high percentage IJ/Jag granite, but in order to get there, I'll need to produce literally hundreds of spin off normal sibling animals that will do alot of harm, and flood the market with essentially, what I would consider very poor quality snakes that will further damage carpet pythons in general. I dont' want to do that, and I am willing to sacrifice lots of baby snakes to keep that from happening. -ShawnC

I personally enjoy these gems:

"more problems than they are worth" -ShawnC

"this is a multiple thousand dollar decision" - ShawnC

"important to lead by example" - ShawnC


It has nothing to do with using these animals as feeders ... that's just some sugar coated cover story to make people feel better about his decision to breed animals that will produce so-called genetically toxic "by-product" and kill them ... this is about protecting the OPs investment animals.

I understand that an argument can be made that killing rodents is also in a sense protecting an investment, but my question is if the next step after killing rodents is killing normal siblings or "genetic mutts", what's the step after that? Will we one day be advocating the killing of mousers? Or female ball pythons that don't make it to 1500 grams in 18 months? Or males that don't breed at six months of age? For once we decide that killing certain animals is "good for the hobby", you can't stuff that back into the box.

Blessings,

-adam

[accidental777]

This is what upsets me most. This whole time he has been passing this off as a noble cause, and or being responsible. What it all actually amounts to the OP profiting off of hybridization and line breeding.
Once again, my question is asked. If it is so harmful for this hobby to produce these hybrids why even do it??? Especially when it leads to so many healthy animals being culled.

[wilomn]

This is what upsets me most. This whole time he has been passing this off as a noble cause, and or being responsible. What it all actually amounts to the OP profiting off of hybridization and line breeding.
Once again, my question is asked. If it is so harmful for this hobby to produce these hybrids why even do it??? Especially when it leads to so many healthy animals being culled.

Actually, he was TRYING to pass it off as noble, but lacking honor, honesty and integrity, he failed. Miserably.

You notice he hasn't been back since he got his fanny whacked a couple of days ago.

The guy's a turd, through and through and he didn't fool ANYONE.

Except maybe himself, and really, how hard is it to fool a stupid person?