Quote Originally Posted by Ophiuchus View Post
Yeah, a lot of people subscribe to the mentality that "once a captive. always a captive" because of the supposed spread of pathogens and whatnot. I mean, I'm not saying this doesn't happen when a snake is released back into the wild, but I don't think its as detrimental as people believe. I mean, do we need to completely disinfect our clothing and shoes everytime we take a hike through the woods? There's probably a number of things we humans already do whenever we enter nature that are a lot more critical than releasing a short-term captive back into its environment.
I think we have so little evidence to support either side, that it may be best to err on the side of caution. Take the golden frog for example. I believe it was Tracy Barker that was doing a study on the golden frog in S. America and (I could be wrong, paraphrasing) Dave barker had said on Reptile Radio that the golden frog is believed to be extinct in the wild. All because of hikers propagating a fungus (I think, it could be something else) when they tracked through the jungle. The golden frog has been nearly eliminated from simply walking!

Considering I have to assume the rainforest isn't heavily populated, and nearly unknown to many on a close level, this little bit of influence has caused one species to disappear. How can we measure what else our little bit of influence is doing on local wild populations?