Quote Originally Posted by ConcinnusMan View Post
You might have gotten yours perfectly legally, but they're ALL descended from illegally taken animals. There's no getting around that fact. In essence it makes all of us just as guilty whether you got yours legally or not.
Not necessarily. I'm pretty sure exemptions can be granted, and also consider that breeding populations could have been established before species were protected by the current laws. Prime example is the European tetrataenia population. And there are probably some grey areas too, such as keepers who legally collect their own snakes in a state then relocate to another state, are they exporting their own animals illegally?

However it would be naive to think that there isn't some degree of illegal trading in garters, whether that is a deliberate thing or from ignorance of the law.