Catching Tadpoles?

[RedSidedSPR]

I looked it up and it said otherwise...

Dang. But seriously i don't really care. If i have a snake that will only eat tadpoles or he'll most likely die, and i HAVE to scent with them, I'm gonna catch 4 or 5.

But ONLY 4-5. I don't have any intentions other than to feed my snake. And he now eats unscented guppies, so... I wont be needing any more.

Like I said guys, i didn't make the freaking 100 tads trade. So I didn't really do anything... other than keep my snake from dying.

AND TO TOP IT OFF, the few that I caught I RELEASED AFTER SCENTING. Right where I found 'em.

And heck, I didn't even know! My bad

[d_virginiana]

The law in his state does not differentiate invasive or native, if he Environmental police don't even need warrants, and more than one snake collection has been seized due to violations.

He would get in less trouble getting pulled over with drugs than having wildlife in his car.

Haha, does the three-legged possum I used to have count as possession of a wild animal or a wild animal 'in part'?
What about the dozens of injured snakes, frogs, turtles and lizards that I have saved from my decidedly non-native cats and dogs and kept in captivity until they had recovered? The hunter-orphaned ducklings we raised/released a few years ago?

Point being; I think nearly everyone has, at some point, taken some sort of animal from the wild and with or without the law on their side, it isn't always to the detriment of the animals or the ecosystems. I can and will criticize the capture and shipment of wild animals for profit and without regard to their potential to invade other areas, but I think this is getting a bit extreme....
So much of what we do as humans disrupts the natural world. Every time we build a shed in our backyard, go fishing, or wash our cars in our driveways we are doing just as much if not more damage to nature than someone taking a few tads to feed a species of animal that (if it is an eastern garter) actually is native to the area.
I very much respect the law, but there's a point at which common sense and humanity take precedence, and my opinion on taking a few wild tads as feeders to get non-eating babies to eat isn't changed at all by the fact that it's illegal. (Oddly enough, I've never actually used wc feeders myself due to a particularly odd OCD quirk...)

[ConcinusMan]

What about the dozens of injured snakes, frogs, turtles and lizards that I have saved from my decidedly non-native cats and dogs and kept in captivity until they had recovered? The hunter-orphaned ducklings we raised/released a few years ago?

They especially don't want people doing that, (rehabing and/or releasing wildlife without a license) however well intentioned that person may be. Especially when it comes to ducks (because they are game) and turtles (many are endangered, threatened, or otherwise sensitive)

[d_virginiana]

They especially don't want people doing that, (rehabing and/or releasing wildlife without a license) however well intentioned that person may be. Especially when it comes to ducks (because they are game) and turtles (many are endangered, threatened, or otherwise sensitive)

Yeahh, I'm aware they don't like that. It's the primary reason none of those animals hang around very long after they are well enough to move about and get back to being wild (and why there is no real evidence of their ever having resided in my household). If there were any licensed wildlife rehab people within an hour or two of where I live, I'd gladly take the animals there, but there aren't (honestly, I should probably just look into getting licensed...)
I understand why it's a law, though I can't really say I apologize for taking a half-dead turtle from my dog, giving it a bit of neosporin, and feeding it from our garden for two weeks until it could walk again, ya know?

But all that aside, my point was that the wildlife possession laws got brought up on this thread, while I've seen plenty of threads along the lines of 'saved this garter from my cat' where someone takes a wild animal and keeps it and gets nothing but praise. I have no issue with that (obviously) but it just seemed a bit unfair when the same law was broken in both cases, you know? I'm on the third day of no sleep and intense family drama, so I apologize if what I'm writing is of dubious logic.

[infernalis]

Fish and game officials read forums.

[d_virginiana]

Fish and game officials read forums.

If anyone reading this is a fish or game official, they can rest easy; the 'offenses' mentioned above happened years ago, when I was under the legal age to be charged with anything (as in, I was under 12). In addition, I recently released my bullfrog tadpole after realizing that he was contraband (just in case someone was thinking of pinpointing my exact location and doing a raid for one tadpole).

Also, if it will keep me out of prison, I will promise to in the future allow my dog to turn whatever small critters she catches inside out (which is apparently entirely legal).

[Sonya610]

I understand why it's a law, though I can't really say I apologize for taking a half-dead turtle from my dog, giving it a bit of neosporin, and feeding it from our garden for two weeks until it could walk again, ya know?

Yup. Years ago when I found one of my Dobermans chewing away on a box turtle I took the little guy to my vet (it is illegal in my state too). The vet ended up keeping him as a pet! She told me a year later the little guy would get SOOOO excited everytime he saw her open the refrigerator (his enclosure was in her kitchen).

Though maybe every veterinary license automatically comes with a permit to keep wildlife? Yeah, that must be it!

[d_virginiana]

Yup. Years ago when I found one of my Dobermans chewing away on a box turtle I took the little guy to my vet (it is illegal in my state too). The vet ended up keeping him as a pet! She told me a year later the little guy would get SOOOO excited everytime he saw her open the refrigerator (his enclosure was in her kitchen).

Though maybe every veterinary license automatically comes with a permit to keep wildlife? Yeah, that must be it!

Our old vet (who I won't name and who is no longer in business) would do that as well. They would actually ride around and find road-killed possums and get the live babies out of the pouches and raise them

Also I should probably make it clear that the bit about allowing my dogs to tear apart whatever they catch was sarcasm; I couldn't just sit and watch something like that go down.

[Jeff B]

The hunter-orphaned ducklings we raised/released a few years ago?

With duck hunting season in the fall and ducklings being born in the spring, how is it that you arrived with hunter-orphaned ducklings?

[d_virginiana]

With duck hunting season in the fall and ducklings being born in the spring, how is it that you arrived with hunter-orphaned ducklings?

By living in the middle of nowhere with an incredibly high population of rednecks who don't give a darn what season it is. It isn't uncommon to find illegally shot/killed deer on our property in the middle of summer either (we live near a creek, and the deer that don't immediately die try to go to the water).

Don't worry, I wasn't lying about the circumstances surrounding the ducks.