Quote Originally Posted by Jeff B View Post
Money does make the world go round so to speak, but right now my only concern is to keep this gene alive for the hobby's sake, it would be a shame to not one day see piebald garters as a common place in our hobby.
I find that hard to believe. You said yourself what you had given up to get these hets, (it was a lot) and yet all of you balked at the idea of me paying a few hundred dollars for the one and only albino northwestern known in existence. Saying "I would wait". Wait for what? The next opportunity which may never come?

You did it because if you are successful in producing pied garters, you know they'll be worth a fortune. You didn't make that kind of investment because your "only concern is to keep this gene alive for the hobby's sake". That's bull.

And nobody seems to recognize that this albino northwestern is the key to producing all kinds of new morphs. The potential was there to bring new morphs of this species to the hobby and bring them out of obscurity, and yes, even make money, but the attitude about that was completely different and nobody thought I should pay the guys asking price. I simply wanted to preserve that albino gene for the hobby but nobody even shared that concern. My motivation really was to keep the gene alive. Nobody gave a damn, and discouraged me from even trying to buy it.

Now you come along and pay an arm and a leg for hets from a snake that may or may not be a genetic trait and claim you did it to preserve them for the hobby. That's quite hard to swallow. Personally, I don't care why you did it and don't care if it was to make money. I just find your stated reason hard to swallow. Might be a little easier to believe if your "hobby" wasn't a registered business. Pharmaceutical companies invest millions to find new drugs. They sure as heck don't do it to help people get well. There's only one reason they invest so much and we all know what that reason is.