Pugets or Checkered?

[ConcinusMan]

You think that's bad, I live in WA and any law that applies to sirtalis (including easterns) applies to ALL sirtalis. They don't differentiate subspecies. That means ANY sirtalis would be considered native when it comes to the law, even though we only have Thamnophis sirtalis concinnus. An eastern is obviously not native to WA but it's a thamnophis sirtalis and that's all that matters. They don't care about the third part of the name (ssp). I mean, that makes as much sense as making it a felony to possess any thamnophis sirtalis just because a San Fransisco garter is a thamnophis sirtalis. At least CA has enough sense to say, yes, not all t. sirtalis are the same snake.

They went a step farther and made it illegal for pet stores to sell any garter snake in WA including garters that are not sirtalis such as T. radix. Private collectors can still sell them however. The only thamnophis allowed for sale in PET STORES are eastern ribbon snakes. I guess because it's easy to see that they are not garters and they are definitely not sirtalis.

[bkhuff1s]

Well that's is a step further than mine, thanks for the cheer up. Sorry for you

[ConcinusMan]

I'm still thinking that "no buying or selling easterns" thing (native wildlife) Doesn't necessarly apply to a situation such as buying an eastern morph from a breeder from another state legally. They just don't want wildlife being collected and ending in pet stores for sale. In other words it still may be legal for you to buy an eastern legally from a breeder out of state, and it still could possibly be legal to collect one from private property and keep it in your state. I'm just saying don't take that one little bit of the law and think it's that simple. It rarely is.