Natrix Natrix! Noob seeking advice on how to care.

[current218]

regarding laws for keeping domestic snakes..

Well if Denmark has the same laws as Sweden do (which i think they have) the law says that you can keep native species, but the can't be WC. Every native reptile over here is actually so protected that if you're gonna be honest to God by the book you can't even lift them up without breaking the law. Much less take them home with you.

BUT.. You can keep them captive IF they are CB and you have the documentation to prove it. So that means that I can't take a snake hook with me out in the woods and pick up a Vipera berus (the only viper native to sweden) for phptography unless i have special permits for research, but i can go to a reptile convention and buy a snake of that species providing i get the proper documentation from the seller (breeder info, clutch number etc etc) to prove that the animal is CB. I would think that the same laws apply in Denmark, seeing as there aren't too many differences in laws between the Scandinavian countries.

 

[pitbulllady]

Well if Denmark has the same laws as Sweden do (which i think they have) the law says that you can keep native species, but the can't be WC. Every native reptile over here is actually so protected that if you're gonna be honest to God by the book you can't even lift them up without breaking the law. Much less take them home with you.

BUT.. You can keep them captive IF they are CB and you have the documentation to prove it. So that means that I can't take a snake hook with me out in the woods and pick up a Vipera berus (the only viper native to sweden) for phptography unless i have special permits for research, but i can go to a reptile convention and buy a snake of that species providing i get the proper documentation from the seller (breeder info, clutch number etc etc) to prove that the animal is CB. I would think that the same laws apply in Denmark, seeing as there aren't too many differences in laws between the Scandinavian countries.

That sounds pretty reasonable, actually. I wish our neighboring state of Georgia(US)would adopt that policy instead of a very strict, NO NATIVE ANIMALS PERIOD, policy. You cannot even have something like an albino Motley Corn Snake or a Leucistic Black Rat Snake because both species are native to the state, even if you can prove yours were captive-bred. Because most Colubrid snakes found in the eastern US do share subspecies with Georgia species, this means you can't keep have most native eastern species at all. Unfortunately, for those "get-a-foot-in-the-door-if-you're-a-breeders" species like Nerodia, which so few have bothered to work with in the past, but which are just now starting to catch the attention of breeders, that really limits your possibilities to obtain bloodlines, since virtually all of them will be wild-caught.

I picked up several wild-caught Water Snakes yesterday at a reptile show, including a VERY gravid female normal Banded(Nerodia fasciata fasciata) and a very odd-looking(possibly gravid, not sure) female Florida Banded(N. fasciata pictiventris) that I would call a "Caramel Hypo", almost a "Ghost", since she's got very little pattern on her, period. I also got a big female Northern(N. sipedon), who could also be gravid, but sadly prior to capture appears to have had a run-in with an idiot with a .22 caliber rifle. She has a healing(seems to be on the outside, anyway)double puncture, perfectly round, on her dorsal and ventral side, which is almost certainly a "through-and-through" bullet wound. The guy I got her from said she IS eating, and her weight is good, but I had a gun-shot snake before that was eating for awhile then developed peritonitis and died from his injuries. I also got a 50/50 hybrid between a Banded and a Red-Belly Water Snake(N. erythrogaster), a rather odd-looking little snake. Even the injured Northern is as sweet as can be, and there are some nice potentials for some interesting captive-bred morphs down the road, but without being able to obtain the first breeding stock out of the wild, you're stuck. You can't just go to any reptile breeder and find these guys.

I could still do physical harm to the guy who showed me pics of a BLUE axanthic/anerythristic Banded he caught and then released because he didn't think anyone would want a "stinky mean old Water Snake no matter what color it was", though.

pitbulllady

 

[Natrix natrix]

Polluted environement

I do not think, if the environment is wrong, it is bad to take Natrix natrix from the wild. I am thinking to take some from behind our house next year, to take care of. They live in a ditch filled with frogs, but the ditch is so polluted, that you can walk over the trash on the water.
I see them each summer, but they getting less and less and the pollution becoming more and more. In the Ukraine, where I live, they are protected, but they are offered normally on the internet also for sale, mostly wildcatched. The police does not check, unless there is made report.

I try to get some to give them a better living. I do not think a polluted ditch is the perfect environment.

The information given here will help me a lot. Thanks.