"AKC" type registry for reptiles?

[Serpwidgets]

Joe's description of how it could work is very close to what I think will be done. The point I was making about trying to make a living off of it is that in order to do so, someone would have to put up a lot of money and effort up front, and that might be all for naught. If they only get a handful of participants, their entire effort and investment is lost. I don't see that "risk" as part of this project for me. The only risk I see is that it would be so well received that we wouldn't be able to keep up with all of the demand. That's a pretty cool problem to have. :crazy02:

Hurley and I decided that we were going to do this for our own collection so that we can offer pedigrees and allow our customers to view the family trees of our own corns. That part was going to be done even if we are the only ones who ever have any "registered" corns. The point is not to assign cultivar classifications, standards, or values to any animals. The point is to allow an owner of a snake, whose ancestors are registered, to use the database to find any available information about those ancestors.

It is only a small step from that to make this available to other breeders. We just need to formalize a few things. I suspect that the vast majority of people who participate will be hobbyists, but if larger-scale breeders want to join in, that can be done, too.

The advantage is that this data doesn't become "fuzzy" over time like our memories do, nor does it require a special effort by the breeder to go look it up and then email or call the customer and relay only what snippets of data they thought the customer wanted.

At the start, we will just be compiling data. There will be check boxes, as shown in the screenshots we posted, for items that we think are useful. This does not "officiate" the validity of anything, it only makes it more easily accessible. There is an "other" field in these areas, along with a catch-all "special notes" field. For example, if someone wants to put "crimson" or "silver queen" or "Naples line" in the "special notes" field, that's not a problem at all. If one wants to register their breeder male as a "green Okeetee" color morph with "plaid" pattern and white eyes, and say in the special notes that it has wings and legs and add "John: 3-16" they can do exactly that. As long as it is not rated R, I don't see why we would not allow it in there.

We will not be going through policing the data and/or telling people "you can't call that an Okeetee" or, "we don't like the term snow bloodred so you can't put that in the notes." Nobody will be able to make a case that their animals are devalued by us not "recognizing" their naming conventions, unless their naming conventions involve use of the "F" word.

The data on a particular animal will only be as reliable as the people who registered it. That is true of any database. As they say, "garbage in, garbage out." They (whomever "they" are) also say, "consider the source." Since every registration shows the person who registered it, users can judge for themselves what that data is worth to them. The same is true of all registries.

If people see a registry entry that says the snake has feathers and eats aluminum foil, or that a snake--whose father is a cal king--says "pure corn" they can use common sense to interpret the data. (Although the "hybrid" checkbox can be set for any animal whose ancestry in the registry has any hybrids, and a "search for hybrid ancestors" feature will be included.) If some people are putting in stupid or useless data, it doesn't detract from the value of the data put in by anyone else. Putting useless or false data into a database doesn't make it true, but what it does do is provide a paper trail back to the person telling those lies.

Since corn morphology and genetics are constantly changing/growing, it is being built with the intention of being able to add or alter fields in the future with very little effort. This is why we came up with specifications and I wrote the software myself. If certain cultivars such as silver queen or anything else are mentioned often enough in the special notes, it will be easy enough for us to adjust the forms and database to allow a checkbox for it, and for me to write a quick algorithm to convert those items from "special notes" over to the new checkbox in the latest update of the database. It would benefit us to do so, because it saves space and makes the important data more accessible to those searching for it, which is the whole point of having a family tree.

 

[Jason B.]

check out the system they are using at www.ballpython.com. It sounds like what is being described and you may get some good ideas from it.

 

[Serpwidgets]

Once you become an element of a transaction via being an data collection entity that said snake is actually what was advertised, you become a potential yaught payment for some attorney.

So if I feed my corns crickets because I read it on this forum, and my corns die from malnutrition, I would be able to successfully sue Rich for providing this forum because he must then responsible for the accuracy and truthfulness of all of the information on this board. :sidestep:

Also, does that make KS.com responsible for the inaccuracies in many of the animals being sold on their classifieds? Or Reptibid? :shrugs:

What if you call me on the phone to tell me about a particular snake I'm interested in buying, and you lie about it. Is the phone company responsible?

LOL, it can really be carried to the absurd. I understand what you're saying, but the information in the database will be hearsay, and will not be asserted as "thruthful" or "accurate." Also, we would not be in the business of advertising anyone's stuff, just allowing people after the fact to look up records about them.

Obviously it is up to the courts to decide where to draw the lines. But we can easily have a disclaimer stating that we wherewith do not heretofore verify the truthfulness or accuracy of the data herein.

 

[Serpwidgets]

This will enable you to prove the snake you are selling is really a snake from The Snake Keeper. This should really help when you want to sell hets as some people are a little afraid of buying hets not being able to verify where they came form.

This can be done with a printed pedigree that has an identifying picture of the particular snake, relevant info (genotype, parents, etc) and a seal so that it can't be duplicated, but it can be easily transferred with ownership of the snake. This way, it is not the reseller's word that the snake is what it is, it is the originator's word. I'm sure a sworn/notarized statement could serve the same purpose. I understand the need for this with BPs since the price tags are so high.

I didn't see where they showed ancestry of any individuals though. To me that's the whole point of having a registry instead of just having a piece of paper that says, "I really mean it, this snake IS het!"

I want to know more than if it's het or not. I can tell that by breeding it. There is no concrete value in knowing the lineage, it's just "cool." And it might help in the future when new traits shows up and we want to see where they might have come from. (For instance, the whole "lavender vs mocha" controversy.)

 

[SODERBERGD]

So if I feed my corns crickets because I read it on this forum, and my corns die from malnutrition, I would be able to successfully sue Rich for providing this forum because he must then responsible for the accuracy and truthfulness of all of the information on this board. :sidestep:

Also, does that make KS.com responsible for the inaccuracies in many of the animals being sold on their classifieds? Or Reptibid? :shrugs:

What if you call me on the phone to tell me about a particular snake I'm interested in buying, and you lie about it. Is the phone company responsible?

LOL, it can really be carried to the absurd. I understand what you're saying, but the information in the database will be hearsay, and will not be asserted as "thruthful" or "accurate." Also, we would not be in the business of advertising anyone's stuff, just allowing people after the fact to look up records about them.

Obviously it is up to the courts to decide where to draw the lines. But we can easily have a disclaimer stating that we wherewith do not heretofore verify the truthfulness or accuracy of the data herein.

Yes, I understand the absurdity of those examples. Imagine how shocked McDonald's was to find out that when someone ordered hot coffee, they didn't understand it was hot. The bazaar seems to describe America lately. We are a litigious society. I just wanted to throw it out there that if you put a sign in your front yard stating you're not responsible for someone tripping over your water sprinkler, you're bound to be shocked if an attorney does the tripping. Disclaimers are good deterents, but they're not the last word. I was only throwing that out there so a person sponsoring all this data will have considered everything in assessing the value of his/her product. How many times have we heard of a burglar suing a store when he cut his hand breaking into the place. Who would have thought it was possible?

Don
www.cornsnake.NET

 

[Serpwidgets]

I was only throwing that out there so a person sponsoring all this data will have considered everything in assessing the value of his/her product

It was taken as exactly that. I probably should have worded it as "thanks, that is something to look into" and done some research first.

I am curious though, there has to be some precedent that protects places like KS and reptibid in particular, since they do directly "provide the means" for people to place advertisements, some of which might be fraudulent. I would think if there weren't, they'd have been successfully sued out of business by now. I will do some research into that and see what I can find. Where's that cyberlawyer banner when I need it?

 

[SODERBERGD]

Yeah . . .

It was taken as exactly that. I probably should have worded it as "thanks, that is something to look into" and done some research first.

I am curious though, there has to be some precedent that protects places like KS and reptibid in particular, since they do directly "provide the means" for people to place advertisements, some of which might be fraudulent. I would think if there weren't, they'd have been successfully sued out of business by now. I will do some research into that and see what I can find. Where's that cyberlawyer banner when I need it?

I suspect there is exactly that out there. Protection as an intermediary host. Let us know what you find out.

 

[Rich Z]

As long as you do not become an author, in part, with something posted on your message board or similar website, you cannot be held legally liable for what someone else posts on your site. That is a federal law - Communications Decency Act of 1996. There is some substantial legal precedent that upholds this law, so it's not like it isn't tried and true.

Now if you alter the message in any way, then you become partly the author of the work and THEN are liable for ALL of the contents. It is MUCH safer to delete a message then it is to edit it.

Now how this would apply to taking raw data in a database and massaging it to be interpreted as a reported output, I'm not at all certain. Because I think an argument could be made that you are acting as an author to create that report of the data stored on your system, even if it was entered by someone else. Certainly this is likely a gray area.

But honestly, even being dead right doesn't prevent lawsuits. It just prevents the complainant from winning. You still have to get an attorney, with all attendant expenses and headaches, no matter what. Fortunately, it is rather expensive for someone to file a lawsuit, so they do have to be suitable motivated, and be able to afford it, to do so.

My attorney once told me something that I thought was interesting to keep in mind. He said "Rich, in this country, if you cannot afford to go to court, then you really have no rights at all. Someone can take anything they want away from you for the cost of filing a lawsuit against you."

 

[Serpwidgets]

Now how this would apply to taking raw data in a database and massaging it to be interpreted as a reported output, I'm not at all certain.

On the contrary, there's no massaging or interpretation involved. People fill out checkboxes on a form, we simply convert the same exact data into an electronic format and put it alongside other records in a downloadable format so that anyone can access any of the records. There is a 1:1 correlation between all fields in the paper and electronic formats.

 

[Rich Z]

On the contrary, there's no massaging or interpretation involved. People fill out checkboxes on a form, we simply convert the same exact data into an electronic format and put it alongside other records in a downloadable format so that anyone can access any of the records. There is a 1:1 correlation between all fields in the paper and electronic formats.

Perhaps. But it would be an interesting court case, nonetheless. If someone entered in knowingly false data and utilized a program that you wrote to do a keyword search on THAT type of animal, you could theoretically be legally the "author" of that document that the person is reading as a result of their query. The only way you could avoid this is by providing EXACTLY the format as output that the users use as INPUT for the data. But heck, probably only an attorney could answer this one, and they would probably only say "maybe, maybe not"...

Hey, this is all just theoretical mumbo jumbo anyway. No one in their right mind is going to sue over a $100 corn snake. You will catch some grief over it, for sure, but heck if you want to do it, well go ahead and just do it. Life's too short to not do what you want to do while living it.

Good luck with it. I have my doubts it will work, but heck, I am just naturally a pessimist. But that just means that most of my surprises are all PLEASANT ones!

 

[Serpwidgets]

Hey, this is all just theoretical mumbo jumbo anyway. No one in their right mind is going to sue over a $100 corn snake. You will catch some grief over it, for sure, but heck if you want to do it, well go ahead and just do it. Life's too short to not do what you want to do while living it.

Ya, whatever you do, or don't do, someone will be mad about it. I think Douglas Adams put it best when he said something to this effect:

"In the beginning, the universe was created. This made a lot of people unhappy and was generally considered a bad idea." :grin01:

BTW thanks for the info on the 1996 CDA. (I remember there was tons of controversy when it was being debated back then, too!) I'll do some reading on it.

 

[Terri S.]

I agree, it needs to be done and I hope it is successful. How would this actually be implemented, would each animal come with a certificate indicating their ancestry?

Greetings! First let me thank Kathy Love and all of you for your thoughtful feedback and support. I am Terri Sommella, of Fire and Ice Dragons and the administrator of the Color Morph & Pattern Registry. When we developed the idea for this registry, we wanted to develop a shell that was 70% complete. By doing so, each group can use the sections and customize each area according to the needs of say, corn snake breeders.

Right now, we are accepting Baseline registrations which we know already will not be complete or perfect but we will refine the lines as we go.

To address the specific question though, here is a quick overview of the Registration process: Let's say you register a snake online. In 4-6 weeks you get a Registration Certificate in the mail with your snake's unique registration number, breeders name, sex if known and hatch date. The Certificate also contains parents' registration numbers if known.

Assume that you also register the mate to snake 1. When the snake lays and the eggs hatch, you register the clutch. Then you are mailed paperwork, one paper for each hatchling snake. Now, you can offer registered corn snakes to potential buyers, for what we hope will be a substantially higher price.

At the time of sale, you sign the papers, the new owner signs and completes the paperwork and submits the registration application. Registration papers are then mailed to the new owner and so forth.

As the database builds, registered breeders can access limited generational information and eventually, multigenerational pedigrees (for a nominal fee) to identify lineage, new blood, specific characteristics, local breeders, etc.

I hope this clarifies the process. Good question!

 

[Terri S.]

If you look at how the breed associations work for horses, dogs, etc, you can see how they worked some of those same problems out. They all register babies, and you usually can't see exactly what the quality of a baby is in most species. But once several generations have been registered, you can get an idea of the quality of the bloodlines after many progeny have arisen from that line. Breeders already have a feel for that in their bloodlines, if they are good, longterm breeders who know their lines well. But no matter how good the bloodline, you will get some poor examples from that line. They will still be registered, but probably won't win any prizes at shows! If it goes the way of dog shows, then eventually you will see ancestors with "champion" next to their names, and the more champions in the line, the greater chances that a high percentage of that line will be champion quality. Not a for sure thing, of course, just increases the chances. There would also be disqualifications for shows, I would imagine, like kinked backs. So yes, the kinked baby might be registered because nobody is going to come to your home and check your clutch. But that baby would be disqualified from competing in a show.

The way the founding stock worked in some new horse breeds (way back in the '60s and '70s when I was into horses) was that the stud book was open for a certain amount of time. If the horse had the right look (say a paint horse that conformed to the colors, pattern, and other specifications), then it coud be registered and so could its offspring. They might also allow other established breeds to register (like quarter horses, for example) to get the right body type. But eventually the stud book would be "closed" and no new founder stock could be registered. From that time onward, only progeny of registered animals could be registered themselves. I don't know if that is exactly how this would work, but it has worked with other animals. It would take a lot of time before the kinks are worked out, and enough generations were registered to make it mean anything. But a journey of a thousand miles...(you know the rest!)

Yes, Kathy, you've got it exactly right. After interviewing many folks within the other registries, we decided not to reinvent the wheel. Instead we adopted what we could gleen as appropriate for reptiles knowing it would be a work in progress. The key is not to overthink it. An AKC judge once told me, "You have to start somewhere and move foreward."

 

[Terri S.]

I agree 1000% on this point. I think if it's going to succeed in the corn world, it will have to be done by someone who is willing to put in the effort, from their own desire to see it get done, in order to get it rolling. If it happens to pay itself back later, that would be a nice bonus.

The other problem I have with the current design is that they want $500 to recognize any new morph. IMO that is outrageous. Especially with genetic color/pattern variations. It either is or is not, regardless of whether or not they "recognize" it. Seems to me like an effort to cash in on someone else's discoveries. Maybe that's worthwhile in species where new stuff sells for $50,000 each, but in corns I won't even consider such a thing. That alone is enough for me to say I'll never be involved in that particular effort.

My only interest is in establishing a database, a very large family tree. I could see having breed standards for Okeetees, Miamis, Candycanes, Sunglows, and Reverse Okeetees but that's an entirely different and independent issue.

I can certainly understand your concern over a fee. However, all fees were originally set by polling 50 owners and breeders and taking an average. Then this average was compared to other registries. As I personally thought it was still too high, we reduced the fees even further. The fees were meant as a deterrent to those who come up with a different color or pattern and name it some crazy thing and attempt to pass it off as a new morph or pattern. Second, the reality is we have worked for almost two years for free and but webmasters and database experts will have to be paid eventually. Stamps to mail registration papers still cost money and we hope to avoid banner ads to keep it going. Since everyone should be able to see the money making potential for themselves by offering registered reptiles, everyone should make money including those working in the CMPR. After all, I would think the AKC pays their staff...

 

[Terri S.]

The problem with any breeder that has a decent number of adults, are the hatchlings. To expect a big breeder to essentially waste hours taking pictures of thousands of hatchlings---well, that's just not going to happen.

We've gotta come up with something dealing with breeders and hatchlings.

OK. First, and perhaps this is not clear, but every hatchling does not have to be photographed. Only examples, male and female of new morphs/patterns need photos. That way, judges have something to go on when they are judging against standards in the Awards of Excellence competitions. As a registered breeder, if you would like to post a quality photo for rotation on the front page for free advertising, the opportunity is there. Sorry for the confusion.

 

[Terri S.]

{Wet blanket mode ON}

But without photos of the individual animal, you have no protection at all against fraud. Counterfeit documentation would be simple to make up unless you do something special with the type of paper or special imprinting seal. Anything that can be just printed on regular paper can be scanned in and counterfeited in a heartbeat.

Plus what about all of the followup work? How many phone calls and emails would I want to have to handle asking me to check on the registry of such and such animal. Which, quite frankly, I would have NO way to verify. Do I charge people for complying with their request?

To give you an example, years ago when I lived in Maryland, I bred Eastern Indigo Snakes. I gave one of the babies I hatched out to my little brother which he kept for a while, then decided to give to his biology teacher. Anyway a few years after this all took place, this biology teacher came up to me at one of the Mid Atlantic Shows and asked me if I would mind giving him a documenting letter stating that the indigo snake came from me. I refused. I had no way of determining that the animal he had was actually the animal I gave to my brother. So how could I ethically have done that for him?

If someone can come up with a magical formula for this to work, my hat is off to you. But if it is going to add substantially to my workload, with no real return that I can see (come on, do you REALLY think this will allow us to raise prices on these guys?), I am afraid I will have to decline. I am trying to figure out ways to REDUCE my workload, not INCREASE it! And from every angle I have looked at this problem, it appears to be unavoidable that it will not only cost me a substantial amount of money, but it will also involve a substantial amount of time and effort as well. And for what?

What exactly would be the GOAL of something like this? It has to gain something for all involved (or MOST people, anyway) or all won't get involved with it. Particularly if it does not gain something for the people who would have to put the most time, effort, and expense INTO it.

{Wet blanket mode OFF}

Rich, We've thought of that and yes, we've gone to great lengths to minimize any risk of fraud. In fact, you would not have to do anything at all. The CMPR would handle all of that, like the AKC does for dog breeders. I'm working to reduce our workload, too.

 

[Terri S.]

Uh, I typically have between 300 and 450 clutches per year...... All of them hatching out around the same time. Most people would not believe the stress levels around here at that time. Oh yeah, the Daytona Beach Expo is right in the middle of it. Sure, I can see people standing in front of my tables miffed because I don't have a certificate for each animal there. :headbang:

Yes, it's automated. If the workload of offering registration certificates seems overwhelming to you, my suggestion is to try one pattern or morph. Offer papers with those registered animals. Price them out differently. See what happens. We have already done so. The fact is, people want it. The opportunity is there for a greater return. Perhaps we can produce less animals (read: less work) and make more. Every other group of animals does this. Why not reptiles? Feel free to call me at 717-359-8669 or email me at [email protected], admin for the Color Morph & Pattern Registry

 

[Joejr14]

*Shakes head*, I dont like this one bit. Not at all.

The point of this SHOULD NOT be so breeders can charge "substantially" more. That, in my opinion, is unacceptable.

 

[Amanda E]

When this idea was originally brought up last year by Nancy Swamp, I wasn't too sure about it... Actually I was against the whole thing (what can I say other than I'm not one to like change :shrugs: ). But I've thought about it and I've decided that it's definitely an interesting idea, if it can be done cheaply enough to get a lot of people involved.

I'd love to see a huge database of snakes online that anyone could browse. But it doesn't seem like that is the point of this registry:

As the database builds, registered breeders can access limited generational information and eventually, multigenerational pedigrees (for a nominal fee) to identify lineage, new blood, specific characteristics, local breeders, etc.

I too don't like that Terri S. states that it is a way to increase the cost of the snakes. Yah, I'd like to sell my snakes for more, but at the same time I'd like to eventually get some lavenders and I don't want the price to go back up to $100 per snake, or more, just because it's registered. I've also been patiently waiting for some of the ball python morphs to come down in price so I can afford them. I'd be awfully upset if the prices jumped back up because ball python breeders started a registry.

I don't know. Right now I'd prefer that Connie and Chuck run with it than to see it happen through Terri S. (Sorry Terri) It just seems like they have everyone's interests at heart, not just the interests of the people who are behind this potential registry, and not just to try to make the breeders, who register their snakes, a bunch of money.

I have a feeling that a registry of the sort that Terri S. is talking about will only bring about the ruin of the herp hobby (okay maybe that's a little pessimistic, but still) because only the rich (well.. the people who aren't penny pinchers) will be able to afford any type of animal. Okay, yes, not everyone is going to register their animals, but those who don't probably aren't the people who you are going to want to buy your animals from (unless its someone like Rich who has a huge reputation to begin with that wouldn't need to register his animals for a better rep).

 

[E. g. guttata]

I have a serious problem with the $500 fee to register a new morph. I personally don't have the $500 to do this, and I am going to be starting my own kisatchie project, in which I plan on making snow-type kisatchies. How am I going to register a half clutch of these if I can't even register one because of the $500 fee? I don't like the idea of using this registry to make money. I do like the idea of having the information out there for people to use and find out the genetic backround of their snakes. I think this will help a lot with people tyring to figure out why snows are popping up in clutches that should only have normals and amels. I know I had that problem, and there's not a lot of digging I can do to find out.