Ethical morph breeding – REPTA's deleterious genes policy

Transcript

Hello everybody, here we are with Charles Thompson from the Reptile and Exotic Pet Trade Association.

And the topic for today is deleterious genes, or as it's known in some areas, extreme breeding, because this isn't just a reptile-specific topic that we're exploring. We'll look at it from a reptile focus, but this is something that affects all pet animals and all essentially domesticated species.

But what I'm going to do first is I'm gonna ask you about one of the hottest topics of the day, which is REPTA's deleterious genes policy. So the first thing I need you to do is tell me what a deleterious gene is.

Okay, well, a deleterious gene is, say we're going to produce a new morph.

What's a morph?

So a morph is a genetically inherited variety which may affect pigmentation or patternation, or indeed both.

So it might be an albino something, a piebald something, or anything where the colour or the pattern has been changed?

Yeah, so you could end up with striped varieties or banded varieties or indeed patternless varieties, which are all genetically inheritable traits.

And is there anything, sorry, is there anything wrong with those?

No, there's absolutely nothing wrong with those. And if a morph is proven to be stable, they can be enjoyed. And these morphs have proliferated for years and years. I mean, the first morphs will date back to the 60s or 70s, I would assume, and start to gain traction in the later 80s and 90s when we saw the initial boom in reptile keeping. And for the most part, morphs or cultivars or whatever you want to call them are perfectly stable and accepted varieties.

So forgive me if I'm wrong, but these are things such as albino corn snakes.

Correct.

Albino Burmese, leucistic animals. So you're choosing attractive characteristics, whether it be a behaviour or a colour or some kind of way that the animal looks. And you're like, I like that. Let's breed more of that. So you choose parents.

Yeah, throughout human history and its interaction with animals, there's always been a desire to modify or indeed improve what they had before.

If you need a working dog, you would take something that is strong and heavy-set so that it can pull. So say a Rottweiler which was originally used for pulling butchers' carts, but they came from the Roman droving dogs that were then crossed to the local dogs in Rottweil in Germany. And thus the Rottweiler was born. And it was given a job.

If it's a greyhound that's inbred, they all had a common seed, but you can see just with the breed variations that we've got now, how much manipulation has taken place to create these. And not all of these manipulations are positive, which is what we're talking about today, where it can go a little too far.

To go back to you asking me about the REPTA's deleterious genes policy, when we reconvened REPTA and we relaunched, the first thing that sort of came across the table and you were there with me as a fellow board member was what are we going to do regarding this mandate from government for self-regulation? What are we going to tackle? And the first thing I think that came out of everyone's mind was extreme breeds or deleterious genes.

Because any time we produce an animal, we should have a tacit responsibility to ensure that the progeny of this breeding is going to be healthy, that it's not going to express some form of problem that impinges its lifestyle in some way. So without a policy of this kind in place, it can remain a free-for-all producing morphs that have known problems that express themselves in different ways.

And this for my liking is something that needs to be clarified the difference between domestication, which is essentially a good thing to do. We are breeding animals that fit the human lifestyle and the human needs more closely. Therefore they're good companion animals or farm animals or working animals. They have a job to do and those animals have been bred specifically to do that. And one of the attractive characteristics might just be that they look nice. And that's largely the case with reptiles. But that's essentially domestication, which brings us a good animal with attractive genes. But when it goes too far, or when selective breeding goes wrong, then we can end up with this problem that we're referring to as deleterious genes or extreme breeding.

Yes.

How does that show up in reptiles? What kind of things are we looking at specifically with reptiles?

So there's a few different examples that we can give that highlight the issues that are faced.

The poster child I suppose for reptile deleterious genes is the spider gene in royal pythons, which also has some allelic bonds with other genes as well that show a similar, but not quite as severe often tremor or wobble. And this manifests itself, we thought initially as a neurological problem, self-righting and the animal really struggles in that regard.

So they've got a wobbly head or they spin a little bit, don't they?

Absolutely, they struggle to self-right. They can't really aim when they strike. And there are animals that will appear more stable or more stable at rest. And then as soon as they're excited or they go to feed, then suddenly expresses itself really aggressively.

And some spider royals have got a little tremor.

Yes.

And some spider royals have a really bad.

Absolutely, absolutely. I think the takeaway in the current crop of spider royals in circulation in the UK is they will all have a tremor.

To some degree.

So, I mean, it's almost certain. Having spoke to some breeders from the original seed stock that came in, they report that those spiders were almost completely stable. But by chasing down morphs, and that was like making new combos, new cultivars, there was very much a race to be the world's first in this regard. And royal pythons epitomised that more than anything else. Then there will have been a certain amount of crossing back where you're reintroducing spider to spider. And then that compounded the problem and made it even worse.

Selectively breeding has made the problem worse. So instead of selectively breeding and propagating a good characteristic, either inadvertently or sometimes purposely.

Yeah, the motivation for producing spider is that it's got a super reduced pattern, elevated golds and yellows. Now when that's put in combination with other morphs, suddenly it's like a magic key that unlocks other stuff. Just absolutely insane. And I'm not going to deride the way that a spider looks because certainly in combination with lesser or with pastel, they're mind blowing. Every one of these spiders will have that problematic wobble associated with it. So therefore, why would we continue to produce it? There is a myriad of morphs that can be produced safely without this little added extra that nobody wanted.

I'll take an example of another deleterious genes that's listed is we have leatherback in bearded dragons.

What's that?

So leatherback is like a far finer grain to the scales on the back of a bearded dragon. It's like turning down, getting a finer sandpaper.

So it looks smoother.

Yeah, yeah, so everything's sort of shrunk. And if I breed a leatherback to a normal bearded dragon, because we know that there's a gene present and half of the babies statistically will be born with that gene, they're leatherbacks because it carries and it visually shows. because effectively, leatherback is the head, not the full form.

The issue comes and leatherbacks are stable, they're okay. But if you put-

Stable as in they're not too much of a problem

No, no well there is no issue, they're perfectly stable animals. They show no real concern whatsoever. And this is true of quite a few of the animals that we've scheduled onto the policy. But the minute that you put leatherback to leatherback, you produce a scaleless dragon.

A silkback.

A silkback. Which if we think about the science behind a reptile, they are squamates, which means to have scales. And then animals will come up with coping mechanisms and strategies for the area or biome with which they're from.

Now a bearded dragon hails from semi-desert scrub land and full desert in Australia. So very low tree and plant cover comparatively to other areas, highly exposed. Next to no clouds in the sky because it's the desert, it's red hot. So too much UV is very dangerous to reptiles. So their skin is developed to be thick and what we call rugose, which means that it basically blocks around 95% of UV provided by the sun.

And if we take away that protection-

Well, you've just removed that protection.

Okay. So what we're talking about here, we've given a couple of examples in the silkback bearded dragon and the spider royal python. Of what REPTA and other organisations are calling deleterious genes. These are genetic characteristics and traits that cause the animal, poor health, poor welfare.

Yes.

So REPTA's deleterious genes policy. In fact, you tell me what it is.

Well, the idea is that all member businesses will excommunicate these morphs from their stocklists.

So you've come up with a list of morphs that we either know for sure or have scientific evidence.

Well, actually the scientific evidence is incredibly limited because I mean, there's been a study in spider royals, but actually we use more of a social licence to be able to decide whether these issues are. What we're really-

Why?

Well, because the motivation of a university to commit rather large sums of money to look into a gene over a period of time with a adequate sample size, when there are other things that could or should be looked at, when after all these morphs are manmade. So they're not necessarily the top of a university's pecking order.

So we're not gonna get scientific studies that tell us which morphs are a problem and which aren't. So how do we know which morphs are a problem and which aren't?

Because there's a weight of public opinion that goes with this.

Public opinion?

Well, no, not public opinion, reptile keeper opinion.

People who know what they're talking about.

Yeah, people who know what they're talking about. So what I'm really proud about with the reptile hobby is how collectively responsible we are. And if there's a problem, there is always somebody who is going to explain, I'm having a problem with this animal. And then lo and behold, in another chat group, somebody else is having a problem with the same animal.

So the issues are discussed and it comes to light. And then from there, REPTA has an opportunity to look at that information and look at whatever evidence is available and decide whether it's a problem enough to put the deleterious gene, the morph that we're talking about onto the list of-

Yeah, I mean, we generally update every six months where they're proposed to the board and we assess the evidence that's been brought forward or a proposition. And there are people which, also on the REPTA website, there is a link where you can propose, cite your issues and even upload proof regarding whether this animal is a problem. And yeah, we use that social license of the reptile keeping public to be able to, well, for lack of a better way of putting it, keep ourselves honest.

Let's talk about some of the morphs and animals that are on the REPTA list. So we've talked about spider royal pythons. We've talked about silkbacks. What else do we have?

So lemon frost leopard geckos, which are an incredibly pretty gecko that by virtue of carrying the lemon frost gene, also carries the capability to produce prolifically, both benign and malignant tumors, where you are breeding cancer into your gecko.

And is that a universal, if you are a lemon frost, you will have that problem?

If you are a lemon frost there's an exponentially raised risk of benign and malignant tumors forming on this gecko.

Sounds reasonable. What else do we have on the list?

So one that shows itself slightly differently, but is no less traumatic. Having also experienced it myself much earlier in my career before we knew the full extent of the problem was super motley boa. So again, a motley boa is perfectly stable, but then when motley meets motley and makes super motley, we got problems. And these problems manifest themselves in the metabolic systems of the animal.

When they're first born, they're fabulous looking. They've got lovely chubby bodies and chubby heads and all of the temporal muscles behind the eyes. They're nice and big and look like a boa should with that sort of spear-shaped face, really beautiful. And they're incredibly iridescent as well, oil on water effect, almost as good as any white-lipped python or Brazilian rainbow boa, they're exceptional looking.

But fast forward a bit, they start to grow normally, but then things start to go awry. The condition starts to degrade from the animal. And you can't work out why, they're growing, they're feeding, they're doing well, but these muscle masses in the head, they're actually reducing. And now I'm also getting the problem where my snake's becoming constipated and it can't go to the toilet. And I don't quite know what to do. And it looks like a really arduous process passing waste.

So we could go into a lot of detail of the list of animals that are on the REPTA list. And how many are there currently?

I think it's about 12 or 13.

12 or 13 animals, okay, we don't need to go into too much detail about all of them because it seems like all of the animals on there are on there for very good reasons.

There's a bloody good reason why they're on there. Yeah, we haven't done it just for fun.

Yeah, so my next question is then, why do people persist in breeding them? And I think I'll ask you for two different sets of people, those who don't know they're doing it and those who do know they're doing it.

So there's a dual responsibility, which is that we educate the people that are ignorant to the plight that these animals may be under if they were to incorrectly pair the wrong animals.

And those guys still exist. And there's people who've got spiders who don't know what the problem is.

Yeah, it's unfortunately, we can't guarantee that people have always shown due diligence with genetics. They may have got the correct viv and thermostat and equipment, all that's right. But unless you look into the morph or cultivar that you're working with, how would you know whether it's a problem? And are there other crosses to other genes that could cause problems or issues?

And this is where, particularly with royal pythons, which seem to have shown such a deep vein of genetic variation, that they show a disproportionately high amount of combos that are problems. There is absolutely no ethical rationale for the continued production and proliferation of genes that either curtail life, create misery for the animal, or give it a permanent state of wobble, such as with a spider.

So we'll come back to that in a moment as to whether or not there is any justifiable reason as to why people should breed these. And I think we already know the answer, but we can delve into it a bit further.

My understanding is then that as these morphs were developed, it became evident that there was a problem And from there, the reptile community has done a pretty decent job of self-regulating to try to eradicate those. And on the whole, most of the time, people understand the situation, they get with the program and they stop breeding them. And therefore, you'll find fewer and fewer incidences of these genes being out there in the market.

Yeah, I would agree. I would agree in as much as I'd say in the vast majority of cases, people generally show a very conscientious attitude towards this. And morphs that are identified as problematic, we're pretty quick to respond. I think that reptile keeping on the whole does a pretty admirable job of identifying these issues.

When we talk about this stuff, it's pretty harrowing, the things that we've just been discussing. And it's easy to get wrapped up in the negativity surrounding it. But the truth is we've identified it, we've told you that this is the problem, and we don't want businesses that are members of REPTA selling it anymore. And as we'll obviously come to certain organisations have also gone along with that same principle and extended it to their organisations.

So this means we've effectively levelled up the conscientious state of reptile keeping once more by enshrining it in a proper policy. It's not ad hoc, it's not, well, I don't do this, and oh, well, I don't keep that. Well, look guys, these have all got identified traits that really are problematic. They're not just there for fun. We haven't just picked them out of a hat. But equally, we have people who say, well, you've not included this one, that's because we're doing it piece by piece.

We change behaviours quite slowly in order to make those changes happen effectively. Less about revolution and more about evolution.

Yes, I think that nobody wants to be the reptile police, least of all me. I'm not a huge fan of authority. So, you know, I don't like being told what I can and can't do. But equally, you've got to apply some common sense when we're going through this stuff.

It's not so common anymore though, is it, mate? It's more like a superpower.

Well, I think, like I said, I'd reiterate that the majority of people, when the policy was released, it got shared far and wide and the overwhelming sentiment was one of support.

Yeah, absolutely.

So there's always going to be detractors and you're not going to please all the people all the time. And that's just a pipe dream. It's not going to happen. But then you have to ask yourself why they are arguing against such a policy. And that's usually because there's a financial interest in it. There is no ethical grounds on which to continue the proliferation of these genes. Just there isn't.

I've been playing the ignorant fool a little bit by asking you questions that we both rather know the answer to.

Absolutely, yeah.

Because you would generally explain--

Well, that's the game, mate.

Well, you generally explain it a little bit better than I do. But we've been working a little bit with ZZF in Germany, who are a big advocacy organisation. And the guy we've been working with, Dr. Stefan Hetz, is probably the person, the scientist at least, that I know who's done the most work in this area. And with ZZF being a multi-taxa organisation, they're not reptile specific. They work with dogs, cats, fish, birds, mammals, everything. And he made some very interesting points. And I think we've discussed these before, but it's worth covering them for the sake of the podcast.

There's a few different types of deleterious genes or extreme breeds. And the first one is a kind of on-off polarised type of gene. If it has this gene, it will also have this unexpected negative gene that goes with it, very much like the spider royal. We want to breed a pretty animal, but unfortunately it comes with this terrible gene and therefore we shouldn't breed it.

Yeah, it's binary. It's on or off, yeah, you know.

So that's the first one. But the other one I find is interesting and this is something we've seen in dogs predominantly, but other animals as well, where it's on more of a spectrum or a continuum. Whereas it can express the characteristic only a little bit, which is fine. So let's imagine dogs with short snouts.

Yeah, brachycephaly.

Yeah. So most dogs that have got relatively short snouts are fine because the snout and the head size isn't so small as to call it a problem. It's just an attractive characteristic. But when that's bred to excess, when that's bred to extreme, the head shape and the head size and the snout size become so small that they can have problems.

So along this continuum, along this spectrum, there are ones at this end of the scale that just look cute, don't have any health problems and they're okay. Whereas if it's line bred specifically to become so extreme, it can at some point along that continuum cause a health problem.

Yes.

And the way to approach those, as far as I'm aware, is that you don't breed animals, that are expressing a health issue.

Yeah, yeah, so I mean, with the continuum breeding equally as well, like we were talking about, or you mentioned it earlier about breeds, whether it's herding or whatever else, companionship. And the problem is there was something called the Victorian explosion when it came to dog fancying. And that then led to this huge proliferation of breeds including companion pets.

And then we would start to see elements of as we move forward closer to our current time, brachycephaly or elongated snouts or hip dysplasia or a proclivity for epilepsy or deafness which runs with a bunch of different breeds. And the problem is that these have actually not always been abhorred. Some of the described breed standard almost encourage you getting into that extreme area. That's where you have dogs such as an Alsatian or a German Shepherd being paraded around the show ground with a back end that's giving out, because it's hip are so knackered or a pug that can't breathe.

For me, this is the one thing that we as a community of reptile keepers should learn from the people who've been there before us, i.e. dog breeders.

The whole domestication process of dogs has been largely good, but in some places, it's reached a point where it's obviously causing health issues. And we're not so far down the line yet with reptiles. We're still at a stage where it's a new kind of hobby, a new community, a new type of pet. And we have the opportunity to avoid those problems that dog breeders have found themselves at.

Absolutely, we can look at the red flags that have come up from other pet taxa over history and actually we ought to be paying pretty close attention. And you're quite right, the mainstream keeping of reptiles has been limited to the past 40 years, not the last 2000. And therefore, when we know that there is brachycephaly or hip dysplasia or this or that, the other, then you would try and breed away from these issues, particularly if the brachycephaly is going to stop the animal respiring properly, controlling its heat properly.

So if we've got animals that you need to massage the poo out of because their metabolic rate slows down.

Maybe don't breed them.

If you've got an animal that can't self-right and has a tremor, don't breed them. If it can't filter the UV and therefore we don't know how much UV to give them or not give them, then don't breed it.

It seems like a common sense principle to me.

We're going to say that a few times, common sense, that's going to come up.

Well, lets hope it can be drilled home.

Yeah, you want it to be common sense. It needs to click, I think.

And this for me is the important part of what we do because self-regulation is not only astute in terms of avoiding government regulation and overreach, but it's also ethically necessary. I mean, as reptile keepers, reptile enthusiasts, reptile lovers, we should be looking at the health and integrity of our animals. It seems that if we self-regulate, everybody's happy.

Mmm, we hope that everybody's happy. I circle back to you want to keep everybody happy. there will always be detractors, but I think that self-regulation is a key tool. I don't think in this modern advancement-centric era that we now preside, which arguably is the most advancement-centric era of reptile keeping we've ever seen.

For sure.

Genetic, selective genetic breeding has to keep pace with the other advancements that we see, whether that be in control technology, UV technology, dietary technology. If we've got a comprehension of genes and whether they express problems, then we should be able to make decisions. And it may encourage scientists to look into these genes because they've been identified. So actually maybe the arguments the other way around, rather than waiting for a scientific paper that will never be written because there may be no sensitivity, they may not understand, they may not know. Whereas we can go, actually, there's a few things here that are expressing different problems. Would you like to investigate?

Yeah.

And then obviously your findings, we will find incredibly useful and hopefully feel validated that we made the right decision in and of the policy. And if that wasn't the case, then we'd review it being on the list. But more than likely they're going to stay on the list because we know the way it expresses itself.

Here's the thing for my liking. I listen to a lot of people from outside the hobby and inside the hobby, slagging us off, saying that we should be banned saying that there's problems, saying that we aren't ethical.

But what I see instead from my perspective, really frequently is the reptile trade doing, trade and hobby, doing really good work. If you look at all of the advancements in herpetology, whether it be UV light or husbandry or infrared heat, or indeed in this case, looking at deleterious genes, who's done that work? It's not scientists, it's not zoos, it's not even the animal rights campaigners who profess to know more about what we do than we do, which is of course ridiculous. It's people within the hobby, within the community, doing the work to keep reptile keeping at the heights to which it has risen.

Yeah, well, I think that what it shows is maturity.

Exactly.

And if you can be mature and say, Actually, there is a bit of a problem that we need to deal with, and I think we need to deal with it. I think that reptile keepers have shown an overwhelming sense of maturity when it comes to discovering something's a problem. And rather than ignore it or brush it under the carpet, or we don't talk about that, we actually discuss it in full. And this is evident across many forums and owner groups, and they're being discussed on a daily basis, all aspects of care,but certainly including deleterious genes. And that's why it's so impressive that the sector has embraced the policy.

But this isn't new. The reptile sector doing the, keeping its house in order isn't new. I say we, largely people who are not me and you, but the reptile sector has self-regulated itself in many other, on many other occasions. Let's talk about green iguanas. Let's talk about Trachemys, red-eared and the yellow-bellied sliders or whatever. Let's cover those, because we've been here before.

Yeah, well, I mean, iguanas used to be imported en masse from ranching.

Hundreds of thousands into the UK each year. Although lots of people are quite capable of keeping iguanas, for most people, most people who want a pet, those people who might be attracted by a six-inch baby dragon, green iguanas probably aren't the best pet. So the fact that we bought in so many and sold them to people, I mean, we're talking half a century ago here in the 1980s and 90s, aren't we?

Yeah, but what, this is where, again, where we show maturity. So it isn't that you cock up, because everybody cocks up. Everybody makes mistakes, errs, something goes wrong. And it's then what do you do after that? And are you willing to take the steps to try and change what you've done? Or are you gonna carry on regardless? And I think that the reptile trade is good and has got a good track record of identifying green iguanas are a problem. Then that becomes a push by the majority to try and discourage the importers from doing it. And it was successful, and green iguanas only come in in very vestigial numbers now, if at all.

And go to people who really want green iguanas and are willing to put in the effort.

And also, species availability has completely changed as well. So, and nearly all of it's captive bred, of course, now, which it wasn't back in the day, which is our progression again.

And this for my liking is the key. The trade got together and said, Look, maybe let's not sell so many green iguanas because our customers don't have a good experience when they buy green iguanas. And that makes them into not a customer anymore. Whereas if we get them started on a leopard gecko or a bearded dragon or something else, they're more likely to have a good time, they're more likely to stay a customer, which is a business sense, but also an ethical thing.

Well, of course, that's precisely as a shop owner myself and my fellow shop owners, that is our job day to day. So if we're going to, if the proposition is we're going sell you a reptile that could go wrong 50, 60, 70% of the time, whether that be through aggression or failure to feed or whatever, actually that returning custom or the live feed sales or the dry goods sales or whatever else, or if you add another animal to your collection, that's all gone because that passion could have got extinguished with you having such a really torrid time with the first animal. So that first steps within the hobby is really important. And then setting up an aspirational pathway for keepers to continue leveling up and adding nuance and development to their husbandry practice as well as the infrastructure that they use.

It's a slow burner, but I think the reptile trade does a really good job at it. We, you know, the species that we keep are condensed largely to a handful of good species as pet species. And then the specialist nerdy kind of enthusiasts have a whole tranche of other animals that they can keep well as well. And that seems to work. I can't imagine why we would want to introduce, you know, greater numbers than they are. They seem to be good for a handful of people, but not for most people. The same goes for Trachemys, the red-eared sliders, et cetera.

Well, it's all fun and games under the size of a 50 pence piece.

Yeah.

It's not quite the same when they're three kilos, 12 and a half inch long.

We've done a good job of weeding out the animals that don't suit pet keepers very well. And if we continue to self-regulate, if we continue to look at our hobby and our community when things go wrong and do what we can to put those right, then I think that shows a level of responsibility. And it's definitely defined as self-regulation and it gives government less need to step in with their overreaching legislation. So I think we're onto a good policy.

And correct me if I'm wrong, this is why other organisations have decided that what REPTA are proposing is a good idea.

Well, the other organisations really have got on board and got with the program with us. I know International Herpetological Society have adopted REPTA's list verbatim.

Yeah.

And this means that they are going to stop the sale of any of our morphs or cultivars at these shows. And then furthermore, we got a lot of support and positive feedback when we recently attended the Companion Animal Sector Council Forum, where we had a lot of veterinary organisations.

And ministers.

And ministers really, really enthusiastic. We had these breakout groups that discussed different issues. And it was important to me to be on the deleterious genes breakout group because the policy is kind of a passion project of mine, I believe in it a lot. So I wanted to be there because part of me, especially with the occasionally fractious sort of relationship that we've sometimes had with that organisation. So I thought I want to be on this table in case because I know the subject and we're going to have a conversation.

And the main organiser at the table said, so we'll start with REPTA. And I just said, we've dealt with it. I mean, just to be glib, but it got a laugh at the table at the time. But then I went on to explain that we scheduled 12, 13 different deleterious genes that we understand that the super form or the homozygotic super form is the main issue in a lot of these instances.

So it's about education of keepers to not push the envelope past the het-carrier phase, certainly for motley or for leatherback, et cetera, et cetera. And it was really well received. And it became quite apparent that REPTA were ahead of the game.

And this was it. It became quite a talking point at the event. I was on a different table, of course, but it became a talking point at the event that the reptile trade was self-regulating, showing a responsible approach to this situation that could otherwise get out of hand. So, you know, tick, VG, well done. We got some brownie points there.

It's nice to get them.

Because everybody seems so happy to give us a kicking all the time.

Which we largely don't deserve.

Exactly. So yeah, it was nice to have it acknowledged that we were doing good.

Well, REPTA, of course, being a UK organisation has influence in what happens in the UK quite strongly. With RRK being an international organisation, what we've done is we've shown the deleterious genes policy from REPTA to other organisations. And that's been largely a light bulb for them. That's been largely well received by them. And I know that a few other organisations around the world are looking at the policy and looking at what they can do to propagate it as well. So it seems like getting the ball rolling in the right direction is a good idea.

It doesn't matter who rolls the ball first, as long as it's set in motion.

Absolutely.

And you know, REPTA would not be too proud to then look at other policies that other organisations subsequently introduce in time if we thought that it was going to protect the interests of both the animals and the business members that we represent, as well as the wider reptile keeping public. But if the other organisations want to reach out to REPTA to discuss the deleterious genes policy, I'm more than happy to be in discussion with them. And if they wanted any advice with their policy development, we'd be more than happy to provide it. And if you was the conduit by which that flows as well, Tony, because you've been doing such stellar work worldwide with all of these advocacy organisations. So I'm really enthused to see the level of link-up between different countries. And I really do think that Responsible Reptile Keeping has been fundamental in that process.

Thank you, buddy, Well, we do our best, best practice, et cetera. And so we ought to wrap up really, because I think we've covered the ground. The question I'd like to finish with is, what can individual reptile keepers, which is our main audience, you understand, what can the reptile keeping community, the average reptile person do to propagate best practice and to propagate self-regulation, et cetera?

And the key is always educate yourself. If you don't-

Education is always the key, isn't it?

Absolutely.

Much better than prohibition, much better than bans.

Absolutely. I think that what became apparent when the International Herpetological Society posted that they'd added this, there were some detractors,but there was a really quite surprising amount of people that went, Well, what's wrong with them?

Well done.

Yeah, well, there was some that said, well done. But there was a surprising amount of people that went-

Oh, right, that didn't realise there was a problem.

What's up? What's the story? Why are we banning them? Well, they've got delirious genes. What's one of them?

And then it's an opportunity to educate and-

Exactly. We need the public to be as well armed with information.

But I also think that the pet stores and breeders can probably lead the way here because they're probably more invested in the nuances and details and the nerdy levels of reptile keeping and breeding than the average leopard gecko keeper or bearded dragon keeper.

Well, of course, but businesses, they work to their own rule sets. Now we've provided a REPTA framework of rules and the policy is expected for all REPTA member businesses to respect the policies put in place, pointless having them if we're not going to enforce them. So, but equally, you will find that there will be a number of shops, a great deal of shops that will have got their own rule sets that already far exceed REPTA's

Yeah.

And mine included. I'm miles ahead of things that I don't sell or won't sell or whatever else. And this is through experience working out which ones I don't want to sell. I don't want to proliferate and I don't think really need to be held. And so you'll find that shops are very much on it.

And the same here, just to not go off on a tangent and I don't want to go into too much detail here, but deleterious genes isn't the only self-regulatory advice and recommendation that REPTA advocate for. Let's talk about larger or giant species.

Yeah, so I've certainly--

So in saying I can't keep a giant species. So if I came into your shop and I said, I want a reticulated python or a sulcata me with 40 years worth of reptile experience, would you sell me one?

So what we would do is we would take you through a higher level of scrutiny at the point of sale. It's not that you necessarily want to be a gatekeeper, but there is a responsibility to ensure that somebody who is in a small bedsit might really not want an Asian water monitor

Might not want a sulcata.

Yeah, might not want a sulcata. And I don't actually think it's that bad a thing to say. Because it's common sense. So what the second self-regulatory policy that was developed under the auspices of REPTA was a giant species policy.

So what were we talking about here?

So it's important rather than saying large that we say giant, because there are large reptiles that aren't necessarily giant, or certainly what the public would perceive as large. So we are talking about the very sharp end, the really big species.

The obvious ones.

Yeah, so we split the policy into four separate key elements. So section one was snakes or giant constrictors. Then it was giant varanids, because they're the largest family. And then the next one that will be released will be terrestrial chelonian or tortoises and then aquatic chelonian, which will be part four.

And again, I mean, the fact that REPTA is developing these is great, but quite frankly, most of the reptile stores in the UK do a good job of having these policies in place already. And REPTA have simply made it official or codified it.

Absolutely. And I mean, it isn't to stop people keeping this stuff. It's really key to say that. But if you can be put off by a questionnaire, you were never supposed to keep the thing in the first place.

So if we're talking about animals that are gonna exceed six, seven, or eight meters in length, and we need to give them a respectable amount of space with which to live, that means it's going in your home. That means you're giving up a room. Now, are you a young family? Are you gonna have another child? Is this snake's snake room or the snake's whole room that you've tanked out now going to be a nursery? Where does it go? Do you have an outdoor space? Do you have power going outside? Do you realise it's concrete floor? How are you going to run power to it?

These are common sense questions, almost like the process which you would roll through. But actually we formalised it into a check sheet spread, like a list so that we can take them through it. And it is just for the most really large, like for the snakes, retic, Indian rock python Burmese rock python, African rock python, green anaconda, the big amethystines.

It's interesting to me, and I think I'm going finish up on this point, is that the reptile trade and the reptile community have consistently shown an admirable level of self-regulation. In fact, I'd say probably more so than most other pet taxa.

Yes.

Of course I'm biased. Of course I'm more experienced with reptiles, but certainly it looks like to the untrained eye especially, that the reptile community self-regulates itself pretty well. And what we're doing, and what REPTA is doing is formalising these policies so that people know exactly what and exactly why. And I personally am quite proud of the reptile trade and the reptile community on the whole. Are there bad elements? Yes, but that's true of all taxa.

Correct

On the whole, proportionally speaking, I'm pretty proud of the reptile hobby.

Yeah, I don't think on the grand scheme of things we do a bad job at all, I really don't. I think that the community is actually generally moving very much in the right direction. I do think, yes, there are bad actors, but they tend to show themselves usually in very vociferous ways. And then it's easy to sort of identify and then move away from those sorts of elements. I think as long as we continue on this trajectory, chiefly taking ownership of an issue and formalising well thought out policy, then we're on the right track.

I think you're absolutely right, mate. And the future looks bright.

I hope so, yeah.

Well, thank you very much for your time, buddy. I appreciate you're a busy man with lots of responsibilities. So can't thank you enough for coming along.

My pleasure, as always. Huge believer in the Responsible Reptile Keeping message and have been since the very early days. And I think that it's going to be a hugely influential organisation as it matures and gains even more steam and influence than it's already garnered. So I'm very proud to be involved with anything that's put out by RRK.

Thank you, mate. Really appreciate that and thank you for your time again.

You're welcome.

Keywords: REPTA, deleterious genes, reptile welfare, harmful reptile morphs, ethical reptile breeding