One of the first projects for NEPARC, started in 1999, was an examination of existing laws in Northeastern states regarding regulations on collection and trade in herpetofauna. A need was seen to develop model state herpetofauna regulations to assist wildlife management agencies in creating or modifying their regulations regarding the collection, manipulation, possession and sale of native and non-native herpetofauna. The objective of the model regulations is conservation of wild native herpetofauna populations, sustainable use of those populations, and public safety. NEPARC formed a working group to develop such guidelines and produced a draft document for model regulations.
While this task began in the Northeast region, the need was really national in scope. As a result, the regional draft was submitted to a national working group of PARC that further refined and developed it, resulting in the final product, Model State Herpetofaunal Regulatory Guidelines.