Exotic reptiles seized in yet another drug bust

Exotic reptiles seized in yet another drug bust
19-05-2012

A drug bust in Sydney's south has resulted in another seizure of exotic reptiles, this time "an African python, native and exotic turtles and three chameleons".

Chameleons rescued in police drug raid - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

The article mentions that the chameleons are being treated at Taronga but "might be put down". I'm assuming that they probably will be euthanised.

19-05-2012

Oh dear. The article says "The National Parks and Wildlife Service says the reptiles may need to be euthanised to protect local wildlife."

There are chameleons at many other zoos in Australia, so what am I missing here? Can't they be quarantined and 'disinfected' or something and given to zoos?

19-05-2012

Ask steve. I read a while back they took in an iguana (i think) that had been handed in.

27-07-2012

this popped up on the news, so this seemed like a good place to post it:
Cobra on the loose in suburbs - Yahoo! New Zealand News

27-07-2012

Food for an exotic snake is exactly the same as food for a native snake. There is no end to the number of idiots this planet can accomodate.



Hix

27-07-2012

A true statement - unfortunately.

However, some years ago our zoo had a visit from one of these idiots who proudly showed me photos of his King Cobra - on the Gold Coast!!!!! Apparently some of his mates owned some as well. He didn't have tatts and studs, nor did he arrive on a Harley, but he also was not born in Australia!

I'm told that Burms and Retics are also very common and you can choose your colour when ordering.

Geelong seems to be the Boa capital of Australia. When I first started doing the Geelong A & P Show I would be oregularly offered Boas at $1500 each. The price is now down to $50 each, how many would you like?

Corn Snakes are offered by the dozen. In fact, some young Aussies think that Corn Snakes are natives - they are that commonly kept.

27-07-2012

When I did my elapid husbandry course one of the instructors told us a work colleague of his bought a python as a pet and when he saw pictures of it he immediately ID it as a ball python. So the owner put "ball python" down on the returns and on the books and has never been questioned about it, doesn't say too much about the people responsible for permits.

You don't have to strain too hard talking to reptile keepers before you find someone who has an exotic story, if there is someone willing to buy it there is someone willing to sell it. By the way I keep native herps and fortunately (or unfortunately depending on your views) I don't have any personal exotic stories

27-07-2012

Red tailed boas, chameleons and corns seem reasonably common down this way. never encountered exotics personally outside work but people are surprisingly open about what they can get.

30-07-2012

Is the logical next step to accept that there are a large number of exotic herps in the country and legalise the keeping of some species through licensing? I accept that this isn't a fool-proof system and has flaws, but maybe it would tighten up the illegal imports.
It would be a real shame to see another Everglades situation if exotics were suddenly dumped creating feral populations. That is to add to the already existing problem.

30-07-2012

What's the thrill in owning an exotic, illegal species? Maybe I just answered my question: it is not native and it is not legal. Sad.

30-07-2012

like the american alligator that was found in a camping ground on the NSW South coast a few years back.

30-07-2012

The questions surrounding private keeping of native reptile permits system is in itself ridiculous. So I have given a general "keepers point of view" on some of Australia's permit systems dealing with reptiles, so firstly you can have a general understanding of current permits.

WA and Tas have the most ridiculously regulated systems, WA chief of environment (don't remember the official name off my head) has gone on record to say that "reptiles are the currency of criminals" there is no import into WA and even some endemic species widely available elsewhere are prohibited to private keepers (Rough-Scaled Python), how can WA keepers hope to get any progress with this mentality in charge. Tasmania has no import either and obtaining a license permits any keeper to collect a certain amount of native reptiles, so any Tasmanians who want a snake as a pet is limited to basically tiger snakes and copperheads which most do collect without any prior proof of ability to safely keep some of the worlds most venomous snakes!

In my opinion SA has the most effective and fair permit system, some species don't require a permit (eg blue tongues and short neck turtles) the list of basic species only requires you to get a permit for 2 or more basic species animals. Then to obtain specialist species you need references to show your competency keeping them. The venomous snake endorsement operates on a 3 level system, you keep a red belly or similar for a year then can apply to upgrade to all but 4 species for a year and on level 3 you can finally upgrade to Eastern Browns, Coastal Tais, Inland Tais and Rough scaled snakes.

NSW also has different levels of species able to keep, but not as well structured I believe.

QLD has some good things and some absolutely stupid things. The stupid thing: anyone can go from keeping a gecko then doing a venomous course to obtain references and then straight away buy a Coastal Taipan, easily the most difficult elapid to work with in Australia. QLD also has international species permit, YES QLD are legally allowed to have exotics! (so are other states but there isn't the locality distinction) QLD can legally have international Green Tree Python localities such as Biak, Aru and Sorong. QLD also prohibits crocs, like some other states. QLD permit system is regulated by politicians not in the literal sense but because they have no idea about what they are regulating, try to make life as hard for people legally keeping whilst ignoring illegal activity and finally can't justify their laws and can't answer simple questions.

In the early 90s there was an amnesty on exotics and those keeping them were allowed to legally obtain a once off permit for their exotics for the life of the animal provided they were not bred.

Also the recent addition of JAG carpets to the Australian hobby is very interesting. Jaguar carpets were a purely overseas morph, until only recently when one of Australia's biggest commercial breeders "obtained" some jags. Now JAGS are readily available given the new name RPM (reduced pattern morph) to try and separate them from their history as illegally imported JAGS. There is also talk that granite and zebra carpet morphs have already started down a similar path with some people saying they will be available in a matter of years.

Tetrapod: The issue of legalizing exotic reptiles is debated very regularly in the hobby, I can't go into all the details (I write too much already haha) essentially the consensus is that it will never happen. As you can probably grasp from my brief overview of Australian permits we already have enough problems with native permits that won't be fixed anytime soon, so throwing exotics into the mix isn't really an option. My concern is not so much reptiles escaping (although it is a concern) but my worry is the risk of pathogen and disease spread with captive collections and wild animals, there have been a couple of "scares" with OPMV and now Sunshine Virus.

Nanoboy: People want the new or different thing, even in natives the introduction of a new species or a new colour mutation brings in the BIG dollars! Gavin Bedford has recently collected Oenpelli Pythons to bring into the hobby, he took preordered pairs for $15K to help fund the mission, this price will rise to maybe $20-25K per hatchling pair once the breeding program is at the stage of public release. Albino carpets were about $15K each when they were first released same with Albino Olives, JAGS were several thousand on release as were Rough-Scaled Pythons. It isn't so much that exotics are anything overly appealing it is purely the novelty and "specialness" of them that makes them as appealing as they are.

Sorry for the essay people, believe it or not I condensed everything, as such there is probably some information that could be missing the full story but I did my best

Cheers
Daniel

30-07-2012

If you were into reptiles,could it not be worth a look around the outside of Taronga for a few interesting species?

Cheers Khakibob

30-07-2012

That was a really good post, crocodile_dan. I don't know how accurate your info is, so I will leave that up to the other folks on this thread to discuss.

What I would like to ask about though, is your reference to Gavin Bedford "collecting" oenpelli pythons. You mean collecting from the wild? If so, is this legal?

30-07-2012

Gavin Bedford is the only person (in the world) who has the permits from the Govt. and the permission from the native people to enter the Oenpelli region and collect this python species. From a recent article I read, he has so far managed to find only one.

As for the accuracy of the info in Corcodile Dan's post - from what I know it appears to be pretty spot-on.

My view (and the view of lots of government-types) is that as soon as you allow any kind of legal trade, you create more avenues for illegal trade.

Some years ago there was a complete moratorium on international trade in elephant ivory. There was still illegal smuggling, it could not be stamped out entirely. The moratorium was temporarily lifted for a few African countries only, to export stockpiles of ivory they had confiscated from poachers. The sale of this ivory generated funds that went into anti-poaching etc. In a very short space of time, as well as the legally traded ivory, there was a notable increase in the volume of illegal ivory appearing in the markets in South East Asia.



Hix