Exotic reptiles seized in yet another drug bust

11-08-2012

Man, now I have to go google those snakes: they sound exotic (in the "not run of the mill" sense rather than "non-native"). Well not Steve's anaconda and python, but can the average joe get their hands on those snakes?

11-08-2012

Not unusual to see in the wild if you are in the right place at the right time - usually at night, or after heavy rain when the rising water table brings them to the surface.

They are very beautiful snake but most people are surprised at how small they are.

11-08-2012

Chlidonias, filesnakes are awesome, bandy bandy's aren't terribly hard to find if you spend enough time looking, their defense display of raising a body loop is a great behaviour display.

Steve, I know both Venom Supplies and Sonia Dewdney from the Australian Reptile Research and Breeding Centre keep Bandy Bandy's, other people may have them as well. Sonia I believe has bred them and has gotten them onto pinkie legs and tails I believe, but they do definitely have difficult feeding requirements but some people manage to do it. the website is reptileresearch.com. I'm not sure if I would attempt to keep them in the future even if I could get a hold of them. retics and anacondas would be right up there for my hypothetical exotic list

Hix, night tigers are also on my list amazing species.

Nanoboy, the average joe could get them in Australia because they are here but not through legal means.

Cheers,
Daniel

11-08-2012

just to clarify that for nanoboy, the anacondas and other exotics can be obtained illegally, while (most of) the native snakes can be kept by anyone with a relevant permit (different states have different requirements, e.g. in Tasmania you can only keep the herptiles native to Tasmania and there are restrictions on where you can/can't collect them, and a few species are not allowed to be caught or kept).

11-08-2012

my top Australian herptiles I'd like to find are bandy-bandy, moloch, turtle frog and corroboree frog. Turtle frog tops the list

11-08-2012

Too many "average joe"s do keep species such as these illegally and they are surprisingly easy to get your hands on. Legally they can only be held by facilities with the appropriate licenses.

Our zoo has kept Retics in the past, and will do again, and we currently have Yellow Anaconda, Burmese, Boas etc. Green Anaconda are high on the priority list.

11-08-2012

I realise this thread has moved well off this topic, but this caught my eye and, in my opinion, is a gross oversimplification:
The internet is a wonderful place, where people can anonymously criticise others they've never met or know little about. If anyone thinks Gavin is working on the Oenpelli pythons out of greed and arrogance they should ask him about his personal expenses and the cost of the project so far, think about what he could possibly net should the project succeed and then do the maths. You'll probably find that setting up a lemonade stand at the end of the street with the local kids would be a much faster track to personal wealth. Even if successful, these python projects (whether it's morphs or an uncommon, wild type) are a bit like a pyramid scheme, or perhaps an even better comparison would be when ostrich breeding was all of the rage a number of years ago. They were going to be THE meat and leather animal of choice, so pairs were going for tens of thousands of dollars. Within a small number of ostrich generations, farmers couldn't give them away.

Rough-scaled pythons, once so rare they were known from only a single, hacked up, preserved specimen in a jar, went for $24K a pair when first bred but now, a few short years later, can be had for a couple of hundred dollars each. Would you go looking for a wild one now, to take home for your collection, given the costs of flying in and out of the Mitchell Plateau? I would think not.

What Gavin is aiming to do is what John Weigel did with the rough-scaled python - get them common enough in captivity that no one would even dream of looking for them in the wild to collect. Yes, I'm aware they're hard to find, but I know of a few people (fortunately all of the mind-set that they wouldn't consider taking them home) who have found them within the boundaries of Kakadu National Park. What none of us knows about (well, some of you may, if you have dodgier connections) is the number of people that have stumbled across them who have been inclined to take them home. I know a couple of 'friends of friends' that wouldn't hesitate.

A lot of animal species (not just reptiles, not just animals affected by the cane toad invasion and certainly not just Oenpelli pythons) are disappearing from the wild in the Northern Territory. Although captive breeding in the private trade is not the ideal conservation tool, especially given the current trend towards morphs and mutations, if they do disappear from the wild I'll take some comfort from knowing that a few thousand are still floating around the country in private collections.

11-08-2012

Molochs are fairly easy to find in the bottom half of the Territory - I saw several crossing the highway when I was there some years ago.

The others are a different matter altogether...



Hix

12-08-2012

everyone tells me moloch are easy, the problem is I've only once been in moloch country (at Dryandra Woodlands) and it was winter. I'll find one at some point though.

12-08-2012

Dreamworld (or more specifically one of Dreamworld's sister parks 'Australian Wildlife Experience') has received an emerald tree monitor from an illegal smuggling ring bust and is asking fo names on Facebook.

12-08-2012

crocdoc, that quote was a very small proportion of my comment. I'll admit that the section you quoted was oversimplified and that yes Gavin has put an enormous amount of resources into this project and I am thankful for what he has done and what he is doing for the hobby, I've always said I support the Oenpelli Project and Gavin.

I don't know Gavin personally but have briefly talked to him, as well as listen to his presentations at 2 expos. But in my opinion the impression I personally get, which others don't have to agree with, is that he likes to talk himself up a lot (which I believe comes across somewhat in the quote from his website in Nanoboy's post from the number of sentences focusing on the use of the word "I"). Even though I have this impression of him I do still like him.

I have heard rumours of illegally held Oenpelli's in southern states, which you eluded to but as I don't know the legitimacy of these claims I haven't mentioned them.

Cheers
Daniel