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Originally Posted by Dbutton
I don't understand how it caused most of the snakes that were produced to be abused. I have seen just as many abused rat snakes, rattlers, cobras and boas out there. It doesn't matter what species it is, some idiot will buy it and abuse it. The Albino burm did give the herp world a financial boost, I will not argue that. And there had never been snakes that sold for thousands of dollars before that. I have a 12 year old (on July 4th) male albino burm that is far from abused. Had him since he was a 12 hour old hatchling and he has not known a bad day in his life and has never been bred. I do know that the burm has been dubbed the first "domestic" snake and that many people get them without really knowing how big they get. But if I were to pick an overyly bred snake it would have to be the redtail boa. They were in the pet trade long before the burm started getting popular and I see just about as many of them at reptile rescue sites as I do burms though they get adopted more quickly since they are smaller and more docile (usually). They are also being stripped from the jungles in great numbers each year in what is called "farming" and smuggled into the country to be sold at reptile expos and online vendors all over the country but that is ok? The same goes for the ball python which is brought into our country by the 100's of thousands each and every year to be sold to people who can't get them to eat because they are too stressed out from being shipped so far crammed into little bags and then crammed into deli cups that are too small for them to even move and stacked on about every other vendors table at the shows. You can't jsut pick on irresponsible burm owners. There are plenty of other animals out there that are just as abused and over sold. I do agree with on the green iguana issue though. They are the sadest and most abused creatures in any arena of the pet trade.
David
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I will have to agree with that 100%
I dont think there is anything wrong with owning a burm, if you have had one for that long, your obviously doing something right.
But I Think where the issue lies is people who produce and sell them, and market them to people who really cant take care of them once they hit the 9ft mark (which doesnt take long if properly fed)
Same logic can be applied to boas, ball pythons, and many other species.
Its not just the pet industry that is removing many of these animals from the wild .
We cant forget that conversion of rainforest to farmland and grazeland, and for lumber exports destroys habitat , which is more detrimental then overcollection.
Overcollection, a species can recover from with proper management.
Overcollection+ habitat loss , how do they recover if there isnt any place to do so?
just my .02
But I dont think there is anything wrong with a responsible and properly equipped hobbiest to have a burm, or boa, or retic.
breeding, I wont go there for reasons brett states.
