Big snakes.

I was talking with a friend recently, who does a lot of work for animal welfare and reptile rescue. We got to talking about big snakes, Burmese pythons and the like, during the conversation some very interesting points were made, which i thought i would share.
He gets almost daily phone calls from people begging him to take in their unwanted large snakes, and he has to turn them away as he already has too many. Zoo's are finding it increasingly harder to take in large snake species now as they are getting full of them too.
People go to the local pet shop and coo over the "cute little baby burm" don't do their research properly or are mis- informed by the pet shop who after all is after a sale and bring home little baby, then 12 months-2 years down the line, the cute little baby is a huge and still growing rather large baby and that's when the problems start, and my friends phone starts ringing.
So who's is at fault? the pet shops for stocking these snakes and selling them to anyone with the right money??? The irresponsible owners who take on such a snake without doing their research? or a mixture of the two? and what can be done to stop the problem becoming ever worse?
There are many great owners out there who own large snakes, keep them in the proper enclosures or have dedicated rooms for them so they get enough room to move and exercise and these people should be praised, but for those who think its OK to keep a large snake species in a one bed roomed flat, because its "cool" or whatever reasons you had for buying the snake, please think twice and i hope you find someone like my friend who is willing to take them in when the time comes.
Maybe it's time new legislation was introduced, or for the d.w.a licence to be amended to include larger snakes, to ensure people know what they are taking on and shops cant sell them to just anybody.
thanks to:
http://linkbacklink.blogspot.com/

While surfing around the net last night on various diffrent sites around the world, i picked up on a subject that i thought was worth a disscusion.
I have noticed on varying sites when something is being sold many people say you should only trust reputable breeders, whilst i understand the ethics of this i dont agree totally with that statement.
There is a lot of "small people" not breeders but hobbiests that get clutches why should they not be trusted? is being a hobbiest and not a big name mean you know less than a breeder whos pet is generally a number and not a named family member? If your not in the right clique does it mean you know less about the animals your selling?

I have bought from shops,Breeders and private hobbiests all of my purchases have been healthy and to be honest the worse for knowledge has been the shops, i have found from breeders that often what they are selling are not necessarily there own breed animals but some picked up from shows, some from the "small people" that they have picked up cheaply and seen a way to turn a fast buck.
I can say i have had more contact from the "small people" about any purchase i have made than from any Breeder and while i am not picking on anyone and i do have breeders i would and do buy from, i do think that to get to being reputable you have to be willing to have a percentage of trust.
I think many breeders like to put people off from buying from the "small people" and i dont think its just concern that we the buyer are being ripped off i think its that the more small people selling is more competion they have to deal with and with a market that is slowly being flooded with reps of alsorts maybe the breeders are clutching at strings and looking to put obsticles in the way in order to keep their own profits up.

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