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/