OK I have just a few words to say in response to this, then for me thats it.
Your first line is itself a bit over the top, I know that this person has taken snakes from the wild, he has told me hinself AND I have witnessed one instance where he had a snake bagged up in the car that he was taking out to re-release, possibly to spread diseases to wild populations from that cesspit.
Secondly you have only seen a handful of pictures, there are many many more and none of them give a true representation of seeing them first hand. The snakes were living in total filth and were severely underfed, the hatchlings were born in December and are still no larger than when they came out of the egg. I have seen a similiar aged snake that is 5 times their size. And besides the conditions of wild animals are irrelevant to this situation. Nothing more needs to be said on that obvious point. The vet had seen the snakes only after they had been cleaned and fed, she did not see them in the conditions that we saw them in. The vet told me that had she seen them in those conditions she would have ordered them to be removed immediately, but sadly she was constrained by only being able to report on what she saw first hand.
I dont believe this fellow fed these snakes before he went away. They were skinny as all frik and since we saw them only days after he left them and they DID NOT produce any scats in that time, and all the scats were very old and dry. The conditions they were kept in were unclean over a VERY long time, and in the time I have known him (since the start of this year) I know that he only fed the snakes ONCE!
In response his claims to have received hate mail from members here, since he hasnt been named and noone would know his email or phone number unless they were his friend (which I am embarrassed to admit I once was) I think thats dubious to say the least. I sent him a text a couple of days before he returned advising him of the action that I took in reporting him, to which he never replied, I called him a week later to speak with him about this and he insisted that he kept his snakes properly and saw no harm in what he had done before hanging up on me, and I finally sent him an email telling how I felt about him and his actions and included a link to this page so he could see that many other people considered his snake keeping appalling and cruel. Like I said nowhere has he been identified by Cameron or myself so I think this campaign of hatemail is imaginary and probably a diversion.
As for selling his collection, considering that he IS facing charges which could result in having his entire collection confiscated, I have to wonder about his motives for selling them now and whether or not there is an effort to recoup on an investment. From my discussions with the police officer involved the charges relate to failing to make provisions for animals under his care in his absence, not to 'temporary dirty cages' (besides which the word 'temporary' is redundant - this mess was long term!). The only thing that has saved him from prosecution under more serious cruelty charges is the farcical and incompetant handling of this case by Qld parks and wildlife, not to mention Camerons and my efforts to care for these snakes in his abscence. He owes us a debt of gratitude, but I doubt he has the insight to realise this.
The only good thing is that he does seem contrite for his actions and has finally realised (mostly due to the responses on here) that he cared for these animals poorly, and that the snakes may be rehomed to someone who will care for them properly. He claims to have been 'overwhelmed' and that this led to him loseing control of his husbandry, but it seems to me that he has always kept animals in that state and saw no harm in it and thought it was perfectly acceptable. Hopefully now he has realised the error of his ways he will never again subject any animal to that sort of treatment again, or so help me I will hunt him down.....
Enuff said!
Sean
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