American snakes in Australia

[jake0476]

Just wanted to know how do you go about the licencing of reptiles from other countries as a bloke from sydney asked if i was interested in buying some boas and corn snakes and i was talking to a bloke from a herp club in sydney and he said he has a rainbow boa. What i was wondering does anybody know how do you go about the licencing system on these reptiles and what sort of licence do you need to keep these species in Australia. Truthfully i didnt think these species could be kept in australia unless you had a zoo. Im very confused ...PLease help. :shock:

 

[Belinda]

Holly ****e...DO NOT BUY THEM! THEY ARE ILLEGAL AND YOU WILL BE JAILED! Unless of-course you have a zoo licence....

 

[Bendragon]

Of course, it's not strictly illegal to keep these animals. From memory in 1996 an amnsety was set in place and if you were a good boy or girl and were keeping these illegally they could be made legal, but with no mating,selling or swapping it effectively made them a one owner animal.

Perhaps the Herp society guy has one legally ?

 

[saikrett]

sounds too suss for me

 

[python_guy44]

Which raises the question. Why a person illegally keeping exotics be going round telling perfectly good strangers. Now anyone in there right mind would be trying to keep that sort of information as secretive as possible.

 

[Fuscus]

Anyone in there right mind would not be trying to keep illeagal animals in the first place. Unfortunatly people kept "importing" animals and even more unfortunatly there is a market for them.

 

[africancichlidau]

Hear Hear Fuscus !

 

[NoOne]

People need to realise that is there alot (and i mean alot) of exotics being bred in Australia. I've meet plenty of people over the years that keep or have kept exotics, their collections are good, clean and disease free. Not all exotics are diseased.
Their no different to us except they like non native reptiles. I have no problems with exotic keepers as long as i'm not involved i can't get in trouble.

Personally i think it could be licensed successfully but it's more work than npws can handle.
Exotics don't do much for me anyway and i couldn't care less either way, i would love a chameleon though.

Beware of anyone who openly talks about owning exotics, npws can be where you least expect.

 

[wattso]

have a thing for chams and iguanas meself, first exoctic would have to be a land tortise tho....sigh. personally methinks owning exoctics is not for everyone, did anyone read story in tele not long ago about a guy keeping tiger in apartment in new york i think? poor tiger, how unnatural was that, no wonder it was a bit physco.

 

[NoOne]

He also had a large gator.

 

[wattso]

oh yeah, forgot that, wasnt there something about a lion cub too? it amazes me wherepeople get them, even in america.

 

[raptor]

personally I think the whole exotic thing is a bit of a two-edged sword. I cant see a real problem if the animal is being kept by an experienced, responsible owner, as it is going to be healthy & free of disease. On the other hand, unhealthy animals are responsible for things like IBD getting into the country, and if exotics were to escape, who knows what damage they could do to our ecology? Maybe the answer would be an exotic-specific licence with stringent checks/inspections?

 

[wattso]

I reckon it would be ok if they were stringently quarantined/tested then compulsarily sterilised!
no disease no breeding/damage to our ecology . cant for moment think what other problems might be unthought of.

 

[NCHERPS]

I don't think personally that there would be too many issues with exotics coming into the country, I don't see why they should be sterilised or even Quarantined.
Whilst I agree there maybe more risk of disease from Wild Caught snakes from abroad, even then it is minimal.
I think the cautious way to go would be to allow in captive bred exotic's from respected countries and breeders, this way the quality of the animals can be monitored.

Reptiles as you know have been imported into Europe and the USA for many years, I myself imported animals from Malaysia,Europe, Africa and the USA, I never had any major probs with disease, just a few mites, ticks and worms, as you would find on any Australian WC snake.
I have personally not ever had any IBD and have only heard of a very few amount of isolated cases in Europe.
I do think that the greater issue would be to get the Authorites to go along with all the extra paperwork involved in registration etc...
I do also think that the exotic venomous species should be held only by the most experienced and that they should also make provision for the anti-venom to be made available,should the need arise

Having said all that, I am quite happy at the species available to me out here at the moment, well until the rules change, and then I might have a change of heart!

Neil

 

[Bendragon]

Perhaps if it was to happen, only allow it to happen with animals currently held legally on the books as per the amnesty. No importing that way and we all know how many are out there, also gives Zoo's a way to get rid of excess animals

 

[zoe]

i would have thought one of the worst things would be silly people deciding they dont want them anymore and just releasing them into the wild. i guess really strict & regular inspections and hefty fines if your pet mysteriously 'disappears' would be a good way to help prevent that. would encourage people to keep them locked up very securely too lol

 

[Alexahnder]

if they were only available to experienced keepers and the price would probably be up not amny people would release them. HAve you ever heard of anyone releasing a gtp or a woma??

 

[wattso]

someone dumped an adult diamond in a carpark at castle hill about a month ago.

 

[Fuscus]

Trouble with exotics is that if it is an invasive species we wont know until it is an irreversible problem. Or more correctly, a problem we won't do anything about. I would vote for (almost) any polly that would offer a 10 cent bounty per cane toad.

 

[ReptileRascals]

Here here!
I fish the local creek just to cull carp (good fighters though I must say).I also cull exotic species when rescuing for wires.If I was in an area where there was cane toads I would do my part in killing them also...