illegal corn snake

[Miss_Croft]

Chimera – it was a reference on smuggled.com. I do not want to create a flame war about how OPMV came into the country. The fact of the matter a complete room of herps had to be destroyed in a facility that should not have had any smuggled/illegal imported reptiles.

 

[Magpie]

PJ, NSW NPWs accpeted the idea that frenatus had in fact been in australia for hundreds, if not thousands of years, having come over in various boats from asia and becoming locally established. White civilisation just allowed them to expand their range. Similar to the dingo really.

 

[nikay11]

I Find it really funny how Snakes in the US are cheap here and expensive over in austrailia, Where all the native austrailian species are expensive for the most part and extremely hard to come by. Take my water pythons for example, I found two breeders in America who didn't have any hatchlings yet, and I ended up buying them from Canada. Green tree pythons, rare and hard to get to for you guys but here common but on the more expensive side. I can't even find a black headed python, the one I did find would be imported and 15000 dollars!

 

[ravensgait]

Nikay have you looked at King Snake lately? BH youngsters for under 2500 should be a bunch more on the market this summer I know of 5 or 6 clutchs and sure there are more I don't know about so finding a BH isn't very difficult. Water pythond show up here and there but don't seem to have the following as other auzzie critters., do remember a couple of adults for sale in the last year for somewhere around 500

As for the prices here as compared to OZ not suprising seeing as you can not import or export to or from Oz.. Randy

 

[Hickson]

Sebii – I doubt AQIS came to visit you – their jurisdiction starts and stops at the boarders.

This is not correct either. AQIS' jurisdiction is over things recently imported into Australia, most are inspected at the borders, but that is not where it ends. If you have goods at your home that have been recently imported and AQIS wants to look at them, they can. So can Customs.



Hix

 

[nikay11]

I'm suprised maybe I stopped looking to early cause I found the water python to be less costly but not less in beauty and a little easier to find...anyway I'm spending the 2000 on the ontogenic green tree python and ill call it quits after that to bad if I had known earlier I probably would have got one.

 

[Southside Morelia]

Jason - I have read at least one reference the snakes with OPMV (Two strains) originated from two legal imported cobra

The issue is that there are exotics are in Australia (Some more worrying than others – Sliders for example). For what some one this board have stated – in many cases there is a breeding population. The question is where from here? Banning has NOT stopped their import – I have suggested do what they did with the bird keepers – rule a line in the sand and say no more from here and allow the existing ones. This would do a few things:
Make them available on the open market – reduce the need to import because they are been bred locally. If you can buy it openly do you need to risk the years in jail to import it? It will also encourage people to take their exotic pets to the vet when they are sick – instead of dumping them in bush land (Like the recent chameleon incident). This would reduce the current risk of smuggled exotics in Australia.

Sick exotic in the bush = danger to local wildlife.

Exactly...that is the only way to manage an "overly rife, let's not acknowlede this and hope it goes away issue"! Man. it's not brain Surgery I guess it all comes down to money spent on administrating the extra work load.
It's like drug addiction or sex,(sorry for the analogy), but we have come to accept that the best way to manage drug addiction is to accept that it happens and manage the "safe" use of drugs and offer needle exchange etc. Safe sex is by way of offering condoms to the people that need them. Please, let's not get off the topic here and I don't want this to go down the road of ethics towards the past two examples, but you get my drift!!
We need to accept that there are heap of exotics in the Country, make them legal and manage them appropriately. It's the only sensible way...DUH! Sorry had to say it!
Cheers
PS. Lara your pretty hot, she has always been a fav of mine!!! in a non-sleazy way!

 

[Miss_Croft]

Southside Morelia – That is what I have been trying to say – we need to accept there are exotic reptiles in Australia – that they are dangerous to the Australian wild life – and work on minimising the risk.

Right now there are cowboys (And many cowgirls) out there who are releasing sliders into the Australian waterways (Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane have had incidents of ONLY juveniles). Note sliders are on the 100 most invasive animals in the world if they get a strong hold in the Australian environment could devastate the Australian Turtle population.

Someone on this site noted they have been catching corn snakes in NSW – I think I read a number of 20 this year – that is worrying as there is easily enough to produce a breeding ferrel population. I read about these sightings and see photos in online papers and it says one thing – Banning them is NOT WORKING. I will even go a step further to say that there would be some people out there who believe if a ferrel population is started then the animal is “here” and the authorities will allow the keeping of them as pets. (Just release all the not so pretty corn snakes – and one day you will be legally able to seel them). That has a much higher rate of harming the Australian animals. (By the way if a ferrel population takes off the naturalists will wet themselves with excitement – another species to count – more funding to brainstorm ways to control)

What is happening now mean diseases (or parasites) has a much greater chance to be introduced into the Australian wild populations. And that would be devastating.

The current system encourages people who keep exotic reptiles – to dump excess or sick stock in the bush – where they can do the most damage possible.

 

[junglepython2]

Miss Croft, legalising them would greatly increase the numbers being kept as there would be a much larger market, which would also increase the number of escapes and releases. Of course banning them isn't going to totally erradicate them, but it does keep there numbers down to a degree.

 

[Noongato]

Legalise them in the sense of other snake food, such as BHP's then there will be no demand from people who get them cos their cheap if there only a boring feeder animal.

 

[Retic]

Scott, well said and as you say it really is the only way forward. Everytime this subject comes up we hear the same old comments 'they should be banned' or 'if they escape they will wipe out all our native wildlife'.
I'm sorry but if anyone thinks that making them illegal has in any way kept them under control they are seriously kidding themselves.
Don't get me wrong, of course certain species have the capacity to become real pests BUT the system (or lack of) that we currently have is achieving nothing.
Everyone jumps up and down and say how great it is that this women was caught with the Cornsnake, well I wonder where the other 20 from the clutch are ?
Of course this will obviously be (mis)interpreted as meaning I have no concern for our native wildlife or our environment.

 

[Chimera]

Chimera – it was a reference on smuggled.com. I do not want to create a flame war about how OPMV came into the country. The fact of the matter a complete room of herps had to be destroyed in a facility that should not have had any smuggled/illegal imported reptiles.

And there's the problem. I would trust anything about OPMV posted on that site as the only paper that clown has written on the topic was nothing but a slanderous vendetta. I'd only suggest reading his work if you have a sick sense of humour like me