Cordylus,
I am not aware of too many people disclosing locality data - they are more referring to races, colour morphs and in most cases, they are just guessing their origins. I am not a smuggler but I am informed that most of the illegally imported GTPs in recent times are from commercial breeders in Thailand, Indonesia and Hong Kong with no record of origin. You are absolutely right - snakes with mixed or unknown origin are cheap and nasty and the conditions they are produced in would make you spew. However, some of them show interesting colours, desirable for designer morph breeding and that is why they are popular in Australia.
There seem to be this illusion amongst Ausie herp keepers that you can buy GTPs for a few hundred bucks in the US. You can, but they are the same trashy snakes. If you want a GTP like Maxwell breeds or a pure bloodline, you'll be in the thousands or even tens of thousands $$$.
I am not aware of too many people disclosing locality data - they are more referring to races, colour morphs and in most cases, they are just guessing their origins. I am not a smuggler but I am informed that most of the illegally imported GTPs in recent times are from commercial breeders in Thailand, Indonesia and Hong Kong with no record of origin. You are absolutely right - snakes with mixed or unknown origin are cheap and nasty and the conditions they are produced in would make you spew. However, some of them show interesting colours, desirable for designer morph breeding and that is why they are popular in Australia.
There seem to be this illusion amongst Ausie herp keepers that you can buy GTPs for a few hundred bucks in the US. You can, but they are the same trashy snakes. If you want a GTP like Maxwell breeds or a pure bloodline, you'll be in the thousands or even tens of thousands $$$.