I'm talking about confirmed reports of the pet trade participating in the act of extirpating, whether the extirpation is completed or not. When there are papers about collectors significantly reducing an already critically endangered snake, YES, I think that is serious enough to bring up in a discussion about extirpations.

It seems so many collectors out there have their blinders on and don't want to acknowledge that collectors sometimes overdo it.

Confirmed accounts of collectors participating or flirting with the REAL possibility of causing local extinctions -- which isn't unlikely in the cases I've provided -- is bad enough, is it not?

And it shouldn't be completely ignored when topics such as this are brought up.

No, I don't know of any confirmed all-out extinctions caused SOLELY by the pet trade. Do I know of a few instances where herpers are dangerously walking close to that edge by contributing to an already precarious situation? Yes. That was my initial response by providing the examples. I never said that these snakes were SOLELY being reduced by the pet trade, so I don't think your copied-and-pasted responses from outside sources were even necessary, because the original papers I provided did not ignore those other causes.

[ Reply To This Message ] [ Subscribe to this Thread ] [ Hide Replies ]