Well, again here we are. Clearly I think a lot of people [the buyer you mention in particular] are actually missing out on aspects of the herp hobby that a lot of us have fortunately been able to experience. The point has been made that somehow catching a wild snake and keeping that as a first snake is better than buying one in a store. I think I'd have to agree at least from a point of starting out in the hobby. When I was a kid, you couldn't go into a store and buy snakes and at least where I came from no one knew about breeder price lists. I don't know, did breeder price lists exist back in the mid 70s when I was a kid? If they did I sure didn't have access to them. You wanted to keep snakes, you went out and caught them. I think a lot of people are getting into herps intially because of an interest in herps but are quickly blinded by shiny dollar signs. I feel sorry for them. It'll be interesting to see what the next hot animal will be. Also it'll be interesting to see how it affects the diversity of shows. Still we should count ourselves lucky. At least we have access to a lot of cool stuff - you just have to look a little harder to find breeders or maybe you go out and collect stuff. I'm sorry to hear Hermann saying that there isn't the interest in U.S. natives over in Europe that there used to be. I almost seems like some of the same forces are at work over there as here. I'd say the bulk of colubrids I saw at the Tinley show were a lot of the typical morphs - hypo Milks of different species, Corn morphs, etc. So, yeah not a lot of diversity with the colubrids either.
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Matt Campbell



"I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in." John Muir

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