Posted by:
LdyPayne
at Sat Apr 7 16:10:04 2007 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by LdyPayne ]
I don't think the average ball python will live 60 years. From what I remember, they tend to average more along the lines of 20 years. As for a huge glut of ball pythons in the pet trade in 60 years, well, I don't think that will happen. For one, Humans breed faster than ball pythons with a much higher rate of survival LOL. Not talking individual people to an individual snake though, but putting together all the ball python breeders in the world now to all the human breeders in the world now...there will still be much more baby humans in 60 years than all the eggs a ball python can produce yearly among all those breeders in 60 years LOL. Then again I could be wrong, I really do not want to figure it out exactly.
However, compared to how many couples in the world (and women who have babies out of wedlock for whatever reason) who have a single child in one year, I am sure it will be more than how many ball python babies are produced in one year by all captive breeders in the world. I just don't think there are a million female ball pythons in captivity breeding/laying a clutch in this year, to match the number of new born humans around the world this year.
Thus, as the human population grows, the portion of reptile enthusiests will also increase. Of course a good portion of ball pythons will die due to neglect or improper care, will be dumped off in a swamp by irresponsible pet owners (who probably dump unwanted kittens/puppies the same way), or killed by careless wild caught mass exporters etc. No genetic morph (well most of them anyway) will be able to survive if introduced back into the wild (though with ball pythons, all the mojave, pastels, fireballs, yellow bellies etc should do fine...the albinos, pieds, ivories etc won't due to the bright white/off white coloration destroying their natural camouflage.
In the long run, there will always be responsible reptile owners out there, even in 60 years (and most likely much more of them due to human population growth and increase awareness of what wonderful pets snakes make) those of us who pass on our reptilian 'assets' to children/friends/family, if they find they don't want to care for them, it won't be hard to find them good homes elsewhere.
Corn snakes have been in the pet trade for nearly 50 years now anyway and they are still going strong.
[ Hide Replies ]
|
RE: Ethics in BP production - LdyPayne, Sat Apr 7 16:10:04 2007