I'm not tree-hugger or PETA freak, but I was just looking at the CITES page out of curiosity. For the year 2008, 4 countries in West Africa (Benin, Ghana, Togo, Niger) had quotas of 180,000 Ball Pythons for export!!

Albeit only 10,000 of those are to taken from the wild and the most of the rest are ranched (babies hatched from wild females), but that is still an astonishing number.



I know these are only quotas and may not represent the actual numbers exported, but the fact that the potential approaches over 6 figures is terrifying to me.



Add to this the extraordinary mortality rates of the ranched BPs (most don't eat and wither away and die). So if 50% survive (a ridiculously high estimate), we are (as an industry) killing off 50,000 baby BPs each year?



I'm no bunny hugger and I keep snakes, some of which are imports, but I had no idea the problem was this large. I thought 10,000 or 20,000 maybe....but 170,000 ? Ouch.



Is there anyone who can argue this is sustainable?
-----
Chris Harrison

San Antonio, Texas

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