SUN SENTINEL (Fort Lauderdale, Florida) 23 December 09 Lake Worth reptile store owner accused of illegal sale (Erika Pesantes)

The owner of a Lake Worth reptile store is accused of illegally selling pythons to an undercover Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officer.

Mark Bavosa, 45, of Boynton Beach, owns Reptiles Plus Inc. He was charged with illegal sale of a reptile of concern to an unpermitted person and improper caging.

Bavosa at his store on Tuesday offered a reticulated python and a Burmese python to an inquiring FWC officer and said those snakes had been dropped off by an owner who no longer wanted them.

Despite asking for a permit, which the undercover officer did not show, Bavosa sold the snakes for $250.

The pythons have since been released to a permitted captive wildlife facility.

Under an FWC amnesty program, owners of reptiles of concern such as Nile monitors, green anacondas and four types of pythons can turn the animals over with no questions asked to an authorized permit holder. Those species may only be kept as pets with a proper license.

It is unlawful to allow one to escape or to release it into the wild

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/palm-beach/boynton-beach/fl-illegal-python-sales-20091223,0,2446612.story



PALM BEACH POST (Florida) 23 December 09 Boynton Beach man charged with illegally selling pythons (Julius Whigham II)

Lake Worth: A Boynton Beach man has been charged with illegally selling pythons, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said today.

Mark Bavosa, owner of Reptiles Plus Inc. in Lake Worth, was charged with two misdemeanors — the illegal sale of a reptile of concern to a non-permitted person and improper caging — the FWC said in a release this afternoon.

Bavosa, 45, also received a warning for failing to keep proper inventory of reptiles of concern, the release said.

"We take ROC amnesty seriously," FWC Chairman Rodney Barretto said in the statement. "The owner of this pet store acted irresponsibly when he failed to report to the FWC that he accepted these unwanted pets in the first place.

"Then, he let us down by selling the pythons under the table to an non-permitted person," Baretto said.

Two store employees were also issued warnings for selling reptiles of concern to non-permitted people.

According to the release, undercover FWC investigators visited the store on Tuesday and inquired about purchasing pythons. Bavosa told the investigators that two pythons — a reticulated python and a Burmese python — had been dropped off at the store and were available for sale.

Bavosa asked an investigator if he had proper permits to possess a reptile of concern, and the investigator replied that he did not. Bavosa sold him the pythons anyway for $250, the release said.

The snakes were turned over to a permitted captive wildlife facility.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/crime/boynton-beach-man-charged-with-illegally-selling-pythons-144005.html

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• FL Press x2: Store accused of bad sale - W von Papineäu, Thu Dec 24 06:09:22 2009