a good one that most all of us are concerned about but I worry that your proposed soutions may have some problems. To just cut off all of the supply would obviously raise the prices but how would you regulate this? Soon you would have a type of reptile black marcket that sold snakes "illegally". Asside from the fact that it would be "illegal" the snakes would likely be mistreated because it would create a market for people who only care about making a buck instead of propogating the hobby. Also, especially for breeders/retailers who do this full time and have no other souce of income are they just to vacation for the next few years? That's just not possible.

The best solution IMO is to try and increase the standards and goals of the individuals that sell these animals. This would affect the breeders and importers. If there is a standard of quality that is generally accepted and encourages only selling the best snakes this will help the hobby as a whole. If the goal of breeders/importers is to contribute to the hobby, then they should be concerned with this. Most of us are concerned with this but there will always be those who look at this as a sexy investment or a way to make some easy money. Most of have friends or know someone who thinks this way so we can all relate. Unfortunately, if you ask anyone who has been in the hobby for an extended period of time, this is not typically the case. I have found that this hooby requires a lot of my attention and a lot of work and patience. It is true that there may be a few lucky people who find the next morph and score big but really, what are the odds? Not very good.

The goal should be, like you mentioned, to weed out the people who are doing it for the money. No breeder can deny that the money is an important factor but if we stay grounded in the hobby and what the hobby is all about then we should do just fine. The market will fluctuate nobody can stop that.

[ Show Entire Thread ]