Chris,



I understand the supply and demand economics of any commodity and it is true what you said about as long as there are people willing to pay for wild caught, then there will be a market for wild caught and these animals will be plucked out of the habitat that they have known since birth.



But what I do not agree with you is when you said : "We still rely on the rather self-serving idea that a captive born snake is somehow worth more money than a WC snake. Therefore, it remains cost effective to remove them from the wild. In fact, sometimes when breeders put a high price on rare captive born offspring..." Here, you need to compare apples and apples here. These wild caught ones are visually tricolor or tangerines with tons of tippings (therefore, not hypos, not albinos, not ghosts and not snows). They sell these wild caught hondurans for a hundred dollars are more, sometimes as high as $175 for "normal" looking ones... hell, I sold my normal ones (not het for hypo or anything) last year for fifty bucks each. A lot of the breeders I know ( here in our forum ) even sold their double hets for less than a hundred bucks. Of course, the captive born if you are sure of their genetics would be worth more, but if you are not sure of what the genetics is for a normal looking one and you have a choice of getting from a wild caught as opposed to a captive bred, why would you not get a captive bred for $50 or $75 each?



And what about the regard to the natural habitat? A lot of breeders share the idea that if we foster captive breeding, then the ones in the wild would be left alone... and that really should be the case... don't you think?
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RAY

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