Reptile & Amphibian Forums

The reality is that each year the wild Ball Python popuations in Ghana, Togo and Benin are harvested for tens, even hundreds of thousands of wild caught babies, eggs, gravid females, large adults and wild morphs that are imported from Africa to the USA and elsewhere in the world to support the pet trade.

I understand that the people who do this importing / exporting make the claim that, even after the yearly Ball Python harvest, there are still huge numbers of snakes left, per square acre, in the wild.

I tend to believe that, for the most part, the people who are doing the importing here to the USA believe this claim and are negotiating and buying in good faith. I am a bit more sceptical if the facts of the matter support this contention. I do not believe you can remove this many animals from the natural ecosystem and have no ill effects or unintended consequences. Furthermore, I am very sceptical that the poor African countries involved wouldnt exaggerate the wild population totals for their own benifit. It wouldnt be the first time a poor country has sqaundered its natural resources and heritage for money and the enrichment of a few.

Even if the large harvesting that goes on every year does not significantly deplete the wild population, how could it not change the direction in which these snakes are evolving? Evolution is like throwing a small pebble into a pond. It only makes a small splash, but it ripples outwards in every larger rings from there.. Some of these "Morphs" that are taken may be genetic anamolies, but how can we be certain that the species isnt evolving through natural selection and that, by taking the aberrant trait from the mix, we are not unalterably changing the evoluntion of Ball Pythons?

It may seem silly, but what if 20 million years ago some "collector" had said "cool a reptile with no legs, it must be a new Morph" and he removed it from the wild a brought it home for his collection. Maybe the first snake wouldnt have evolved at all and there wouldnt even be Ball Pythons today...think abot it.

I REALLY don't think there where that many collectors around 20 million years ago lol
I do understand what your trying to say tho.I think lol
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Kelvin,J,Tourangeau

www.PastelDreamMorphs.com
Underconstruction

I for one am in total Agreement with you on this and I am sore we will both be bashed for it but I say , consider the source and ignore the ignorance . Thanks David of DS Reptile Rescue

hmmmmm, where to start. How many of those thousands of bp eggs that are incubated by man do you think would survive in the wild? How many of the hatchling bp's would get eaten by monitors, birds, other snakes, various cats, or the various canines that live in africa? Then how many of the adult snakes that get imported here would be killed and eaten by the natives over there? Do i think the importing should be stopped, heck no. But I do think that the numbers that are imported should be lowered, after all, that would turn a $8 baby into a $50 one and that would be good for all those that captive breed them. And I seriously doubt that we will ever see an adjunct population of piebalds that thrive better than the typical wild type ball python. There just doesn't seem to be too many termite mounds with large white blotches on it.
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Josh & Krysty Hutto
J&K Reptiles

Various Ball Pythons:::

1.0 striped vanilla
1.0 spider
1.2 Citrus Ghost and hets
1.2 Albino and hets
2.3 het Pied
0.6 50% poss het pied
1.1 Pastel (male has additional gene going on with him)
a bunch of normal female breeders
a bunch of normal female holdbacks and several rescued normal males

0.1 columbian boa, she's a feeding monster, controls my
over production of rats, lol
0.1 brazilian rainbow boa, another rat eating monster
1.1 corns

a BAD dog is MADE not bred, support the American Pit Bull Terrier as the greatest breed of dogs on Earth!!!!!

I would never bash anyone over a statement. With that said, I agree with Josh. Also if that collector 20 million years ago just happened to find an "Albino Pied" and thought "hey this is AWESOME" let me try to breed it with another ball python. Maybe by now, the price would be around $50 and I could afford........1 lol

Steve

Well Josh first he didn’t say to stop the importing but greatly reduce the numbers man removes and he was referring to the natural accruing morphs not the man assisted ones and as for as predation on the wild population of Balls ,Well that is letting nature make the decision of what stays in the wild and nature has done a good job ,It’s man that screws it all up . Thanks David of DS Reptile Rescue

It's simple - More land cleared for agriculture - Agriculture = rodent food - Rodents = Snakes. It's happening/happened all over, Indonesia, India, Etc. According to your thinking, Reticulated and Blood Pythons would be extinct ( They have been used longer in the skin and food trade ), but yet there numbers are growing?

This is the first I've heard about wild populations of retics and bloods GROWING. I couldn't agree more with those of you who think some of us are removing WAY too many snakes from the wild. Not to jump on you Josh, but if I read you're argument correctly you are suggesting that most of the snakes we remove from the wild would have been killed by predators anyway? So we are saving them, the same number or at least many are still being eaten and there are fewer in the wild to reproduce for next year's harvest and buffet. Too many hands in the cookie jar man.
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"Can't you just feed it vegetables"? No, no I can't you stupid hippie.

It's the "I beat my wife because I love her" rationalization.

I agree ,you said it Dude . Thanks David of DS Reptile Rescue

First, let me say that I'm not advocating the removal of animals from the wild.

I do however, want to point out an interesting fact - that removing animals from the wild does not NECESSARILY reduce the number of wild populations. I know this is counterintuitive, but absolutely true. I know of several managed wild species where 30%-50% of each clutch of eggs can be removed with no measurable effect on the wild population. Turns out juvenile mortality is HIGHLY density dependant. In other words, if there are say 10000 babies in a given area, maybe 6000 will die in the first year (leaving 4000 survivors). Now take the same population, and remove 3000 babies. Keeping in mind that there will be much lower juvenile mortality, you may very well still have 4000 survivors after the first year, and therefore no net effect of the harvest.

Now there are other ecological principle at play, but I wanted to point out this one important point for discussion...