Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Both interesting views.
Neither to be discounted.
(however, I am leaning more strongly towards horridus.)

You want to help? It all starts here....and every place there is a demand.

Understanding more about the problem might help.

Years ago, normal ball pythons came into the country in numbers.
Yet there was not the larger demand for Ball Pythons that has now been firmly established.
Back then, (before the animals became so popular) when an obvious morph or suspected morph was discovered, the prices paid were on average much higher for that morph than they have been in recent years.

African Exporters are not stupid.
They need to make a living. And as Horridus said, they have found a renewable, sustainable resource....they will manage what is worth managing.

As the quantities of US c.b. morphs increased here (US) the prices have come down. (Some of this is because of OUR poor management of projects with greater potential than we allowed them to demonstrate....Some of it is merely due to the "supply and demand" law of economics.)

Now people who import balls are less willing to pay exorbatant prices to the African exporters for morphs...(Importers must watch the bottom line too.)

In response, enterprising exporters changed the game plan.
Now some Exporters will often require the Importer to purchase large bulks of normals...just to have a chance at a few morphs.
The African Exporters are used to a certain income.
By selling large quantities of normals, they keep their incomes at a level they have grown accustomed to.

Perhaps part of the solution is a change in the philosophies of those who created the demand?

If there is a strong market for new or existing morphs, people should be willing to pay decent prices for them.
Rather than stopping importing...perhaps limiting the numbers of wild collected imports to morphs only...and limiting the numbers of normal captive hatched balls as well. The excess normals hatched on the African farms could be returned to the wild.
Morphs and limited normals could be exported.

The only way that this will work....is if the people (who created the demand) are willing to pay higher prices....for both normal c.h. and morphs.

Keep in mind that Importers will not pay more to the Exporters for these snakes until the demand changes.

(note: I did not say that the demand must increase...but that it should change.)

Are you willing to put your money where your mouth is?

Although not yet the case with Ball Pythons....
Often times the exporters will discontinue offering a certain species when the market gets soft.
They will not resume exports of that species until the demand rises. Call it a monopoly that protects their interests...AS WELL as the lives of the animals they sell.

Why can't we protect our own market...by limiting the quantities of normals imported....thus controlling the prices and managing the demand.
Wouldn't you rather that we the herpers manage our own interests before some other organization (HSUS or PETA) decides to?
Continued breeding and responsible marketing here in the US will also certainly help.
Just another opinion.

Harlin Wall - WALL TO WALL REPTILES!
970-245-7611
970-255-9255

Excellent view Harlin. That's probably the best idea I have heard yet to "solve" the issue. I have always wondered what the mindset really is over there, especially after reading Kevin's section on the Ball Lords in his book. Another thing I found very interesting, In the German version, Noah is given credit for proving out the Champagne Ball. Makes you wonder where the "originators" of the newest stuff are going to be here on out, They certainly have the monopoly. Why send a "one of a kind" snake over here when they can produce them themselves and get paid that "first one ever" premium several times over. I also see someone pulling the right strings to start getting animals from a new country in the near future and when the existing exporters see what those snakes sell for over here...we might start seeing some really nice geographical variants becoming available. Similar to what happened with Amazon Basin Emeralds and Chondros. Locality Ball Pythons! The next craze

Yep, the Champagnes were proven (and are being bred there) by Noah. But he understands a little about managing a good project.
The value is protected by availability.

Obviously, in my last post, I mentioned changing the philosophies of the the consumers....but we all know you can't get people to value a product (of any type) more by asking them to pay more.
The majority of consumers will usually (and unfortunately) place price above quality...and they quickly forget about responsible marketing when a low price stares themin the face.

The only sure way to really change the consumer's perceptions about value is to limit the availability of the desired item.

Sort of reminds me of another contorversial prize that hails form the African Continent....Diamonds.
Famous for their immortal sparkle...and for the "price fixing" market control lorded over by companies like DeBeers...among others. Although more diamonds come out of the ground than anyone REALLY needs...the availability of diamonds is strictly controlled.
The market is important enough to them to control the supply.
And... look at the prices of Diamonds as you do your Christmas shopping!

(I still say your hard earned money is better spent on Ball Pythons....or any other reptile for that matter!) LOL.
Happy Holidays to Everyone.
Take care,
Harlin

Lets hope that people here (in the USA and abroad) will have the responsibility and integrity to manage and value the Champagne Project as much as Noah has over there.
Should be a great project animal.

Just curious. How much experience do you directly have in the import business and how well do you know Noah.

Ernie Eison
westwoodreptiles.com

Ernie,
Please feel welcome to contact me privately.

Thank you,
Harlin Wall - WALL TO WALL REPTILES
970-245-7611
970-255-9255

This is a valid point. I appreciate your post. I learned from this.

My insight on this topic. While I agree with Harlin and Horridus. I do want to clear up a couple of things about west Africa. I have dealt in West Africa for about fifteen years now and I wanted to first say there is no way that anywhere near P of the CH baby Balls arrive dead. A normal shipment of 4000 babies we have averaged less then 20 D.O.A.’s per shipment, with a lot of shipments coming in with no dead at all. I’m sure there are importers that mistreat their shipments after receiving them and lose a decent percentage of the shipment. But I won’t expect them to lose any less if they were captive born Ball Pythons that they pay $5 for. Now I do agree that because these Ball Pythons are coming in so cheap an importer can justify losing a larger percentage because the cost per head is very low and that’s the part that bothers me. We should never put value on a life because of the cost! The ones that should take a lot of the blame here are the West Africans that instead of shipping a smaller number of animals at a higher price will ship as many as they can at almost no profit. It’s almost impossible to change their way of thinking. You will not convince them to ship less or keep the price higher. This has been tried many years and there will always be one exporter that breaks the agreement to keep prices up,or shipments down. This is not much different then our American market when one person drops their price and everyone else follows suite. As for mutations, there are really no exporters that have any agreements that you have to buy “X” amount of normal Balls to get their mutations. They don’t make hardly anything off of normal Balls, so they really don’t care if you buy them or not, their profit is made in specials. Of course as an importer I wouldn’t think of paying higher prices for a mutation then what I can buy them here for. You have to realize there are no guarantees, not live arrival, not feeding, nothing. So when they want anything near the same price as the U.S. market they can’t find a buyer.
Lastly, with the exception of Noah there are NO exporter that are setting up Ball Pythons to breed. It’s just not part of their business plan. For the most part they are not forward thinking businesses. They want money today, never thinking of the future. This is just how it is, until you deal over there you can’t understand the mentality of the exporters, you can’t expect them to think like someone that has a MBA in business. Like with Harlins example of Diamonds, it’s not the Africans that are controlling the export, but the European Countries that buy from them that control the flow.
I love the people that I deal with over in West Africa, but I have come to except them for who they are. People that are putting food on their families tables. Nothing more, there will never be a bunch of African farms breeding Ball Pythons. It just won’t happen.
As long as the demand for normal Ball Pythons is there they will be imported. I’m as on the fence as anyone and I have stopped importing normal babies as of two years ago. But they’ll still come in, it’s just the way it is. And let's hope that even with the unfortunate losses we don’t have some legislature decide when that will stop. Sorry for the long post, Brian (BHB)

myspace.com/bhbreptiles
www.snakebytes.tumblr.com

Thanks Brian. You sound like you have more experience with this than anyone else who has posted so far.

Brian,
Good post. I think we agree on most of the points made.
Take care,
Harlin

Excellent post Brian, thanks for insights. I am curious of about a couple of other things. Why has there not been an enterprising American or European set up shop over there with long term projects in mind? I would think that if it were feasable someone would have done it already. I had heard there's a set up in Indo or NG for Chondros that is run by Germans and maybe another American/European owned Blood Python facility. I would think that money would solve any problems you would get from the indigenous peoples or existing farms in Ghana, Togo or Benin. Or someone could grease the wheels of government and set up in a country that has no exportation currently. I am just a little surprised that I haven't seen this yet and wondered what your thoughts on it are..It's pretty amazing to me that there isn't a "lifer" type, someone like us, that loves the animals and is dedicated about breeding over there. Someone who was into keeping the snakes before the morph craze and by geographical luck he was born into the best place on the planet for Ball Pythons. Someone who was keeping snakes first...then saw the potential for making a living at it, not the other way around. And on another note, have you seen/heard about any locality animals that have any unique characteristics? I saw the "Sub-Saharan" snakes that were suppposed to throw huge clutches, I don't know if thats fact or marketing...regardless, like any other reptile I would think there's some incredible locales of BPs where they've evolved to be different in size, appearance, or maybe even behavior. That excites me as much as the potential morphs do about the future of BPs in captivity.

And if we the consumer do not want them then what good are they as a resource over there?

Skin and meat.

They learned to value their snakes as "renewable" and that works longterm and guarantees the snake populations and habitat.

Lose interest in them and what will they do?

My guess, sell them as food to Asian markets...

DREADFUL........

Kevin

>>My insight on this topic. While I agree with Harlin and Horridus. I do want to clear up a couple of things about west Africa. I have dealt in West Africa for about fifteen years now and I wanted to first say there is no way that anywhere near P of the CH baby Balls arrive dead. A normal shipment of 4000 babies we have averaged less then 20 D.O.A.’s per shipment, with a lot of shipments coming in with no dead at all. I’m sure there are importers that mistreat their shipments after receiving them and lose a decent percentage of the shipment. But I won’t expect them to lose any less if they were captive born Ball Pythons that they pay $5 for. Now I do agree that because these Ball Pythons are coming in so cheap an importer can justify losing a larger percentage because the cost per head is very low and that’s the part that bothers me. We should never put value on a life because of the cost! The ones that should take a lot of the blame here are the West Africans that instead of shipping a smaller number of animals at a higher price will ship as many as they can at almost no profit. It’s almost impossible to change their way of thinking. You will not convince them to ship less or keep the price higher. This has been tried many years and there will always be one exporter that breaks the agreement to keep prices up,or shipments down. This is not much different then our American market when one person drops their price and everyone else follows suite. As for mutations, there are really no exporters that have any agreements that you have to buy “X” amount of normal Balls to get their mutations. They don’t make hardly anything off of normal Balls, so they really don’t care if you buy them or not, their profit is made in specials. Of course as an importer I wouldn’t think of paying higher prices for a mutation then what I can buy them here for. You have to realize there are no guarantees, not live arrival, not feeding, nothing. So when they want anything near the same price as the U.S. market they can’t find a buyer.
>> Lastly, with the exception of Noah there are NO exporter that are setting up Ball Pythons to breed. It’s just not part of their business plan. For the most part they are not forward thinking businesses. They want money today, never thinking of the future. This is just how it is, until you deal over there you can’t understand the mentality of the exporters, you can’t expect them to think like someone that has a MBA in business. Like with Harlins example of Diamonds, it’s not the Africans that are controlling the export, but the European Countries that buy from them that control the flow.
>> I love the people that I deal with over in West Africa, but I have come to except them for who they are. People that are putting food on their families tables. Nothing more, there will never be a bunch of African farms breeding Ball Pythons. It just won’t happen.
>> As long as the demand for normal Ball Pythons is there they will be imported. I’m as on the fence as anyone and I have stopped importing normal babies as of two years ago. But they’ll still come in, it’s just the way it is. And let's hope that even with the unfortunate losses we don’t have some legislature decide when that will stop. Sorry for the long post, Brian (BHB)
>>
>>
>>myspace.com/bhbreptiles
>>www.snakebytes.tumblr.com
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"Satan™" is a registered trademark of NERD, Inc. Any copyright infringement is punishable by ETERNAL DAMNATION and some other terrible stuff.

I couldn't agree more with you on that one Kev. Brian(BHB)

Well yeah that's what will happen. I know you get it EMG .The live export quotas will get tuned over to the skin and meat trade. The hunters that used to sell the pythons to the exporters will still catch just as many but end up selling them elsewhere for about a third of what their they are getting now. Who knows maybe even some smuggling might go on. So the end result of shutting down or restricting the live trade will be a few guys get put out of business, the people that really need the money will have less income and more animals will die. That sounds like a winning plan. For those that think the live trade is harsh you should see what go's on in the skin and meat end of things. But hey instead of the price of normals being $20 it will go thru the roof probably up to $35.00 and lets face it that's what really matters to most ball breeders. All true.

Seriously instead of being so worried about what go's on with international dealings and the market blah blah blah . The things most people don't really have any true concept or understanding of and can't do anything about. I feel keepers should be putting their concerns to voicing their opinions about maintaining the right to ownership in their own homes. Loose that and nobody will have to worry about imports next years spider ball prices or anything else.

Ernie Eison
Westwoodreptiles.com

Ernie,
Good post.
Some laws that were recently passed in Texas were really pushed through.
Even with herp enthusiests trying to fight it...Rep. Harvey H. made sure laws were still passed. Back door politics.
Restrictive legislation is in the works for many other States.
Taking care of business and protecting our rights here in the US is certainly more important than worrying about quotas how things happen in Accra...or elsewhere.
Restrictive laws will affect more than just Ball Pythons....it will hit the entire hobby.
Harlin

Lets make something clear. Nobody has suggested to restrict the importation of ball pythons but to fix the method and at the least start to monitor the amount and treatment while imported.

Its ridiculous to say that its OK to do something negative to a species and justify it by saying that someone else would do something horrible to them anyway. I don't think I have to explain this. Common sense.

I do know what goes on in the fur/skin and meat trade. This is a travesty as well. This is why I brought this topic up. So our industry does not end up in the same boat.

"Lets make something clear. Nobody has suggested to restrict the importation of ball pythons"

Meant to say "Nobody has suggested to end the importation...."

The first thing that would happen is that they come down on the way animals are imported here into the states. Restrict how many to boxes, bags and all sorts of things. This would cause a higher cost to the snakes and end up with NO U.S. demand. It is unrealistic for us to do much of anything since these snakes are at an all time low in demand. I think something way worse is coming to this African "resource". What are they going to do with this year's babies, there is no way we are going to take a fraction of what we took 5 years ago. Very sad, once these animals find a way into a food market it will be the end of that! Possibly opening a cannery in the area would be a plausible NIGHTMARE.

Kevin

>>Lets make something clear. Nobody has suggested to restrict the importation of ball pythons but to fix the method and at the least start to monitor the amount and treatment while imported.
>>
>>Its ridiculous to say that its OK to do something negative to a species and justify it by saying that someone else would do something horrible to them anyway. I don't think I have to explain this. Common sense.
>>
>>I do know what goes on in the fur/skin and meat trade. This is a travesty as well. This is why I brought this topic up. So our industry does not end up in the same boat.
-----
"Satan™" is a registered trademark of NERD, Inc. Any copyright infringement is punishable by ETERNAL DAMNATION and some other terrible stuff.