Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I've heard a lot of stories about the movie Finding Nemo making shildren want to release their pet fish, but does anyone else think there could be a positive side to this?
I saw the movie with my girlfriend and her 9 year old sister. Nemo and Gil want to go back to the ocean because that's where they came from, right? All the other fish say they came from this pet store or that pet store. What are the chances of people(herpers and otherwise) feeling bad for WC animals and actually asking for captive bred? Maybe a little headway would be made toward reducing imports if this was to work.
Just got to wondering.

I always tell people who are looking for a pet snake that the little money they save buying a wc snake is less than nothing after your first $75 exotic vet bill to make sure its free of parasites. Also some wc snakes never acclimate and settle down with a good attitude. Considering a normal ball python could live upwards of 20 years an additional $40 or so in your initial investment is money well spent!

I think one of the reasons people still buy CH or WC is because they simply don't know any better.

I would bet that a huge majority of the "first snake" buying public does NOT do all that much research, does NOT stumble their way to the kingsnake.com BP forum, and does NOT look all that much further then a petstore or 2. A lot of people don't even know that these animals are available anywhere other than petstores. And, to boot, a regular guy looking for a pet snake is going to go into his local petstore and talk to the store guy. Odds are the shopper doesn't know what we ks.com users know, which is that most petstore employees don't know squat. So the bp shopper will do all the research the store guy tells him to, consider himself well informed, and then buy a cheapo WC snake because he doesn't know that its WC, and that WC makes a difference, and that CB animals are even available.

Just my 2 cents.

Joel
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3.6.3 Leopard Geckos (1.4.3 Albino)
~~25 Leo eggs cookin'~~
1.1 Ball Pythons
1.0 African Fat Tail Gecko
0.1 Okeetee Corn Snake
1.0 Blair's Phase Gray Banded Kingsnake

I have to agree here. When I first got into reptiles, I went to the pet store, trusted the guy to help me and he sent me home with a sick leopard gecko that died. Why? because I didn't know any better to realize she was not healthy. I switched pet stores, read a few books, found KS, and tried again. This time I had success. Now several years later, I have been working in the pet stores, trying my darndest to keep people from making the same mistakes I did. First thing I tell them is to buy a book and READ. Problem is that most don't want to read. They want me to tell them everything there is to know in ten minutes. They don't understand that what I have learned has taken me YEARS and I am STILL learning.
After dealing with the public for many years, I have learned one thing. They want stuff cheap. If I have cbb ball pythons at my shop for 70 bucks that are eating on a regular basis, they will still go down the road to the place that has non-eating CH or WC babies for 30 bucks. Unfortunatly, (for the animals) they learn the hard way.
Wanna know how many times a day, I have to talk people out of Iguanas because they are cheap?
Our society has taught us that we need to look for the "best deal". In most cases that is the cheapest price tag. People have a hard time making the switch. They can't get the fact, that the best deal is the cbb baby for 40 bucks more.

Now on the Nemo note from a pet store perspective: If I have to explain to one more person, that Nemo is a saltwater fish and can't be put in a bowl, I am going to scream.