I suppose I could just sum up this post with one sentence—“Anyone out the know where I could get a Pinellas locale kingsnake?”—but maybe including some more information will inspire or guilt some folks into helping me out here.
Backstory: Recently there was a post on the General Snakes forum about which unkeepable/unobtainable snake you would most like to have. I could only really think of one individual animal: the huge male Pinellas king at the nature center I used to visit as a kid. This one snake may be the entire reson that I love reptiles today. I always wanted to find one in the wild, and he became the standard for what I picture any time someone says “kingsnake”. That post inspired me to try to purchase a Pinellas king, since I am in the process of selecting and purchasing what will be my final snake for many years (wife’s orders, though I don’t mind). This idea led to…
The process so far: The only mention I could find online of a Pinellas animal was on Mr. K’s old website (Names have been omitted here. Everyone in the process has been very positive and helpful, but I don’t know if they want their names bandied about on a public forum.) When I contacted Mr. K, he said that he had sold all of his animals and retired, but that Mr. P had purchased his breeding stock, and Mr. K2 might also have one or two. Mr. P returned my email immediately, saying he had some recent hatchlings that had not yet fed, but that after the Daytona show he would get back to me. I didn’t hear from him for weeks. In that time I contacted Mr. K2, who has one animal, but not for breeding purposes. I didn’t want to bug Mr. P, but finally called him the other day. It turned out that, due to critical health issues, he had made the wise decision to sell off all of his excess animals, and the Pinellas babies went to Mr. L, who lives out of state. Unfortunately, P did not have L’s contact info, so I had to call yet another guy to get L’s info. I emailed him, and he is saving all of the babies for a breeding program, and has none available.
SO! As you can see, it has been a confusing and slightly frustrating road. I am and have been very determined to track down a Pinellas king. This is my last-ditch effort, I don’t think that I will have the patience to wait a year for another set of hatchlings, and I am hoping that someone out there in the virtual kingsnake world knows where I could get the animal of my dreams. My very strong preference is to get a hatchling male (for his larger size, not breeding purposes), though it wouldn’t break my heart to get a female and/or a SLIGHTLY older animal. I want to cherish this snake for its full lifetime, but am wondering if I will ever even meet him. Thanks for reading, hope you are all doing well.
-Jonathan
bigsubjo@msn.com
