Reptile & Amphibian Forums

How come The New Guinea croc isn't common in the pet trade.
New Guinea crocs are CITES App. II and they're bred on
farms in Indonesia. Why don't live CB specimens ever seem to get exported. Indonesia had an export quota of 15000 skins from wild taken specimens and 32000 skins from ranched and captive bred specimens this year. You'd think they would be willing to issue CITES export permits for live specimens. I know PNG is not open to wildlife exports but what about Indonesia. Why isn't anyone bringing them in. Am I missing something? It doesn't seem that hard unless there are other restrictions I'm not aware of. Anyone have anything to add or know different?

I just saw one being offered on the classifeds page a couple of days ago. Don't know if it's still there or not. I think they wanted $3500 for it. I do agree though, they should be more common. I seen more cuban crocs offered than New Guinea's

What I was told was only 18 where imported in 2000. The one that was offered for sale on KingSnake is one of them.

I think it was a few more than 18 if memory serves, but you may be correct.

They were brought it by a good fella who used to frequent this forum. Why they are not brought in more often isa good question. But I will share with you that getting these animals through USF&W was a real ordeal.

Yes, 18 was the correct number of these crocodiles that were imported.

PNG dosnt allow export of live crocodiles, Indo also dosnt allow live export of crocodiles.

This species of crocodile is pretty scarce outside of PNG & Indo, if one is lucky they can find this species at a facility in countries such as Thailand, Singapore, possibly Africa, but croc farms/zoo's know these crocs are hard to get a hold of and you will have a hard time getting them to let any go.

Facilities as well as the government in other countries dosnt like to see crocodiles such as these exported, as they fear the importing country may be able to breed the species for skin, thus taking away money from their own country ..... also, the US government also dosnt like to see non native crocodilions being raised for skins here in the USA as they make money off of the american alligator skin industry .... their is a lot of hiddin government red tape !!

Chris talked about problems getting them into the USA as far as USFWS goes .... he was giving an understatment !! it is VERY VERY hard, and a BIG PAIN !!!!

p.s.
Chris, thanks for the compliments, havent talked to you for a while ... email me we'll catch up, maybe we could look into getting these guys a couple New Guinea's