LANCASTER NEW ERA (Pennsylvania) 06 December 05 What not to put on your Christmas list - Consumers cautioned against "impulse" purchases of snakes, other reptiles as holiday gifts. (Ad Crable)
Lancaster County, Pennsylvania: If you’re trying to come up with a different Christmas gift this year, don’t settle on a Burmese python, boa constrictor, iguana or various other reptiles that are being abandoned as pets as they outgrow their welcome.
Do your friend or loved one — and the reptile — a favor. Think before you buy.
Jesse Rothacker, who runs Forgotten Friend Reptile Sanctuary (www.forgottenfriend.org) in Lititz, calls them impulse buyers. Purchasing a cute snake, turtle or lizard seems like such a unique idea at the time. But often, they end up growing far larger than the owners knew and take more care than the casual pet owner is willing to commit to.
They end up neglected or illegally abandoned in the wild, where they die or create havoc for native species.
A lucky few make it to places like Forgotten Friend, which finds caring homes for unwanted reptiles. The nonprofit service tries to find homes for reptiles of all shapes and sizes. They do not keep any venomous or large reptiles at the facility out of respect for the concerns of neighbors.
Rothacker got calls on no fewer than three Burmese pythons last week whose owners no longer wanted, or could not provide care. One, Bubbles, is an 8-year-old, 13-foot-long Burmese python whose owners took it to the Humane League of Lancaster County, which then contacted Rothacker.
The snake was gushing fluids from its lung, indicating an advanced respiratory infection. Brian Zahm, a 23-year-old HACC student from Warwick Township, is providing the snake a foster home.
Many people who buy Burmese pythons give them up after two years, when the animals grow to 10 feet in length, Rothacker notes. That’s when their diets need food from rabbits to chickens to goats.
“Ask yourself if you’re going to have a baby in the next 30 years,” suggests Rothacker, noting the snake’s long lifespan. “Not a good combination with a large constrictor in the house.”
Yet Burmese pythons and red tail boa constrictors, which grow up to 10 feet, remain the two most common “big snakes” found in pet stores.
Better choices among snakes, Rothacker says, are corn snakes, black rat snakes and ball pythons, which max out at around 4 feet. All three are easy to handle, very docile and have simple care requirements.
Another unwise choice for a pet, in Rothacker’s eyes, would be sulcata tortoises and red ear sliders, both turtles. The sulcata is the third-largest tortoise in the world and may eat your landscaping and dig 10- to 20-foot burrows in your yard. They eat all the time, which makes cleaning up after them akin to having a horse.
Native to Central America and the southern U.S., sliders released into Pennsylvania are choking out the state’s native turtles. Better alternatives are the Russian or red foot tortoise.
But Rothacker considers iguanas the most unwanted reptile as a pet. “The surplus of unwanted iguanas is so bad that PetSmart stopped selling them,” he says. “They leave welts by tail-whipping and have teeth and claws that can do much worse. They are not for first-timers.” They also grow to 6 feet and need lots of climbing room.
Savanna monitors also are on Rothacker’s unwanted list for similar reasons.
Better choices would be a leopard gecko or bearded dragon.
What not to put on your Christmas list