Hello all. While we rarely post on any of the forums anymore, we've watched this question arise time and again and felt we should attempt to shed some light on the subject as locality breeders of green trees.
Julian, we've spent many hours talking to Kam at Bushmaster as well as 2 of the other Indonesian farms that work with locality green trees over the last 12 years we've been producing them. The information is quite enlightening and should be helpful to those looking at this portion of the green tree market. Some simple facts;
1)Any 1 of the 5 currently operating snake farms in Indonesia must first request and then be granted permission to collect a locality as breeder stock for their farms. There are no "blanket" permissions for green tree collection, but rather finite limits placed on each locality. If Kam wants additional Biaks, Arus, Meraukes, Sorongs, etc., he has to apply for the right to collect that locality, be granted those permissions and report the collections of that locality
2) Careful monitoring of collections and locality offspring is performed by the Indonesian government at each of these locations. Each quantity of locality offspring is recorded yearly as are mortality rates in the breeding stock. This is standard in most 3rd world country breeding operations. Why such close inspection? Simple, the government collects taxes based on inventory and sales values and realises there can be signifigant differences in value between a Biak or Merauke, whether in inventory or as saleable offspring.
3)Collectors are then hired to gather up the amounts of animals issued permissions by the govt. These are folks Kam has used for years and will be the people Kam will introduce Lee and I to when we snake hunt Indo next year. While true locality data (ie: GPS waypoints) are probably not a current reality, there is certainly information regarding different areas if you know who to speak with and spend the necessary time doing so when you purchase from these folks. Obviously the information is getting better as we now have 3 distinct areas for the Meraukes, Tanah Merah, Mitanah and Bade.
4) It is doubtful a collector hired to procure Arus would even venture onto the mainland and certainly not onto the other islands of Yapen or Biak, which are hundreds of km. away. Why would they? They are being paid to procure animals from an area and understand after decades in the business, its probably hard to pass off a different locality as breeder stock. Its also doubtful those animals would truly be from Kep Aru as there are hundreds of islands that comprise the "Aru" archipelago. Likewise, animals collected from the areas at lower elevations around Wamena or Lerah are from the valley in that area and we would doubt they would be collected from the far NW area of Sorong. Are any of these localities truly from the cities of Wamena, Sorong, Merauke, etc? No. Those are the nearest exortation points. But we have no reason to doubt either the collectors ability to determine where they are, nor Kam and Gunns ability to verify that locality
There are at a minimum, at least 6 folks we are aware of working diligently to produce locality green trees with founder animals from either Bushmaster or 1 of the other farms including ourselves. We have no qualms working with designer mutts either as we have those within our collection. But always labelled as such. So when the statement is made "there are no locality breeders", its simply not true, probably made without realising what it takes to breed green trees in Indo and negates the work and effort those folks have in finding and verifying their breeder stock.
Enter the broker, wholesaler, jobber or retailer. If you are buying at this level, all bets are off as most of these folks don't know and don't care about locality. Its simply product in and out with a few notable exceptions. If you want locality animals, you need to go to the source. And Julian, I don't think you will find anyone who doubts the word of those at the source and you might be surprised to find who actually has these animals.
Lastly, for those reading this, please understand this is not a promotion for locality or any of the farms. F1 animals can be very tricky to deal with and our general recommendation is to buy captive born and bred from a reputable breeder with the support you will receive from them. Locality breeding is hit and miss, mortality rates are higher and we advocate only experienced breeders work with these animals. And please, lets not turn this into a flame as that is the primary reason we haven't really posted online with consistency since '01. But we did feel that some of the more pertinent facts should be brought out so that folks can make intelligent decisions when looking into a purchase.
Thanks for reading, sorry about the length and Charlotte and I hope everyone has a safe and happy holidays.
Kevin
Ectothermics
