Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I recently had an email from a guy who was interested in a male eastern i am thinking of trading or maybe selling, undecided yet.

He claims he can get zoo bred Easterns direct from zoos for $500 ea & the private sector breeders jack up the price just because they can. This person claims to have a friend at a zoo in the North east that will supply him.

i am sure if zoos were selling Easterns they would have to follow the legal guidelines & protocol as the rest of us as per the permit situation for any out of state sales they made.

is any one aware of any zoos that are breeding & or selling Easterns to the private sector?

Thanks,
Andy.

This sounds like total BS to me. In this country most zoos are several years behind private hobbyists/herpetoculturists in terms of captive reproduction. It was not this way years ago, but it is now. Private herp breeders are well advanced of the zoos.

I have heard that European zoos sometimes sell offspring to the public, but I have never heard of US zoos doing this. Maybe small, private zoos could do it, but the buyer would still need a permit for eastern indigos. Perhaps this guy is trying to convince you to lower your price?

yeah i thought it was BS myself. I am from England & i used to buy reptiles from zoos over there in the 80`s & the proceeds went back into the reptile dept`s budget but you cannot do it now. They can only breed & deal with other zoos these days, in the UK anyway.

i had another guy contact me a while ago claiming he was expecting to be gifted an Eastern someday & that he would only pay 400 - 500 for one anyway.

I said good luck with that.

As you say they would still need permits but i doubt most zoos or institutions would sell the the general public.

Was just curious, thanks
Andy.

It is interesting that people will try to save a few hundred bucks for a snake they will have to feed and house for 20 years (and we know how much they eat!). I have been watching the snake market for years - well before the internet. The average cost of very few snakes has held up over the past several years, but indigos are one of the few. Fifteen years ago a pair of womas cost around $4,000; now you can buy a pair for $500. Eastern indigos cost around $500 a pair fifteen years ago. Now a pair is around $1,800 to $2,000. Interesting.

As someone who is in the zoo industry, I can tell you that the initial post claiming he or she can get indigos from zoos is full of BS. And if they are selling them, it wouldn't be to the private sector unless there was some under the table stuff going on. I'd stay clear of it. For the record, I agree too about the price. There's nothing wrong with charging $1K for a snake that will be around for a very long time.

Rob Carmichael, Curator
The Wildlife Discovery Center

>>It is interesting that people will try to save a few hundred bucks for a snake they will have to feed and house for 20 years (and we know how much they eat!). I have been watching the snake market for years - well before the internet. The average cost of very few snakes has held up over the past several years, but indigos are one of the few. Fifteen years ago a pair of womas cost around $4,000; now you can buy a pair for $500. Eastern indigos cost around $500 a pair fifteen years ago. Now a pair is around $1,800 to $2,000. Interesting.
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Rob Carmichael, Curator
The Wildlife Discovery Center at Elawa Farm
Lake Forest, IL

actually I do know people that do get stuff from certain zoos....usually from a friend of a friend that works there...never heard of eastern indigos....the one group was/is crotalids...smallish species...other stuff was elapids....some are very cheap actually...zoo just can't keep them all...and usually didn't breed on purpose maybe?...I personally do not know or now the people....I never got a connection for cool milksnakes or kings let's say....

....it could happen...

as for wild collected illegal indigos....they were around before...they can srill be around now....

...you get what you pay for sometimes...do the research....

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........JY

I agree that some zoos do rarely release their cb animals to the pvt. sector (ie. Gladys Porter zoo with the Spilotes). But this is all BS with the indigos. If u look at the "studbook" that the Orianne society has (search it on the web), you will see there have been almost no zoo breedings of Eastern indigos for quite a while. Personally, I wouldn't pay big $$$ for the Easterns that are out there unless the stock can be traced back to WC or "founder stock" as most captive stock are extremely inbred and have shown detrimental health signs (stunted growth, cardiac abnormalities, etc..). I can probably count only six sources of "founder stock" that are now 20 years old now. It's unfortunate that we can not legally obtain some WC genes into the captive population.

hey rob,

here's a goofy question. weren't u the first one to captive breed eastern indigos in captivity? would love if u can tell us the time line and who ended up with your lineage. thanks...

I agree Rob, i thought it was BS myself. The guy claimed he had a friend at a zoo in PA that would supply him Easterns for $500 ea.

i used to buy from my local zoo back home in the UK in the 80`s but there is no chance of that now & i doubt few if any zoo would sell Easterns to the the general public. Even if they did they would still have the permit process to go through.

I have had a few people contact me that turned out to be time wasters that talking out of their arses.

Thanks for the input everyone.
Andy

hey rob, good to see you here.

just like the game of telephone, i think what we may be seeing here is a case of misunderstanding. i have received eastern indigos from three different individuals who also happen to work (or worked in the past) at zoological gardens, including one in PA. however, these folks kept and bred indigos privately, at home, where they live, not at the zoo. it has only been about 10 years since the price for an eastern hatchling was around $500. though taken literally, the story certainly sounds like BS, but with a slight change in wording the story may be true -- "10 years ago i bought an eastern indigo hatchling from a guy in PA who worked at a zoo." stories often get misconstrued.

matt

While I was a mammal keeper at the zoo here in San Diego the curator of reptiles gave me a freebie couperi. Not as good of a deal as it sounds. It was free but it was also fairly old and had cataracts. The zoo had no breeding program for Drymarchon of any kind so I don't know its origins.
As far as Robs couperi I can vouch for two of them. I bought a unrelated pair of young adults from him around 2006 or 2007.
Gale

hi gale,

glad to know you have received some of rob's stock. i pm you to see if you are still breeding his stock. drop me an e-mail i provided in the pm please? thanks...

$500 might be a group price or "outta the egg not fed yet" quote......and if its an instate deal......no fed dance is needed.......and yeah.....our gene pool is ankle deep......at best......