Illegal Collection of Herps for the Pet Trade in Indonesia

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/...e-snake-trade/

It was, for me, heartbreaking to read how many captured animals that she found in the 7 months that she spent in Indonesia. Sadly I am not surprised that 64% of the species that were seen were not legally collected. Two things would greatly help the situation here.

1) Individuals should make sure that any snakes that they buy are captive bred and not wild caught.

2) As mentioned in the article, Indonesia needs to step up and admit that the problem exists and then go after those that are processing the fraudulent paperwork (going after the collectors wouldn't help as more people would just step up to take their place, but if they had no way to offload the animals that they collected... ).