Interesting Read Concerning the Reptile Community

http://www.aphis.usda.gov/vs/ceah/ce...es/reptile.pdf

Above is an interesting read put out by our government evaluating and discussing the Reptile Community. For those of you who have not read this, take the time. It contains some decent information on the status of the reptile community in the US and worldwide.

Thanks for posting this...it is an interesting read...it is just too bad the data is so old (report dated 2001 but referenced data is from mid-late 90's). It would be interesting for them to do an update to this report to see how much more it has grown and to look for changes (ie. if lizards still make up 80% of the imports every year)

I agree it would be interesting to see some more updated information compiled into a report similar to this one. It was written in 2001, so things have probably changed significantly since then; however, it offers a bit of statistics about how this community has progressed.

I am sure the government will get around to a new report though...ha ha....what else do they have to spend our tax dollars on ;)

I saw a news report a few months ago talking about exporting Red-eared Sliders to Asian countries for food and in the report it says that we export 4-5 times the reptiles we import!!!! 85% is Red-eared turtles.

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Originally Posted by RGreen454ss

I saw a news report a few months ago talking about exporting Red-eared Sliders to Asian countries for food and in the report it says that we export 4-5 times the reptiles we import!!!! 85% is Red-eared turtles.

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Its hard for me to believe that we export more than we import but it could be true as there are many many turtle farms in this country that produce hundreds of thousands of turtles each a year and its tuff to even get in the door and buy from some of them as they are sold out from previous customer orders from last year.

I've recently been trying to buy 2,000 alligator snappers for an export and it has taken over 50 phone calls over the last several weeks to find someone who may have the left over stock and who may want to take the time to direct ship them for me (they cannot come into the state of florida).

Brian from BHB has said it best, this industry is hundreds of times larger than most believe it to be.