WC Ball Pythons

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Originally Posted by Lockes

My biggest question is why wild caught ball pythons are still being taken out of the wild?

From the responses so far all I can say is that the only motivation for wiping out the wild population would be a financial one. Not completely wiping out but maybe significantly reducing the gene poolin the wild.

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Until Adam steps in, I will answer that as best as I can. Simply enough, there are still thousands of ball pythons being imported because there is a demand for them. Breeders only produce a small fraction of the demand for them so wild species are brought over from Africa to be sold. Though it may seem like a lot, think how many ball pythons there must be in Africa. It has not seemed like a big problem finding and importing tens of thousands yearly.

As I said, Adam knows much more about this topic and I'm sure would love to step in and give his say.

Edit: I found one of Adam's post

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Originally Posted by Adam_Wysocki

Brad nailed it.

Even with all of the captive breeding being done, we don't even come close to producing the numbers being imported into the US each year. It will be a long time before captive production can meet the demand for these animals.

On top of all that, the import and export of p. regius is regulated by an international body called the "Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora" or CITES ... they set the quota for the number of exports leaving each country in West Africa every year based on the numbers of ball pythons in the wild. It's there job to make sure ball pythons (and all animals under their umbrella) are farmed in a way that does not impact wild populations.

Wild ball pythons are well protected.

-adam

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and another

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Originally Posted by Adam_Wysocki

That's not going to happen.

Ball pythons are an internationally protected species. Their export and import is controlled by an organization called CITES. CITES is responsible for monitoring the wild populations of ball pythons can controlling the number of ball pythons that can be exported from Africa and imported into other countries around the world. These animals cannot be moved across borders without inspections and permits to protect them and their wild populations.

Stopping the exportation of ball pythons from Africa would be a bad thing for ball pythons at this point. The ruralization of Western Africa is causing a population explosion for ball pythons that is turning them into a nuisance animal. If the exports were to stop, the alternative would be for the governments in Ghana, Togo, etc to control their local ball python populations through other means ... which would likely be hunts, burnings, or worse (think rattle snake round ups but with ball pythons). The large scale exportation of ball pythons within the limits set by CITES which monitors their wild population keeps the numbers of ball pythons in the wild at a very healthy and very reasonable limit in order to protect the species as a whole.

Not to mention that the ball python export business is a huge industry over in Africa that employees many people and puts food on the table of a large number of families as well as supplies money to the governments of the West African countries the snakes are being exported from. It is in their best interest to make sure that the business (and money) continues to thrive for as long as possible.

No one is going to let ball pythons go extinct in the wild due to exportation.

-adam

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