Hi everyone,
When I did the Ghana ball python survey for CITES, I did not come across any people trading in gravid females. Licensed trappers working for the exporters were taking gravid females from the wild and the exporters had the females lay their eggs in captivity. The females were then released back into the wild, under the supervision of government wildlife officers. Wildlife managers term call this "ranching". It is done with quite a few species of crocodilians. The conservation value of ranching is that the commercial operators depend on a wild population and its habitat for their livelihoods. Farming is a closed system, so it doesn't matter if the wild populations survive. In fact, it gives you a competitive advantage if the wild populations dwindle. You can download my report from: http://ec.europa.eu/environment/cite...thon_ghana.pdf.
Happy Easter!
Steve
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