Quote Originally Posted by TessadasExotics View Post
Not sure where you are getting your information from, but it is highly inaccurate. Ball pythons are not highly sought after for their meat. As mater of fact try killing and eating one in Nigeria and see what would happen. Supposedly the "giant" or "sub Saharan" ball pythons are from the Volta region. (funny as the whole area that ball pythons are found is the sub saharan) This is actually a region of the south eastern part of Ghana on the border of Togo. Warlords are not rampant in this area. Ghana does have tribes and chieftains which do have conflict with each other at times. There has been a land issue between the Nkonya and the Alavanyo going on since 1923 and has just recently gotten heated again this past month. But all in all Ghana is not a very dangerous place.
I have not seen much of a decline in the selling of these particular balls as of late. Actually seems to have picked up some. There where quite a few for sale this past year and this one so far. If you ask me they are nothing more than nice old, well fed specimens. Until someone proves them to be genetically larger than any others. We have 4 girls that are over 4kg. We have never seen any differences between the babies from them and the babies from our other smaller females.

I have to disagree with you, I have heard from many down here in miami that indeed ball pythons are being sold for their meat. This season for example the wholesale price of CBB normals actually went up because China bought huge amounts of CH BP's before they could make it to the US market.

I also heard that the Chinese are actually growing the females and trying to reproduce them for sale much like they do with turtles already.