Yeah if they're endangered they don't want hobby breeders grabbing them for the pet trade. The whole goal would be to let the endangered snakes numbers rise in their natural environment. If they felt a captive breeding project would be beneficial, they would have qualified herpetologists working on it. I mean would you want some random person (not guaranteed to be an experienced reptile keeper) to grab endangered species to breed? I'm totally on the authorities side. I don't think this guy was thinking about what would be best for the species.