WARNING - BAN ON BOAS & PYTHONS!! - HR6311 Reintroduced as HR669

[ThyTempest]

Do you know who Dr. Gorzula is. Thanks to his job this hobby is what it is today.

Read this..

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Dr. Steve Gorzula Presents - Ball Pythons in the Wild (DVD)

Embark on an amazing field trip with Dr. Steve Gorzula as he takes you on a fantastic journey through the bush of Ghana, Africa to learn about and explore ball pythons in their natural habitat!

Ball or Royal pythons (Python regius) are possibly the most popular snake species for reptile hobbyists in America. They are an extremely beautiful species having a wide variety of color and pattern mutations. They are easy to keep, very docile and rarely bite. They make fantastic pets and are a great teaching tool for schools. But, where do ball pythons come from? Have you ever seen pictures or film of them in the wild? No? Then, read on!

In 1997, Dr. Steve Gorzula led a field team to survey ball pythons in Ghana, Africa and to develop a management plan for their sustainable use. Since submitting their report to CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora), Ghana, Togo, and Benin have exported approximately 1.5 million ball pythons to the international pet trade, with 85% of them destined to the USA alone.

Did you know that the international pet trade of ball pythons was almost shut down? Did you also know that this survey is the reason why you can now acquire ball pythons today? In this DVD, you will accompany Dr. Steve Gorzula and his colleagues on an amazing field trip to learn about ball pythons in their natural habitat. This is "in the trenches" biology at its finest! You will meet and come face to face with many other wild animal species such as venomous spitting cobras, African pythons, imperial scorpions, dwarf crocodiles, African giant rats, "grass cutters", pangolins, and hedgehogs. If you are a ball python enthusiast, a herpetologist or a person who loves animals then this is real field biology for you!

You will witness never before seen footage of the Ewe tribe who consider the ball python to be sacred. You will be part of their annual ball python festival as you witness their sacred ceremony first hand. You'll also see and learn the importance of protocol and libation ceremonies with the local kings and chiefs of villages in Ghana.

Later, you will join inspections of exporters' installations, and see where your pet python started its journey. You will share some time with the students at the University of Kumasi as well. Finally, you will see what happens when you answer an emergency call from a school where the children were scared about the crocodiles in the pond across the street. We capture the crocodiles in the night and take them to the school the next day. The only problem is that we didn't call the school beforehand to let them know that we were bringing the crocs with us!

Dr. Steve Gorzula is a biodiversity conservation and natural resources management specialist. He has more than 30 years experience in environmental and social impacts of development projects, environmental legislation, river basin management, wildlife conservation, commercial wildlife management, the Convention on International Trade in Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), ecological inventories, human impacts on biodiversity, biomedicine, and endemic and protected areas. Of these 30 years, he has spent 24 living and working in developing countries. Dr. Steve has described two new genera and 22 new species of reptiles and amphibians. A species of frog and two species of endemic plants are named after him.

Click here to read Dr. Steve Gorzulas' official SURVEY OF THE STATUS AND MANAGEMENT OF THE ROYAL PYTHON (Python regius) IN GHANA report in Adobe PDF format.

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Woohoo....he has done a lot for the hobby....that does not mean we should listen to everything he says. You know, cult leaders tend to do quite a bit for their subordinates, and works out wonderfully in the end sometimes....other times, they make the news for the kool-aid killing.

I still think any and all "evidence" should be from reputable sources, which in my mind means peer-reviewed materials. If this movie is from a peer-reviewed publisher, then by all means, it would be significant....if not, it does just about as much for the hobby (in this situation) as a guy who does a youtube with a stuffed animal ball python in his back yard.