Sorry guys - real life has intruded - had to bury my mum
Spitmore does have a point in asking "What makes keeping an exotic reptile(one from another country) so different than keeping a native species in an area to which it doesn't naturally occour?".
In short my answer is, for some species, is none, for others it's the degree of risk. If the animal has invasive potential for a particular area then we should not be keeping it in that area regardless of its point of origin! But people will keep pets, complete prohibition won't work, so the powers that be limit our choices to a number of animals, most of which I agree with, but some I don't.
Along with degradation and fragmentation of habitat, translocation of animals is one of the major problems many species have today, when people move into a area they bring many fellow travelers with them, both intentionally and unintentionally. We them put the resident species at a huge disadvantage by poking gaping holes into the existing biosphere so that they are already under stress then we introduce other animals and plants to compete with the survivors. However, just because a animal is brought into a area does not mean that it will eventually establish a viable population.
Now I, along with the powers to be, don't believe that water pythons could establish themselves in SA. For one, there is no obvious barrier to them reaching SA, after all they have had thousands of years to do it, so why not? This is the degree of risk I was talking about before. there are no physicial barriers to prevent WPs from reaching SA so it must be something else.
Now lets look at the corn snake, it lives in a climate that is similar to Adelaide and can definitely breed here. The only thing that has stopped it from reaching Australia before is a little thing called the Pacific Ocean. In fact if it did establish here and spread then you could properly divide Australia into two parts, the north with the cane toad and the south with the corn snake. Also it strikes me as funny how there is grumbling about the government doing nothing about cane toads but to do something about exotic reptiles is just too hard. Also making cats legal hasn't stopped them from doing damage to the enviroment.
However there is at least one Australian reptile (possible two) that may have established a feral population in SA, The eastern water dragon. Now it is possible for the authorities to do a number of things about EWD, one of which is that they attempt to wipe out the free-range population and ban the keeping of the animal (hopefully they would allow the export of captive animals back to the east coast before the hypothetical ban took place, in which case you guys can expect heaps of cheap EWD coming your way). Now if after the hypothetical ban took place and I discovered someone keeping them illegally, would I perform civic duty required of me and report them - YES - even though I think that the EWD is a magnificent animal, I love them, and the report would send it to the freezer. Conservation laws are not perfect, far from it but they are all we have to work with. If you don't like the laws as is then campaign, talk to you MP (PSST want my vote? I'?ll swap it for a corny), start a petition but moaning and whining on a fringe web site will only get the usual suspects to agree and the other usual suspects to disagree. As what this post will do.
Now a number of people also seem to think that illeagals is just a lark and a minor crime and perhaps it is but it is a crime on the end of a string of crimes. Every exotic that is purchased means that someone has either bred it illegally or imported it illegally. So that makes two crimes, three if the animal was taken from the wild illegally. So every purchase of an exotic only encourages and finances the importation of more exotics. Now Slatey, when you purchased the snake from the guy who turned up to your work, didn't you think that there was something wrong? I admire you greatly and believe that the hobby benefits from you and you kin?s unpaid generosity but that sounds like buying something that fell of the back of a truck.
And IMO, (nothing humble about it tonight
) WA should definitely not allow the importation of eastern reptiles, EWD in particular. Westies have a great range of reptiles to choose from, savior them guys.
And incidentally, I'm being transferred to QLD soon, hopefully Townsville, if that happens I'll sell by beloved waters rather than risk polluting the local QLD form with the NT form.
Now for your examples Greg,
Goulds monitor
Simon I see you have just aquired a goulds monitor.Goulds monitors certainly aren't native to Newcastle so what makes it ok to keep one there?
Go and get your copy of Coggers 'Reptiles and Amphibians of Australia' and look at the distribution of Varanus gouldlii. Quote 'Found throughout most parts of continental Australia except the extreme south-east and those forests of the east coast subject to very high rainfall. Extra-limitial in the seasonally dry Savannahs of southern New Guinea' end quote. So if V.gouldii is not found in Newcastle then it is either found very close by or has become recently locally extinct.
Glossy Black-Cockatoo
Why do you quote from newspapers without doing further research? It only diminishes your argument when you use a poorly written reference.
This URL
http://www.nationalparks.nsw.gov.au...ation+rejection+of+endangered+species+listing states that the Glossy Black-Cockatoo Calyptorhynchus lathami lathami (Temminck, 1807) has had its endangered species listing rejected. You must be talking about the
KI sub species Calyptorhynchus lathami halmaturinus which does face many threats but the long-billed corella (Cacatua tenuirostris) is not one of them (This bird has had is own problems, mainly the devastation of its food supplies but has bounced back recently with a vengeance). You must be referring to the little corella (Cacatua pastonator) , which, in fairness, does have a long-billed form but not in SA. This bird has introduced itself (NOT released) to KI along with the Galah (Cacatua roseicapilla). Some species of cockatoos, the galah, the sulfur-crested ( Cactua galerita ) , the cockatiel (Nymphicus hollandicus) and the little corella have greatly benefited from current agricultural practices and have expanded their range. If you sit at Cape Jarvis on the SA mainland you can easily see KI, it?s less than 20 kilometers away , an easy flight
Go to these sites
http://www.tasweb.com.au/bapa/glossy.htm#Current threats
http://homepages.picknowl.com.au/kic/glossy/chew4.html
for more on the current threats to the KI glossy.
Further reading
Summary of fauna survey in lofty ranges Adelaide ? claims two introduced reptile species found ? Doesn't give names
http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:...pdf+introduced+reptiles+south+Australia&hl=en
Feral birds in WA
http://biology.usgs.gov/s+t/noframe/x187.htm
http://www.ecwa.asn.au/info/feralbirds.html
Using virus's to kill snakes ? READ THIS TO SEE HOW THEY INTEND TO CONTROL FERAL SNAKES
http://natzoo.si.edu/Publications/ZooGoer/2000/1/curingguamsnake.cfm
Re-introducing Water dragons to Sydney ( good photo )
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/10/30/1067233325030.html?oneclick=true
IMHO silly story on the amnesty - does claim that the animals were ill-kept - take with salt
http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,9659901%5E28101,00.html
