Wild-caught Green Tree Pythons?

[moosenoose]

I had to look up the Nepenthes ventricosa, I thought a flea market a weird place to pick up a reptile hehe Then I found out it was a Pitcher Plant!! :lol: Is that one of the hedging variety by any chance??? lol

 

[Guest]

I had to look up the Nepenthes ventricosa, I thought a flea market a weird place to pick up a reptile hehe Then I found out it was a Pitcher Plant!! :lol: Is that one of the hedging variety by any chance??? lol

LOLZ MOOSE i thought it was a bird of some kind HaHA i wernt even close i should have phoned a friend or 50 50 :lol:

 

[moosenoose]

Hehehe Oh well, now we both know! I had help from a guy called Google! :wink: :lol:

 

[Koula]

Hedging type? Whazzat? It's in a "hanging basket" if that means anything, the pitchers hang down over the side. Pretty awesome plant, the guy said the best thing to feed them on is regular ordinary tropical fish flakes. (shop fertilizer is too strong, and dropping crickets or roaches in the pitchers causes the pitcher to shrivel up, apparently fish flake food is a happy medium and the plant thrives on the stuff - we shall see).

 

[moosenoose]

Sorry to steer this away from the 'unrealistically priced' GTP thread, but yes, some Pitcher plants grow so big that in places like England they hedge them. I'm sure there is a variety here that grows to those sizes also. One of my favourite insect eating plants to be honest! Certainly they are a hell of a lot easier to keep than the Venus Fly Trap - although I have been pretty successful with them in the past - that was until I got the bright idea to repot them! :lol:

 

[Koula]

Well, it wasn't really the "overpricing" that was annoying me, hell if I kept/bred GTPs I'd be asking the current 5000+ buckos for em, (and maaaybe letting 'em go cheaper to experienced herpkeeping buddies), it was the way the guy was talking about em that ruffled me a bit. He did a good job of giving me the impression that his intentions was to get a wild-caught GTP of his buddy up north instead of going for a ridgy-didge captive bred one. The guy was certainly no unemployed bum, what with plonking down $350 cash for the tank and loading it into a flash brand-new looking 4WD/ute, so he'd surely well and truly be able to put down $5000+ no wukkas.

On the other hand, part of me kinda wants to say "I guess it's ok in the end if the snake/s are being well looked after and fed and given TLC"... Maybe his mate has one of them wildlife harvesting permit thingies anyway? I guess I feel this way a bit because one of my friends has a huge carpet snake (unlicenced) that he's had for years, raised it from a hatchling size and all and its healthy and happy as --- which now opens another can of worms (er... snakes?), he wants to be licenced to keep reptiles, but he's afraid of applying for a licence for fear the rangers will take his snake from him... is it possible (in QLD at least) to somehow get the local EPA to let him keep his snake as a licenced herp considering its been captive for nearly 5+ years?

 

[Brodie]

Nephurus - Rick Shine showed that broad headed snakes are worse affected by wild collection, than habitat destruction!

 

[PilbaraPythons]

Brodie
Where has Rick Shine stated this?
I personally find this hard to believe knowing that the surrounding bush areas have been already hammered by collectors of rocks used in the landscaping trade. I would like to see how Dr Shine has come to this conclusion. I am not convinced that the Broad Head is commonly held in large numbers illegally. Or am I wrong ?

 

[herptrader]

Yep, agree totally. If removing a few animals had any affect then the sheer numbers killed on our roads, killed by feral animals, killed by idots with shovels and killed by habitat destruction then half the reptiles in the country would be endangered.

The Australian captive bred population is off a very small original population base. As others have indicated if the discussions are to believed many of the captive animals are not of Australian origin.

Introducing some locality specific legally WC animals into the captive population (and running stud books to keep track of them and their offspring) is probably a good idea.

I cannot see it ever happening though... unless there is a sea change in the laws.

 

[The Rock]

swiftrat,- no QLD parks will not licence that animal to a private keeper.
Brodie,- I think you refer to a pocket that got hammered by moss rock collectors, started to recover only to be nearly wiped out by collectors, who also left all rocks over turned which helpped destroy the rest of the remaining habitat. This was if I recall corectly only a small pocket of em.
Rob

 

[herptrader]

More has to be learnt about these animals in order to ascertain the damage, if any, of taking them from the wild.

I look forward to reading about this research. The current research being done is (in part??) sponsored by Australian Geographic. I am expecting that that is where it will get published.

 

[Nephrurus]

Some of these areas were not just hammered by "moss rock" collectors. Herp collectors and hooligans were found to be destroying or disturbing rock outcrops up to 450m from a walking track. It requires devotion to a cause to track through 500 metres of dense bush to wreck some rocks. Oh, i should note that the experimental outcrops used were artificial. At one of the sites a broad-headed snake was found, showing that habitat restoration may well be possible. In the case of the broad headed snake, i would think that habitat destruction is far more damaging than collecting, although collecting is still an important factor in their decline.

See Goldingay, Ross L., Newell, David A. (2000) Experimental Rock Outcrops Reveal Continuing Habitat Disturbance for an Endangered Australian Snake. Conservation Biology. 14(6) for more details on the artificial habitat desturbance study.

-H

 

[PilbaraPythons]

Since I promised an up date, well here it is. After legal advise today by Lawyers who regulary handle defamation, We have been told that we have a extremely clear case of defamation that can easily be proved in the Supreme Court. Today however we have had a visit from the District manager of Australian Customs Service, Colin Mastrangelo. He has assured us that this will not happen again and his officers have been disciplined. We at this stage will leave it at that provided that this little mishap does not in any way harm the operation of Pilbara Pythons.
Cheers Adrian and Dave

 

[westaussie]

Good to hear you had a minor victory guys.
Lets hope no damage was caused and that could be the end of it.
As this thread was the first I had heard of it, I believe that this little slurr. Will Have no effect on the good reputation "Pilbara Pythons" already have over here in the west.

 

[herptrader]

Well done on that minor victory. Nobody really wins in court except the lawyers no matter which side wins so if you can keep it out of court all the better.

 

[hugsta]

PS: LOL! My other half just said "GTPs are the 'penis extension' of herping!".

I want a penis extension then.....

 

[The Rock]

I always wondered why mine was so BIG.!

 

[Koula]

Boi-oi-oi-oi-oinnng!