Big Snakes Get Squeezed
Thursday, December 10th, 2009Well, it may be goodbye big pythons and boa constrictors. This morning a US Senate committee approved S373, a ban on the import and interstate trade of 9 “giant” constrictor snake spp. Too bad the python industry could not control itself at some point over the past 30 years (I loved my boyhood Burmese python, Socrates). Boa constrictors would be a real and unnecessary loss. As for the truly giant pythons and anacondas, their sale and keeping should have been controlled by the industry years ago. Common sense says that unlimited sales of 30 foot reticulated pythons was going to bite the entire trade one day. Not only did some leading dealers sell as many retics and burms as they could, many knowingly imported their giant pythons from the world’s biggest international illegal wildlife traffickers (and still do). (more…)