Posted on 02/14/2010 6:34:24 AM PST by JoeProBono
CHICO, Calif.The stock market is back on track, and bond markets are open for business. But now, another inflated financial market is facing collapse: mutant pythons and boa constrictors. Early in 2009, "investment grade" big snakescritters with genetic mutations that create rare coloringsstill held their premium values. But since last spring, the mutant-snake bubble has burst. Premium pythons that could fetch $40,000 in 2007 now go for half that sum, breeders report.
The price for a hypomelanistic boa constrictor, one with a mutation that lightens its skin tone, was $99 on Feb. 1, down from $5,000 in 2007, on Kingsnake.com, a classified-ad site that acts as a market-maker for snakes.
Ron Greenberg, a retired fiberglass-plant manager who keeps 1,000 snakes here in Chico, says demand has disappeared altogether for some boas he breeds. He can't find buyers anymore for "sunglow" boa constrictors, which sport an unnatural reddish-orange-and-off-white coloration, and fetched $3,000 two years ago. The turning point: Senate Bill 373, which Florida Democrat Bill Nelson proposed in February 2009 to prevent situations like one in the Everglades, where escaped Burmese pythons have devoured native animals. The bill would ban importation and interstate transport of boa constrictors, anacondas and large pythons. A similar antisnake bill followed in the House.....
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
I see a future nominee for the 2011 ‘Darwin Awards’...
A little late to ban the importation of these snakes. Bad news for snake raisers and rat raisers alike. I’d like to shed a tear for both but I can’t seem to to do it.
These damn snakes should not even be on the market.If they get loose in the environment there are no predators that van deal with them.
Just look at Florida to see the trouble these imported,non-native reptiles are causing their.
I am a former ball python owner(ex kept the snake after divorce). These are great pets for the right people. Never to be released into the wild though.
Nothing a good sharp shovel couldn’t take care of.
Have you ever seen the car in front of you on the highway try to run over a snake? The snake will be stretched out across the pavement and unless the car is going really fast, at the instant the tire is about to run over it, the snake is able to pull back. I wish I had reflexes like that.
I am a former ball python owner(ex kept the snake after divorce). These are great pets for the right people. Never to be released into the wild though.
Well that’s the problem as it is with everything there are irresponsible people who should never had these snakes as pets in the first place.
The snakes grow to big to accomodate and instead of taking them to a reptile preserve,they release them into the wild.
And how exactly do the ship these beasts ?
You guessed it. .
SNAKES ON A PLANE!
SNAKES ON A MOTHER-F***ING PLANE !!!
(sorry, couldn’t resist. . .)
What exactly the Hell is that ?
Snake ping.
A seriously bad case of indigestion caused by a meal who fought back?
Looks like the limb of a distantly related reptile whose genetic expression, through a mutation, got switched on.
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