RE: Do you think people should be allowed to own certain snake species?
Well, I'm sure there have been irresponsible pet owners that have released & lost giant constrictors. The major problem in the everglades isn't any species of boas, its burmese pythons. And most of the research by SWIFTMUD & the university of florida keep leading back to the theory that the population probably started from mass releases during hurricane andrew. There were, & still are, ALLOT of importers and breeders in south florida. And allot of those facilities were destroyed during that hurricane.
So, depending who's numbers you want to go by, there were between 1,000 –2,000 Burmese pythons adult/sub-adult Burmese pythons released/lost then. Some of them surely died. But even if 25% survived, that is a pretty good start to a breeding population. And, they have been keeping genetic samples of most of the snakes killed and collected, by park rangers, FWC, hunters, local trappers & law enforcement. And apparently all of the samples collected were closely related. And somewhere in the early to mid 90's, there was a ban on importing Burmese from a few areas, and almost all of the imports have been from Vietnam since then. And so far not one snake collected and tested has had any close genetic relation to the Vietnamese populations imported in the last 17-19 years. Not to mention, that when those imports started becoming common, is when most of the “morph” pythons started to appear in private collections. Albinos, greens, labyrinths, etc... I would go as far as to say that it has gotten to where a majority of the Burmese pythons kept in the last 15 years have been carrying one or more of those genetic “morphs”. And not one snake tested yet had any of those genetics. Not to mention, the number of snakes that would have had to be released by owners in the right places to reach the population levels that are out there now, it just doesn't make sense. There aren't enough pet owners close to the everglades to even do it. And most of the kinds of people irresponsible enough to just release an animal where it doesn't belong, isn't going to make a long trip to release one in the everglades, because it would have a better chance of survival. That would require a “responsible” type of person, in a way, I would think. Do some searches for the research info.
There is also a very whacky theory going around that they were released by the army or CIA, in the late 60's &/or early 70's, when they had imported animals, testing them to see if they could be trained,and used in Vietnam during the war. Seriously, I couldn't make that up. Do a search for it if you are into conspiracy theories. I don't think I can buy that, But I guess you never do know.
The other possibility is that there was one or a few illegal importers/smugglers who were close to getting caught with a large group, and released them similar to what would happen in the hurricane theory. I'm sure there have been irresponsible owners that have let their animals go, after they got too big, and weren't prepared to deal with them, but it is almost impossible to believe that that many individual owners could have released enough animals to generate the population that is there now.
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Do you think people should be allowed to own certain snake species?
