Conscience and the wild caught snake plus cage building

Someone recently wrote me concerning a dilemma she was having. The issue is thus:

"I have succumbed to my impulses recently and acquired a flying snake from Indonesia. A local distributor had it available for a good price and I just "had to" have it. It is something I have wanted since the first time I learned about them from the nature shows on T.V. I have been feeling just awful about it as it is wild caught and I did not purchase it with specific research needs in mind or to study it's captive breeding needs or something useful... Instead, I just plain wanted it for its "cool" factor.

It's just a really neat snake! I am having trouble coming to terms with this impulsive purchase and am not sure what to do about it. Part of me wants to keep it just because I like it and it's something new and exciting. Part of me thinks I should create a reason to keep it, like I want to breed them so there would be a captive-bred supply of them to protect the wild specimens from being de-populated, and part of me thinks I should donate him to an honorable public organization for education & display, but I just can't decide what to do! The greedy evil herper inside me has struck and I am so torn up about it! Any thoughts? -- and please be honest with me -- no holds barred, ok? "

This was my reply (slightly edited):

"That snake is a really interesting animal. It's a hard question, the one you ask. On the one hand there is a certain freedom that comes from being able to get whatever you want. It also carries with it a lot of responsibility. In theory it should allow for a lot of animals eventually to be captive bred and continue the species domestically. However countries like Indonesia and the surrounding South-East Asian countries, African and South American often decimate their local populations to feed hungry markets across the world. While the US regulates its imports, more needs to be done. Given the scale of animal imports, that is a huge job. "

"The poorer countries themselves cannot do it for the most part. Australia, a relatively wealthy nation, even has difficulties preventing smuggling. Less wealthy nations countries have scant resource for these and often allocate scarce resources towards other priorities."

"I honestly don't know what to tell you. I know Herp lovers all keep them for exactly the same reason. In an odd way we are all as guilty but people have been doing it for as long as we could. Where does the buck stop? If you didn't buy it someone else would. If no one bought wild caught animals that would stop the trade, but that's not going to happen quickly, nor without educating people about the need to buy bred animals and intervention from government. "

"Equally, how can animals be bred if there are no domestic populations from which to breed? They need to come from somewhere to begin with. There also needs to be a suitably sized DNA pool from which to develop a breeding program that will not lead to genetically deficient and in-bred populations."

"As an example, perhaps Australia should begin and develop a regulated export program. There is a demand for Australian herps and as long as they only exported captive bred animals there could be a thriving, lucrative and carefully managed trade. "

"Maybe many of the developing countries could develop markets and internal breeding programs that would help the local population and protect the wild caught populations. This could actually realize better prices for their animals and better care for the animals in transit."

"I understand how your conscience is being eaten up with this. Mine would be annoying me too. I sometimes even question the keeping of captive bred animals. "

"I think donating the snake to an educational institution is fine but it would need to be one that wanted it for research an educational program. I'm of the mind that says you may as well keep it and care for it. It would probably have just as good, if not a better life that way. Maybe you will find another one. Who knows these things? Some things just happen for a reason (and I'm not even superstitious or religious). Maybe you'll find a breeder who is looking for one. Who would you give it to, if you did give it away and how would that be better?"

These are tricky issues. Even as I write about them I'm not totally crystal clear in my mind about solutions That said, I think it is important for people to discuss these issue and continue to tease them out. Currently we are in the fifth great extinction of the worlds animals and, while there is some inevitability to this, I believe we have a responsibility to our children and to grand children and so on to pass on as much of the biodiversity and worlds animals as we are able to.

Whether this involves breeding programs or ultimately protective and unpalatable solutions to herp owners, difficult decisions need to be made. There is a need to discuss this and work through the issues as they are raised.

On another note, lately there has been quite a bit of correspondence between myself and people who have purchased the reptile cage plans.

Some of the questions have been quite interesting and have forced some sections to be added and others to allow correspondence between cage makers. While there are a number of forums available for this, some people are not very comfortable doing this and like to go through a third party or talk to someone who they have established a relationship - business or otherwise.

One example was from a customer, Chris who was making a reptile cage for his turtles. The cage had to be quite water resistant and also resistant to high humidity. After a bit of research Reptile-Cage-Plans.com was able to find how to make cages not only water resistant but waterproof enough to actually hold water should you wish and added these details to the plans.

Another customer wanted to build a snake cage for a Burmese python. The cage had to be 10ft long x 4ft wide x 3ft high. Quite a big cage. With some adjustments to the plans and diagrams plus some further instructions the customer had all that was required to build such a cage. Again, these details were added to the plans and they were updated.

David was making his first ever reptile cage. Having purchase the plans he had embarked on the project. This is part of the email he sent, together with some pics.

Thanks Mark, very useful stuff....
I started my enclosure yesterday - here is where I am up to - The shelf isn't fixed in and the timber holding it up was just for the photo. Pretty proud of myself considering I have never made anything in my life!

Occasionally one has a disgruntled customer but the happy ones sure make up for them!