In the article that @chesterhf posted about the pet trade they talk about the same place and the same religious group, but about how they harvest large quantities of ball python heads for ritualistic purpose.
from the article:
In Benin, where Vodun—voodoo—is an official religion, ball python heads are sold at the public market in Cotonou, the country’s biggest city. The collection and killing of ball pythons for voodoo and traditional medicine puts added pressure on wild populations. The religion, also practiced in Togo and Ghana, holds that different animals offer different healing and protective properties.
So oops again on the propaganda creator not mentioning something that would have been obvious having visited the place, but counters his “I don’t like pythons as pets, so nobody should have pythons as pets” narrative.
Here is my take. Anyone who says people should not own this, or whatever other animal they view as off limits, as a pet yet goes to a zoo, is a hypocrite who should keep their mouth shut. Human beings have been taking animals in as pets for as long as we have existed. Where do all the holier than thou people think their dogs and cats came from? from at the time wild animals that were repeatedly bred in captivity to produce what people own today. Why is it ok to cage up birds who should be flying free? Or rabbits? do they think a domesticated rabbit just materialized in someones house one day? People are always going to have an opinion on things and when it comes to stuff like this its generally people who just flat out think they know better than everyone else. Who’s to say if we should own these or any other creature as pets. The fact is we do it mostly because we can as is the way of human beings and in my opinion as long as you are providing for that animal in a manner that allows it to thrive then whats the harm?
I think the key phrase here is “proving for that animal in a manner that allows it to thrive”. There are some animals that really shouldn’t be kept in captivity, zoos or otherwise. We cannot create an environment adequate for animals like elephants, large cats, etc. Are they alive and reproducing? Sure, but they’re hardly thriving. It’s definitely a slippery slope to say which animals are ok to keep in captivity vs which should be left wild.
I would argue at this point ball pythons are about as domesticated as house cats and that we can provide an environment for them to thrive, but they certainly shouldn’t be used as an example to prove that’s it’s ok to keep exotic wild cats. That’s how we end up with dumpster fire human beings like the tiger king breeding lions and tigers.
who tried to prove its “ok” to keep exotic wild cats? Im not really sure what point you are trying to make. When I mentioned zoo’s my point was that it is hypocritical to say people shouldn’t have certain animals as pets but then go to a zoo with nothing but captive animals. Many of which probably shouldn’t be kept. It was more a point about the people rather than this debate. With regards to this debate Im making the point of these dogs and cats and rabbits etc that people think are ok to own all came from wild animals. Which again makes them hypocrites. I feel like youre making my point for me but still trying to counter what I said??
In the video they do go and meet these people that chop the heads off of ball pythons (who are are completely different group of people to the religious BP worshiping group) and see their views on the pet trade across the globe.
Meant was that do we need to get them more from nature…I think not. Yes the damage is done in past, and I can only do my part in best way I can. And yes it it is a little bit hypocrite to speak ethics in this discussion. Obviously cause I also have animals…
I agree with you on this point 100%, just arguing that it is a slippery slope and not entirely black and white to determine which animals are considered domesticated vs wild animals in captivity. Which ones are thriving vs surviving? I think everyone here agrees that ball pythons are thriving in captivity, but are Anacondas? Tegus seem to be doing great, but what about the guy in my hometown who h as three alligators in his basement in the mountains of Northern PA (not kidding here)?
This is arguably the worst argument I have ever heard, plopping domesticated ball pythons back in the wild is not a band-aid for demolishing natural populations. While undoubtedly the ball pythons that have been in captivity for generations are very similar to the ones found in the wild, generations of selective breeding and husbandry have undoubtedly contributed to genetic drift from wild populations. They may have less resistance to parasites, starvation and no fear of natural predators. Snakes that have been fed F/T or even live pet store mice/rats may not know how to hunt for themselves, and individuals that show unique coloring or patterns are at a higher rate of death by predator.
Not to mention that we could just as easily introduce pathogens into wild populations of not only BPs, but animals that eat them. That is why if I were to go out and catch a garter snake and keep it for longer than 6 months, I would not be allowed to release it. Protecting wild populations is better than removing them only to try and repopulate later with potential disastrous results. I personally don’t see why people still even import BPs given the thousands upon thousands that we have captive bred.
You’re 100% right. I love ball pythons and see nothing wrong with raising and breeding them in captivity, but I think we also need to do our part to ensure the survival of wild populations as well. It seems hypocritical otherwise to see people talking about how much they love their ball pythons but not caring if the species in the wild is decimated. We should be an advocate for the species as a whole.
Well although I dont agree that we could just reintroduce captive ball pythons to the wild it has been done with many species of animals, just look at fish hatcheries for example. I also see it as it being our responsibility to maintain a species population so if we must raise a certain species to be released back into the wild then so be it because without doing so it could cause decline in that population and possibly extinction. My whole point being that the existence of a species survival is on us because we are the ones dominating the planet and hundreds if not thousands of animals go extinct because of us every year so if we must save them by means of releasing some back into the wild then I am all for it. Will some of those animals die? Yes, yes they will but many will survive as well and go on to reproduce.
Making mars hospitable is a ten million times harder job than saving the planet we already have…
Repopulation would also lead keepers to think “I don’t want my snake anymore, I’ll just set it free for the good of the species”… Look at the Everglades.
Known snake catchers claim that they release 10% back into the wild.
So they catch a pregnant female/recently layed eggs and release 10% of the offspring back where they came from.
Is this enough to keep the species afloat in say 100 years or will we see ball pythons on a wild animal endangered list at some point?.. Genuine question.
This conversation has been derailed significantly.
There is a significant difference between the original topic and drawing a parallel with zoos. With only a couple exceptions I do not disagree that most zoos are not setup to adequately provide for the full range of needs for larger mammals. However, comparing the keeping and breeding of ball pythons to zoos or even keeping lions and tigers is a false equivalency.
As far as wild populations that is a fair point and would be curious to see if anyone has any actual data regarding the population impact on native specimens. As to releasing captive bread ball pythons back into the wild how many do you think would survive predation considering the number of flamboyant color and pattern combinations? There is also no way of knowing what other things we have affected such as natural immune systems. We tend to keep our snakes in “ideal” conditions reducing the exposure to diseases and parasites. What happens when you release a breeding age adult from captivity back to its “native” environment? While I made the argument earlier that this was a bonus, and I maintain that it is for the snakes we care for, it would have an inverse effect releasing them back into the wild. It may seem like a strange dichotomy, but one that needs considering when discussing releasing back into the wild.
Again let’s get back on topic the false equivalency arguments are getting as bad if not worse than the original video.
Releasing phenotypicly altered ball pythons back to their native habitat is in no way the same as Burmese pythons released in Florida. Burmese Pythons in Florida have NO natural predators and as such are apex predators.
I just wanted to point out with the discussion on importation/releasing captive-bred pythons.
Importation serves the purpose of introducing new genes to avoid a lot of genetic drift and bottle-necking in the captive populations. In theory, it will decrease the number of deformities seen in hatchlings. I have read somewhere on this forum that breeding completely unrelated cinnamon ball pythons together seems to greatly reduce the number of kinked spines. Eventually all of the animals of a certain color/morph/line (as that’s the point of line breeding) will have similar genetics and it is beneficial to the population as a whole to have “wild-type” genetics added back in.
Along with that thought, the majority, if not all, of our beloved morphs originated from wild-caught imports. That means that some of these combinations do exist in the wild. Albinos exist in almost every species of animal and enough of them survive to adulthood to reproduce. I’m not saying I would elect my bananas or my leucistics to be released, but as a whole, I think we all produce enough normal or classic ball pythons, that those could be safely released.
I also agree with @shugr231 that the ball python is not truly domesticated. I have little to no doubt that enough of them could survive in their natural habitat. Their baser instincts have not been bred out of them.
Although regarding the video, I wish they’d made more of an effort to take into account that the conditions and time spent at an expo is only a fraction of the animal’s life. Or to examine the conditions of an animal in a pet home. I have seen more and more that people looking into getting a ball python as a pet are wanting to keep them in a bioactive enclosure. While these are typically vivs, inside them is as close to a “natural” environment as anyone can provide for them.
Back to the video. The elephant in the room here is that as keepers of captive bred animals we have had a hand in someway to the capture of wild animals, we also have confirmation biases because of what we hold dear to our hearts in the same way the makers of this video do, the difference is the large majority of the reptile keepers community are constantly learning from science, experience with our animals and the facts of our passion where as the vast majority of PETA members are blinded by beliefs and purposefully create misinformation to perpetuate their cause.
As an environmentalist I share some of peta’s underlying principles but they have such radical beliefs they have become fundamentalists, using any means necessary to fuel their cause, something I cant ever get behind as someone who uses scientific evidence and experience based knowledge which allows my opinion to change based on fact and not belief.
Which leads nicely toward the cutting off of snakes heads for ceremonial medicine… We only need to look at traditional chinese medicine which is a faith based folk medicine to see the horror of allowing people to go unchallenged in their beliefs for the sake of not upsetting the believer. Educational institutions are the only way we can get them to change their beliefs about using rhino horn or python heads.
The poster literally says they “ posted this video because of its controversial and BS content.”
What the what?!
Why throw a match on an incendiary topic just to watch it burn?
Do we really need another issue to argue about right now?
Debate is great; however inciting a discussion based on self-confessed BS is an excercise in time-wasting near trollish behavior.
And come on? Ball pythons?! The cats of the reptile world? that has been bred so successfuly into so many lovely morphs?
And the comments about some people not needing a bp. lots of people are unqualified for any pet — I hardly see that as a reason to condemn the ownership of that animal.