SNAKE SPECIES AVAILABLE FROM DEALERS – Reasons for the demise of the pages:

By Neil Chernoff

The following is an explanation of why I am no longer generating the listing of dealers and/or breeders of snakes and the species they offered.  This was an effort that began in August 1998, and was continued for almost 10 years.  I will keep this version up for a few months - mostly for the benefit of those of you who may have the old site bookmarked.  I have often wondered about why a page I had visited suddenly disappeared - so I thought that in this instance, I would explain as well as offer some opinions (and bile) on what I see is the current state of the hobby...   

The main objective of this "Snake Species Available" Page was to provide a convenient way to rapidly search the stocks of a large number breeders/dealers and locate desired species so that they might be purchased and/or husbandry information gained or shared.  In addition, it satisfied my personal interest in noting trends in the hobby and I was able to chart the numbers of both species and the dealers offering them each year.  I did this faithfully (more or less) but every year it seems that the task became more boring and therefore, more difficult to complete.  There are a number of reasons for this and I believe that they are, to a great extent, derived from what I see as the current state of herpetoculture:

1. My interest is in snake species.  If I was interested in "morphs" I would get a bunch of aquaria and raise fancy Goldfish - you know, the kind with the enormous fins that makes swimming difficult and the bulgy eyes that makes them look like the freaks they are.  I have, however, no interest in raising fancy goldfish.  The hobby of herpetoculture seems to have gone from being about many different species to being about a select few that are being bred to produce a bewildering number of "designer morphs".  The number of dealers selling only morphs of Ball Pythons or Boa Constrictors increases every year and going to their sites is an unpleasant chore for me.  This past summer I went to my first Daytona National Breeding Expo.  It was held in a huge convention center and was packed with dealers selling an endless supply of extremely expensive Ball Python morphs.  Ball Pythons were everywhere.  There were albinos, Piebalds, Spiders, High Yellows, Spotted, Striped, Axanthic, etc., etc. and, of course, hets for all of the above.  I felt that I was in the middle of a huge pyramid scheme where everyone thought they were going to get rich breeding the newest morph.  There were even seminars with titles like "Making Money Breeding Ball Pythons".  If anyone reading this doesn't understand the foolishness of all of this, I would strongly suggest looking up "tulipmania" on Wikipedia before you spend more than $20 on a Ball Python.

2. I got very tired of attempting to figure out whether a dealer/breeder was still in business.  When it's 2007 and the verbiage is excitedly describing the coming offspring of 2003, there is no problem.  But what does one do with a site that is one year out-of-date?  Two years?  Why do people pay the required fees to be listed on "kingsnake.com" or similar sites and then not update their business' site?  I haven't figured that one out.

3. I have, over these past few years, had the pleasure of getting to know other people with interests similar to mine.  I know one person who has a collection of snakes that makes those I have seen in the Bronx and San Diego Zoos look like a kid with a pet Garter Snake.  I would estimate that 80% of what he has would not appear on the lists I was compiling.  It was like an alternate herpetological universe.  He deals with a small network of importers and breeders who are interested in exotics.  I have been told that Tropidophis species are being bred in Czechoslovakia  and I know that Oxyrhopus rhombifer is being bred in Germany.  I know other collectors that specialize in rare and endangered species (legally obtained - the survivors of animals brought into the Country before CITES was enacted).  I was also very aware that my lists were all but useless in locating the species of snakes that I and people like myself were interested in and my collection is increasingly made up of animals purchased from other hobbyists who do not advertise - and, in many instances, don't want any publicity.

4. I have learned (from multiple sources) that some of the dealers I had listed were... let's just say "less than they appeared to be".  These are people who advertise animals that they don't have.  There are all types of variants on this theme - one dealer specializes in advertising animals he knows are owned by others.  If he gets a customer, he approaches the owner.  If he can act as middleman, he makes some money - if not, the prospective buyer is told that the animal was sold.  No muss, no fuss.  Then there are the foreign export companies whose fauna-for-sale lists appear to be copied directly from scholarly books and papers listing every species known to be found in their region.  Send them your money and, assuming that they're honest, they'll try and get someone to catch the animal for you.  Meanwhile, your money is sitting half-way across the world and you have no guarantee of ever seeing an animal or getting a refund if the ones you do see are ill or mis-identified.  I didn't list many of these foreign "dealers" because I could find no evidence that they ever delivered what they promised, but they were the ones who had the species that I was the most interested in!

5. The administrative difficulties involved in the importation of animals are increasing and people who are more interested in exotic species are getting discouraged.  It is hard enough to locate trustworthy collectors in foreign lands without all of the Governmental hoops one has to go through.  The bottom line is that fewer dealers are going to the trouble of importing WC animals - too much hassle and too little profit. 

6. The final reason I'll give - and perhaps the most important - is that search engines are now sufficiently powerful to fulfill the aims of my list - and much more rapidly than I have had the time to do.  I am now using a search engine called Polymeta and it is one that I would enthusiastically recommend since it is current, has great depth, and also shows pictures of the subject being searched on the right side of the page.