than advertise or sell them to persons unknown and run
the risk of prosecution and at the same time having their
animals euthanized? Especially if when they had purchased
the animals they were ignorant of their illegal status.
Devastating as the Cane Toad is, and the Red-eared Slider
may prove to be, there are far many more exotic mammals,
fish and bird species that are not only legal but exerting far
greater harm to our ecosystems and natural environment
that all the reptiles combined. And don’t even get me
started on the almost free rein that gardeners get to enjoy
with exotic plant species. Could you imagine if any
politician dared to consider any form of ban on exotic
plants? They would be out of office faster than a monitor’s
feeding response! And that brings me to another point.
A four
four-
-metre scrub
python in a unit in
Melbourne, or a Pilbara
Perentie in SUBURBAN
Sydney seems very exotic
to me....
Many exotic reptiles are not suited to much of the
Australian landscape and would not survive if they escaped
or were liberated. Therefore, any schedule of legal exotic
species could be carefully compiled to have minimal
potential impact on our native species and environment.
There is also a primitive argument for exotics that I rather
like and, as simplistic as it may seem, I think it is worth
mentioning. Whether we realise it or not virtually all of us
keep exotic reptiles in one way or another. By definition an
exotic is anything that occurs outside of its natural
distribution. It seems very exotic to me to keep a four-
meter tropical Scrub Python that also occurs in New
Guinea in a unit in Melbourne, or perhaps a Pilbara
Perentie in suburban Sydney. Many would argue that
animals such as these, displaced in captivity, exist in ‘island
Right: Zebra Jaguar
Carpet Python.
Above right: Zebra
Jungle Carpet Python.
Many of the morphs we
keep today did not
originate in Australia.
Images courtesy Andrew
Horlor.
isolation’ and pose little threat of establishing feral
populations. But what about keeping South-west Carpet
Pythons (Morelia spilota imbricata), native to southern parts
of Western Australia and western South Australia, on the
south-east coast, where climatic conditions would be
eminently suitable for them to intergrade with endemic
Diamond Pythons? Others may contend that Australian
native species cannot extend their natural distribution,
because if they could they would have already done so.
However, there are plenty of natural barriers such as
mountain ranges and rivers which constitute no obstacle to
reptile keepers who routinely exchange animals across the
country. Let’s not forget about all the morphs we keep in
collections today. Many of these did not naturally occur in
Australia, despite occurring in Australian species (such as
Carpet Pythons, Central Bearded Dragons and Green Tree
Pythons), and were gradually smuggled back into the
country. Some have Green Tree Python and Carpet Python
blood in them that was never native to Australia in the first
place, so these are technically exotics as well, and yet
nobody seems to mind them in collections or worries about
the possibility of them escaping into the wild.
This brings us to the final part of our discussion, which is
concerned with the feasibility of international trade - and
the thing that makes the world go around; money. It is easy
to rationalize a ban on importing animals on the basis that
we do not want reptiles brought into the country that could
potentially harbour exotic parasites and diseases. This
makes perfect sense. The government would continue to
support a ban because they wouldn’t want to deal with the
hassle and cost of setting up quarantine facilities. The
problem is that this has once again driven the process
underground. Smuggling has continued largely unchecked
over the years, and a bunch of nasties these overseas
animals have brought with them into the country can be
nothing short of devastating if they make it into your
collection, to say nothing of the Australian environment.
Perhaps conditions such as the deadly Sunshine virus could
have been avoided if there wasn’t such a strict ban on
importation? What if we allowed zoos to import animals on
behalf of, and at the cost of, private keepers? This would
ensure appropriate quarantine measures, as well as