|
Another possibility I haven't heard mentioned yet...surprisingly, knowing the reputation of these people... is what if they sent him the venomoid king knowing full and well it was a venomoid but that it was probably going to expire shortly. With as many venomoids as they "make" (god that thought sickens me) they probably have some clue what to look for in an animal that's probably not doing so well from the surgery and may be nearly ready to die. With reptiles, an infection could easily take 4 weeks or maybe even more to kill it. I've had a perfect condition adult male PNG taipan go from eating great and being very active to dead within a 24 hour time period, likely from an internal parasite overload that built up over the month I had him until he just couldn't take it any longer. Also, stress can be fatal to a reptile, especially a king that is ripped from the wild, thrown in a wood container until the exporter meets his quota, likely starved and dehydrated, shipped overseas here, kept in probably poor conditions in the importer's facility, sent to this company's place, and put through what I can only imagine as unimaginable pain and suffering during the venomoid procedure. Four weeks later, the once gorgeous and powerful king succombs to infection, stress, disease brought on by stress, or whatever. Anyway, my point is that I wouldn't be too very surprised if this company thought they could just rip you off bigtime and send you a king that they knew was about to kick the bucket but at least they could get the price of a normal, intact animal. Maybe they even thought you'd be so happy to have gotten the "much more valuable" venomoid king that you wouldn't be so pissed when it died. Who knows. The point is, they messed up, and if they did send a hot animal to someone expecting a venomoid, and that person is bitten by it, I personally hope they are sued for everything they are worth.
|