Before I get into it, this post needs a few disclaimers.
First, I have never done business with James Church, I merely have evidence of a situation which I feel warrants a bad guy post, garnered from several different message boards but collectively leading to a very negative conclusion.
Secondly, I debated with myself where this thread belonged BOI versus Hell because I had not personally done business with the man but I believe my proof constitutes enough for a BOI thread about his shady behaviors. The moderators may disagree and this may end up in Hell, their call entirely as I was kind of on the fence about it myself.
Third, given his responses elsewhere I'm pretty certain that James will come across as unstable and probably post inappropriately. While his conduct is telling about his character, I would hope that the decision to put this thread in Hell is based on the merit (or lack of) in my post rather than any rules infractions James hopes to add in order to tank the thread.
Fourth, I suspect a number of people have had successful deals with James and are happy with their purchases. By all means please post your experiences but also bear in mind that I am going to be detailing a serious flaw with James' ethics and you may want to rethink how your purchase went when you consider the evidence I am going to show.
Fifth, I will evidence a deal between James and another individual several times as it was the situation which alerted me to his negative actions. I am
NOT speaking for anyone except myself and my words and thoughts on this matter are mine alone. James had some difficulty distinguishing beteen the names "Seamus" and "Jessica" before so here's the clear and simple statement
I am not speaking for Jessica, do not in any way represent her or her interests and if she has anything to add here, she can do it herself.
Now, the meat of the issue.
Like many Fauna users I am registered at and participate to varying degrees on numerous reptile related forums. On one such forum, a user created a thread about a snake she had just obtained which had an abnormality in the way it's jaw was shaped, essentially asking if anyone had seen anything like it before and what the chances for different causes were. She already had a vet appointment but it was a decent discussion.
In that thread, the following photo was posted (reposted here without permission incidentally)
Of the animal she had purchased. The lower jaw is clearly having problems.
Here is the photo James Church sent prior to her purchasing the snake-
While close scrutiny shows the jaw to be similarly deformed, the camera angle minimizes the appearance and it's fairly easy to see how it could be overlooked if someone is not specifically looking for the trait. While James neglected to mention the deformity to his buyer and then tried to claim it happened during shipping... These are Jessica's issues, should she choose to post about them and are NOT the thrust of this thread.
What I have displayed above is one example of James Church having jaw deformities in his stock.
Here is another photo, taken by James Church himself (the ugly chair shows up in a lot of his photos) showing an anery with a jaw deformity...
Here's ANOTHER anery of his which has a deformed jaw and head...
ANOTHER os James Church's photos... the boa with it's head in the lower left looks like something's going on there but the picture is too fuzzy to nail it down. Since he takes plenty of perfectly clear photographs when it suits him, that in and of itself is suspect...
Albino with an underbite, also James Church's animal...
Another photo of the anery, note how careful he is to crop the head.
A pastel, jaw cropped and again with the ugly chair.
The point of this is...
James Church has jaw deformities in his stock, in concentrations greater than should be acceptable to any ethical individual. He's made statements which indicate that he is breeding the same animals that have in the past produced jaw deformities and even the deformed animals themselves, calling them individually "flukes" despite the propensity he has shown in producing them. What I ask now... Did any of you purchase siblings to the ones displaying the deformity? Do you want to have a chance of producing your own quasimodoboas? He's certainly not accurately representing the deformity as being present in his stock so why would he accurately tell a potential customer that their animal was related to a deformed one? Heck, if these deformities are the ones we're allowed to see, what proof is there that he hasn't culled more obvious ones?
Negative traits are sometimes formative flukes and sometimes genetic. Given the number which have been shown to exist in his stock with similar deformities (malformed jaws) there's a good chance there is a genetic cause. Much like the jerks who breed albinos with no eyes, this has to stop and it has to stop NOW before too many descendants of his animals get loose in the breeding population. While I personally would encourage anyone who has ever purchased an animal from this man to request an immediate refund given the possibility that your animal was misrepresented (omission of relation to deformed animals and it's not as if he's going to turn around and honestly inform anyone of which animals were related) and knowing full well that it's unethical to breed an animal which is a possible carrier for a likely genetic deformity...
Bad guys sell animals with deformities. Even worse bad guys will sell siblings to deformed animals without mentioning it to the customer. I'm pretty sure James will show up here to argue, he has elsewhere anyway when I mentioned the subject. The fact that he's denying the problem exists rather than addressing ways to solve it puts him squarely in the bad guy camp. He's no better than the creeps selling the siblings to eyeless animals or the ones who are calling unproven animals a genetic morph... he's misrepresenting his stock by omission and he's breeding deformities for sale.
I'll be emailing him a link to the thread but in the mean time, if anyone has a response, please feel free to add it.