Hafnon, thanks I will email you shortly with tons and tons of ammo.
Ok guy let me explain more of why I have been so dumb.
two years ago I started writing a book on african Colubrids that have the potential for the pet trade, meaning, they must naturally prey on food items which are easily accessable, such as rodents.
I have compiled tons and tons of papers, documents, books, etc on the many different species of african colubrids.
No book will be like the one I have been working on mainly because I am covering all of Africa and I am covering all species I feel have great potential to be pets.
I felt there was too much ephasiss on North American species and not enough on Africa when Africa has far more species then North America and some are out right beautiful inoffensize snakes that are easily cared for in captivity.
But I felt I need to have the snake in my care so i could truly write about their husbandry, and many I would say 80% of the species are never found on regualr export list and most exporters in African do not even know these species by name nor have they ever collected them.
it only been recently since I have been aquiring many of the species that you are now seeing them on exporters list.
so some guys refuse to go out of their way and try to collect these specie,s so as I try for different exporters around differetn part of africa, I have been forced to use exporters who, at first seem honest and eager to take my money, some have even done business with many people in the past who have ordered the normal regualr common stuff, so they get into this deal with me wheer I am after all these species foudn in their side Of Africa, and as time goes they get too deep and are confused as to where to look and search and then in the end, they dont even ship, like this one guy in tanzania, I know lots of guys that got shipments from him, but he has had $3800 US of mince since January because he just cant admit he cant collect the species I am after.
Other have used my need for the species as a chance to rob me blind, like this one guy Derrik banura who came on line email me back and forth for months telling me how he could collect the Red and Black striped snake - Bopthropthalmus Lineatus, one of the holy grails of africna colubrids, I would say it is africans version of elephe Proxy, one beautiful snake, so he said he would collect me 10 heads of this species plus a number of other species, so i got excited, man i was gonna get the forest flame snake as some people call it, a truly remarkable snake that eats strictly rodents and kills its prey thru constriction, totally perfect candidate for my book. and one of the holy grails to boot. anyways I sent budyy 1200 and he disappeared, but at that time he scammed like 6 other guys, 4 from the States, so i wasnt alone in that scam.
then there is the story with the king cobras, man thats another story, all because I wnated all those species form South Africa, so i can have them for research purposes.
man if I was trying to import for money, I would use my regular guys and import pythons from indo, but man I am not in this for the money, even when I did do indonesian orders and such, I never made much, after shipping cost, taxes, etc. and then I would have to treat the snakes for parisites and then have to keep them for weeks sometimes months to make sure they are in awsome shape I would be lucky to just even their cost.
but with this new scam, and even more recently, last week from a guy in tanzania calling himself Suleman Muhamed, I lost a total of just under 10,000 since january. all because I am trying to get all these different species for my book. Species like I said that have never once been offered for sale on any export list.
its a hit and win, the losses have hurt me finacially and at times have made me want to give up, but my book is over 50% complete. and it will be the first of its kind. so in the end if I am able to show the world the many different beautiful species Africa has to offer, then I have achieved something beyond greatness in my eyes.
But it has been a ruff ride, and I am still moving, but I have learnt many expensive lessons, but I have lucked out and found 3 exporters who are willing to ship first then pay, I am just waiting for them to finish collecting and hopefully within the the next few months I should have imported every species I need to finish my book.
some I cant get, I have foudn some people who do have them in their care to help me with pics and husbandry information, although it wil be second hand info at least I will have it none the less.
http://www.mfezi.com/species page.htm
click the pics on Don's Site I wrote those, they are bits from my book I am writing.
that guys in SA are jumping on the band wagon.... If these are the usual suspects I would love to have some ammo to take them out. Please mail me all you have and I will follow this up. 