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MM Misleading Customers on Captive Born Green Pythons

T

thamnophis123

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MorphMarket has decided to allow Reptile Pets Direct (Texas) to label their adult, imported GTPs as captive born. Most of the other sellers who are offering adult imports are properly labeling their animals as wild caught. However at least one other seller has jumped on board and is now selling imported adults as captive born too. Just a heads up in case anyone doesn't know the origin of these imports. They will have tapeworms, round worms and other issues typical of wild caught, imported snakes. There are buyers who do not, for personal ethical reasons (as well as survival rates and vet bills), do not buy wild caught snakes. So MorphMarket undermines these buyer's personal ethical guidelines.
 

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Curious if you've been in contact with MM about this, and what was discussed. I've interacted with their support staff numerous times, so I understand the general program but wonder what they said in this particular case.
 
Yes, Ive reported these sales ads on a number of occasions, and also mentioned it on FB Feedback sites. My reports to MM are completely ignored. My FB posts of course illicit the uninformed fandom class.

Socratic Monologue said:
Curious if you've been in contact with MM about this, and what was discussed. I've interacted with their support staff numerous times, so I understand the general program but wonder what they said in this particular case.
Click to expand...
 
When I report things like this to MM, I tend to dump a load of conclusive evidence on them to make the case as strong as possible. While I understand that these snakes aren't CB, unfortunately most import records have them listed as CB. For better or worse, MM tends to require solid documentation of issues like this. I see you pointed this problem out on the forums there and got an unhelpful non-answer.

The strongest evidence I could find to support the case are reliable published statements that 80% of so-called CB Morelia viridis exported from Indonesia are illegally laundered WC.

An assessment of the impact of the pet trade on five CITES-Appendix II case studies - <i>Boa constrictor imperator</i>

TRAFFIC Briefing Paper: Captive breeding and ranching: The case for a new CITES mechanism for reviewing trade

That's enough evidence for me, but MM historically has required something close to certainty on these issues.

I'm glad you're spreading the word, of course. It takes a lot of responsibility on the part of buyers to navigate this sort of fraud, and unfortunately buyers are not always up to the task.
 
The crux of it will be compelling evidence. Not experiential say-so. I can tell from a glance that a great many of the "captive bred" tortoises on MM are WC (and relatively freshly at that; not even farmed or pseudo-"farmed" or what have you), but without anything to deliver that shows a person who would not know the difference, it is largely for nothing because it equates to "Trust me, bro."

The self-produced tag/label might be an even more abused tag than the captive-bred tag, although the consequences are less dire for a neophyte keeper in general with respect to the former (while the latter will often lead to an unfortunate outcome for both keeper and kept).
 
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