Just read this as I've just signed up to the forum and would definitely have signed the petition. I have endorsed the inclusion of large constrictors in the DWA many times before. I really love and am fascinated by herptiles and am the owner of a beautiful 6 ft long, 19 year old fully grown female Royal Python who came to me as an unwanted pet rescue following her owners divorce. With ownership of such an exotic and beautiful creature demands that the owner be fully responsible and learned about husbandry of the animal, that anyone can go and buy a juvenile Burmese python, a potentially lethal adult predator, for a small sum of money from a pet shop is not only morally abhorrent, but in my mind criminally negligent of our government.
This case just really upset me when I heard about it in the papers, we have 5 rescue cats ourselves who we love and adore, and to see the idiocy and complacent behaviour of the snakes owner made me so angry. what in the hell were they doing allowing it to roam outside without close supervision by a minimum of 2 handlers ???? Madness. Any true responsible herptile owner will tell you that this is plain dangerous, any constrictor over 10 feet in length should always be handled by a minimum of 2 people, be in a properly secure and environmentally controlled vivarium and never be allowed to be in the vicinity of any other animal. Personally, even being a responsible, experienced herptile handler, I would NEVER even consider the ownership of any large constrictor outside of the professional zoo environment. Even with "Scales", my Python, despite her being a smaller species, she is in a locked vivarium constructed securely of wood and toughened glass and this in turn is kept inside a secure locked office in my house. She is always handled in there and the office door is locked during any handling sessions.
If there were any true justice, the owner would have been prosecuted and punished and be banned from ever owning an animal again.
Poor Wilbur.
