Kyabram Fauna Park Pythons Stolen

[Monty]

I saw on the news tonight that The Kyabram Fauna Park was broken into and had most of its pythons stolen.

 

[PAT]

That's true...There were about 8 or 9 and some were valued close to ten thousand dollars but I can't tell you much more then that.

 

[ZYBen]

$10 000 ? what sort of snake?

 

[CGSwans]

$10 000 ? what sort of snake?

Green tree pythons tend to sell for a couple of thousand either side of that figure. Rough-scaleds were too a couple of years ago, but they breed readily so that might be starting to drop a little.

My money's on the GTP. Thefts are ridiculously common and most keepers who have them choose not to advertise the fact.

 

[ZYBen]

A 25-year-old 3m long python named Melanie was among reptiles and amphibians stolen from a fauna park in northern Victoria overnight.

Thieves escaped with about half Kyabram Fauna Park's collection of 25 snakes, lizards and frogs, worth about $6000.

Park manager Ron Pope said the theft of Melanie hit particularly hard because the python had been used for educational purposes and thousands of visitors would have handled her at some stage.

"It's like losing a member of your family,'' Mr Pope said.

"Everybody is feeling Melanie's loss.''

Other animals stolen include a pair of breeding water pythons, a Murray Darling carpet python, an inland carpet python, lizards and green tree frogs.

"These people knew what they were doing - they left the venomous snakes behind,'' Mr Pope said.

He believes the snakes could be sold to private collectors.

The theft comes as the park, a not-for-profit business run by the Kyabram community, is turning the corner after enduring 13 years of drought.

"We had rebuilt the collection and now to lose these reptiles is very disheartening,'' Mr Pope said.

He said Crime Squad detectives had found footprints and fingerprints.

"I think these people are from out of town - they have cased the park and planned their raid,'' Mr Pope said.

He said the park did not have camera surveillance but he will now be reviewing security measures.

Thieves slither away with popular python | The Australian

 

[Hix]

Green tree pythons tend to sell for a couple of thousand either side of that figure. Rough-scaleds were too a couple of years ago, but they breed readily so that might be starting to drop a little.

My money's on the GTP. Thefts are ridiculously common and most keepers who have them choose not to advertise the fact.

I'm told that at the recent Reptile Expo in Sydney, some GTP hatchies were going for $1000 each. Even the dealers have them relatively cheap:
Ultimate Reptile Suppliers

And Roughies are now going for as little as $2200 a pair).



Hix

 

[CGSwans]

Wow! There must have been a fair bit of breeding success in the last couple of years for those sort of prices to be coming out of a private breeder, let alone a retailer/breeder like URS (and, btw, go to Southern Cross Reptiles and then Ultimate Reptile Suppliers to see why you shouldn't buy from URS).

Maybe GTPs will be in my price range after all when I eventually get back into reptiles (not in the near future, alas - I be stranded in the inner-city for several years yet).

I'd love to see all Australian python species priced in the low hundreds. High enough to keep the worst of the impulse-idiots out of keeping animals they don't know how to care for... and at the same time low enough to keep people from dreaming of making it rich by trying to pump out dozens or hundreds of snakes worth four or five figures each.