Wild caught for pet shops, a tragedy?

[UwabamiReptiles]

I think there is a place for the wild caught animals in the hobby. It is definitely over done for a boat load of species out there. I personally feel that wild caught animals should be used to establish captive stock so the species doesn't have to get to the point of being over collected.

I do realize that its always going to happen because people will always buy the cheaper animal (new people to the hobby anyway). Maybe it wouldn't be a horrible idea to put some stricter regulations on numbers imported, etc. Like do we really need to bring in thousands of baby ball pythons every year? Are there not enough breeders of ball pythons to cover the needs of everybody that wants a ball python? At the same time, I want to get a couple of species into my collection eventually that I know will have to be wild caught. I would consider that so I could establish captive stock so wild caught individuals wouldn't continue to get collected.

At the end of the day, all of are animals started in the wild and someone collected them and bred them. Like mentioned above, its not a cut and dry issue.