Commercial Exportation of Boas from Peru
In 1975, Peru ratified CITES. It is an agreement among governments to ensure that international trade in listed wild flora and fauna does not threaten their survival.
Peruvian boas are listed in Appendix II of CITES and therefore their exportation has been restricted. The CITES authority of Peru banned their commercial exportation indefinitely until Captive Breeding, through its pioneering efforts with the Ministry of Agriculture, made Peruvian boas available again for commerce in 1997.
The Pioneering Years (1992 – 1997)
Captive Breeding was founded in 1992 in Iquitos, Peru by Ryan Richards. He became the first to pioneer snake breeding in Peru. Three difficult objectives were accomplished during these five years:
The first was to acquire authorization from INRENA, the Wildlife and CITES authority of Peru to establish and administer a breeding facility for Peruvian wildlife. A resolution was signed by the Chief of INRENA and published in the country’s legal newspaper.
The second was to acquire authorization from the Ministry of Agriculture for the custody and use of Boa constrictor, Corallus caninus and Epicrates cenchria for cultural, scientific and commercial purposes. Resolutions were signed by Ministers of Agriculture and were also published in the country’s legal newspaper.
The third was to export product with a CITES permit. Since no CITES permit had been issued since 1975 for the commercial exportation of boas. It was only God’s intervention that pushed the authorities to take that first step.
In 1997, we became the first to legally export boas with a CITES permit for commercial purposes since 1975.
The Difficult Years (1997 – 2005)
It was hit and miss breeding and selling snakes and therefore we could never make the operation into a viable business. Mother Nature didn’t cooperate. Worse, we didn’t have any experience in breeding snakes in the Amazon. Information published in North America on the subject was not helpful.
Experience became our teacher and the only question was if we could last long enough to profit from it. Trial and error was expensive and discouraging and it seemed that everything we did was wrong.
In 2005, the end was in sight. We were finished and were just waiting for the last Boa constrictor birth to wrap things up and call it quits.
The Rebuilding Years (2005 – 2014)
When the birth came in March of 2005, we were disappointed to see only ten Boa constrictors born. Nine of them had the classic saddles, but the one below was different.
Mother Nature rewarded us with one of her beautiful treasures. We decided to keep going and bred our good luck charm along the way.
We rebuilt the facility, revised the rodent breeding program including their diet, space requirements and methods of reproduction, we revised the snake breeding program including, optimum cage design, frequency of food, bedding material and better methods of reproduction.