Marcel Sielaffemployee of the postal distribution center KlagenfurtCapital CarinthiaprovinceAustria a southerner, last Friday opened a package that raised suspicion in it, due to the presence of some holes. The package was supposed to contain some figurines, but an animal was found inside: a boa constrictor.
According to what he reported “Zeitimbild”local television station, the animal was in hypothermiaand was placed in the care of a reptile expert Helga Heppová. The snake was endangered: the ideal average temperature for a boa constrictor to acclimatise properly is actually around 30°C, with extremes between 26 and 35°C.
The package, which was supposed to travel from Carinthia to Germany, was marked as “fragile”. As soon as the expert arrived at the distribution center, she began to care for the reptile and first tried to warm it with her body and then immediately took it to the reptile house in Klagenfurt.
The WWF Scientific Committee conducted an investigation to understand how many of the known reptile species are victims of illegal trade. The investigation involved 151 online reptile sales sites, and the presence of 303,403 reptile-related words was found out of 23,970 visited sites. By narrowing the field, we got to the list 2,754 species sold onlineby cross-checking this online market data with the CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) lists and the IUCN Red List, the Red List of the International Union for Conservation of Nature established in 1948, we were able to compile a list of 3,943 commercialized reptile species, equal to 36% of all existing in the world.
According to experts, the wildlife trade is one of the most important trades on the planet, along with people, drugs and arms. Its spread contributes to the decline of biodiversity and can weaken wild populations of flora and fauna, in some cases causing their extinction.
Grapes are found in Central and South America, starting from southern Mexico to Central America, and some specimens can also be seen in South America, in tropical and equatorial countries. Since the 1970s, there has been domestication of this animal, which, experts reiterated, must be avoided because it is a wild species that should never live outside its range.