Frog Farming Controversy

Intensive frog farming may not be feasible, but is it worth it? The debate continues. Details here.

Crocodilian Farming and the Economy

A Saigon venture is training craftspeople to work with crocodile skin. (News source.)

A Bangladesh man has started up a crocodile farm there. (News source.)

The Florida gator skin market is drying up as luxury buyers are holding off. (News here, and here.)

Sabotage at Croc Farm?

A Singapore croc farm operator found 50 baby crocodiles dead in their pond; police investigation is underway. (News source.)

Frog Farm Failure

A Chinese farmer trying to raise American frogs (I assume bullfrogs) lost 270,000 of them, and blames noise from a nearby construction site. (News source.)

Crocodile News

A 52-year old Malaysian man survived a crocodile attack. (News source.)

Australian police are searching for thieves who stole 18 young saltwater crocs from a crocodile farm in Darwin. (News source.)

Gator Farm Blues

Bad economic news for gator farmers. (I'm surprised there isn't an enterprising group taking advantage of this to bring a former "luxury" item to a cheaper market.)

Crocodilians

Hermes is farming crocs in Australia to meet demand for their crocodile-skin products. (News source.)

Two young Indian men fought of a crocodile that attacked their father. (News source.)

A profile here on a Florida gator trapper.

Don't do this with your kids (or your crocs).

European Snake Farm

A German firm is building a snake breeding farm for venom extraction for the drug and beauty isndustries. (News source.)

Crocs in the News

A Cambodian croc farmer takes tourists through for a small fee -- showing them where the Khmer Rouge used to feed enemies to the crocodiles. (News source.)

A Congo fisherman was attacked by a crocodile, and ended up in a Texas hospital to have his arm reattached. (News source.)

Snake Farming

A Vietnamese invalid, a former soldier, is raising water snakes for the food trade quite profitably. (News source.)

Lizard News

Vietnamese farmers are starting "dong" (butterfly lizard) farms, primarily for the food industry. (News source.)

Conservation groups are pressing the Secretary of the Interior to list the flat-tailed horned lizard as an endangered species. (News source.)

Crocodile News

A New Zealand just got a nice pair of saltwater crocodiles for exhibition. (News source.)

Crocodile farming in Vietnam may be bouncing back after years of falling prices. (News source.)

Crocodilians in the News

An Australian man was killed by a large croc when he attempted to swim across a river where crocodiles were known to live. (News source, and here, and here.) Police shot the probable attacker.

A Zambian woman was killed by a crocodile while she was washing clothes at a river. (News source.)

Success in gharial breeding in India. (News source.)

The poor economy has hit a gator farm. (News source.)

Gators Escape in Floodwaters

Flooding in Mississippi has led to the escape of about 20 gators from Gulf Coast Gator Ranch & Tours. (News source.)

LA's Gator Farm

Some history here on the long gone Los Angeles Alligator Farm.

Georgia Croc Farm

A crocodile farm (for meat and skin) is being set up in the country of Georgia. (News source.)

Vietnam: Herp Farming

An article with notes on Vietnamese farmers who are turning to lizards ("salamanders") and snakes to bring in income, here.

Herp Farming

A Belarus scientist suggests the country should start breeding edible frogs to help out economically. (News source.)

Gypsies in Karachi, India, breed leopard geckos -- but claim the species is venomous (they've been "trained" for generations to handle them safely) and that they sell them to venom extraction companies. Obviously, that is bunk -- not sure if they're selling them to pet exporters, though. Technically, that would be illegal under India's wildlife laws, from what I've seen... (News source.)

Frog Hunting to Protect Crop

South Carolina crayfish farmers have to hunt frogs to keep the predators from ruining the crop. (News source.)

Other Croc News

There are some fears that a missing Australian man might have been taken by a crocodile. He went fishing in the Northern Territories and didn't return. (News source.)

The crocodile skin market is growing business for farms in Zimbabwe. (News source.)

Egg Thieves Arrested

Three men have been arrested for stealing alligator eggs from a Louisiana gator farm. (News source.)

Exotic Animal Farming: Vietnam

An article here discussing the rise of exotic animal farming in Vietnam, including snake farms. (News source.)

Croc Farm Needs Rain

An Australian crocodile farm says dry conditions are detrimental to breeding the reptiles, so is hoping for rain. (News source.)

Vietnam Croc Business

"Four CITES-licensed enterprises in Ho Chi Minh City exported 24,000 crocodiles in the first ten months of 2008" ... "The amount includes 13,000 live crocodiles and nearly 20,000 sets of crocodile skin." ... "Major markets for crocodile exports are Japan, Singapore, France, Thailand, the Republic of Korea and China." (News source.)

Crocodiles in the News

A couple in India was injured by a crocodile after it first attacked the woman, and was fought off by her husband. (News source.)

A tourism minister in Australia claims that urban crocs are good for tourism. (News source.)

A teenager has been arrested for killing a North American crocodile on the University of Miami campus. (News source.)

Crocodile farming is still controversial in Thailand. (News source.)

Suspect Croc Heading to Crocodile Farm

A crocodile, suspected of having killed a tourist to Australia, is being sent to a crocodile farm. (News source.)

Bangladesh Croc Farm

Details here on a crocodile farm starting up in Bhaluka, Bangladesh. (News source.)

Turtle Breeding

An Arkansas turtle farm is doing well in its business. (News source.)

An attempt to breed Yangtze giant soft-shell turtles at a Chinese zoo has failed. (News source.)

Croc Farms

A Zimbabwe crocodile skin production company is thinking about opening up new farms in Australia and the US. (News source.)

Croc Quarantine

Quarantine measures appear to be working against chlamydia infections in farmed saltwater crocodiles. (News source.)

Crocodile News

Crocodile farming is booming in Zambia. (News source.)

A 13-year old surfer was attacked by a crocodile in Costa Rica. (News source.)

Frog Farming in Vietnam

A profile here on a frog farmer in Vietnam.

Vietnam: Croc Farms Flood

Crocodiles that got loose from croc farms during heavy flooding, were apparently captured and killed or sold off by neighboring farmers. Authorities weren't able to retrieve any of the reptiles. (News source.)

Croc News

An article here on alligator hunting in South Carolina.

South African crocodile farms are becoming big business. (News source.) But, along with that are dubious products marketed from crocodile fat making extravagant claims on their natural healing properties. (News source.)

Watchcroc

An Australian crocodile farm is going to up the ante on repeated thefts of croc skins and skulls, by using a crocodile as a watchdog. (News source.)

Turtle News (Not So Good)

A Florida turtle preserve (successful in breeding several rare species) is shutting down, due to bills, hurricane damage, and zoo politics. (News source.)

Sea turtles that reproduce on beaches near humans are less fertile. (News source.)

Croc Farming in Vietnam

Crocodile farming in Vietnam is paying off, with exports and revenue increasing. (News source.)

Cambodian Croc Farming Troubles

Poor farming techniques in Cambodia means the crocodile skins are not up to export quality, and only babies are offered for sale (to other farms). A discussion here.

West Nile and Gator Farming

The Louisiana alligator conservation program has to deal with west nile virus problems... (News source.)

Crocodilians in the News

South African crocs are being hit with a mystery ailment. (News source.)

Sri Lanka officials seized crocodile meat from a poacher. (News source.)

Alligator egg collection for Florida's alligator farms is in progress. (News source.)

Croc News

A Florida man was caught poaching alligator eggs. (News source.)

A Bangladesh crocodile farm is becoming successful. (News source.)

Frogs on the Menu

A Malaysian newspaper reviews the uses of frogs for dining and other cultural resources.

35,000 Cobras

An Indian man says he has 35,000 cobras on his 3.5 acre snake farm. He collects nuisance snakes, and milks them for venom for a local college. (News source.)

Oddly, he claims to feed them prawns...

Snake Farming for Food

Snake restaurants are growing in Vietnam, and snake farms are cropping up to meet the demand. (News source.)

Frog Farming (1978)

Here is an old article from Mother Earth News on farming bullfrogs.

Croc Farming

Zimbabwe is encouraging farmers to raise crocodiles commercially. (News source.)

Croc Attack and Croc Escape

An illegal logger captured by Myanmar forest rangers was knocked out of a boat and killed by a crocodile. (News source.)

And, a large saltwater crocodile escaped from a croc farm in Malaysia, but was captured by 10+ villagers and sent to the police. (News source with photo.)

Croc Industries

In Zimbabwe, farmed crocodile meat is becoming a cheap alternative as other meats become far more expensive than many people can afford. (News source.)

Australian crocodile farmers have a labor shortage (few skilled crocodile butchers), so cheaper imported croc meat from PNG and elsewhere is taking over the market, while the Australian farmers focus on skins. (News source.)

Croc Farm Problems

Vietnamese crocodile farms are having die-offs due to contaminated water from local factories that dump untreated sewage into the local waterways. (News source.)

Crocs in the News

Vietnamese farmers are finding that croc raising isn't as lucrative as they hoped, and poor caging means that escapees are common. (News source.)

Here is a profile on a caiman hunter/skinner.

India Snake Farming?

In response to the cultural instability with snake charmers made illegal in West Bengal, there are plans to create state-sponsored cooperative snake breeding farms (after a Chinese model), apparently for venom extraction. Might there be a possibility of harmless native species bred for the pet trade? India's wildlife laws may be too strict for that... (News source.)

Everglades Alligator Farm

Here is a profile on the Everglades Alligator Farm.

Frog Farming

Here is a fascinating profile of a Vietnamese frog farmer who started out small and has become a millionaire (VND) raising the amphibians.

Turtle Amendment Passed?

I haven't really kept up on this, but the Natchez Democrat is reporting that the recently passed Farm, Nutrition and Bioenergy Act of 2007 (H.R. 2419) included an amendment repealing the small turtle sales ban (though noting there may be an effort to repeal the repeal). Turtle farms now process eggs to eradicate Salmonella (or some do, anyway; I'd like to see confirmation that all turtle farms do this). The process goes:

"Once the turtles start to lay their eggs on the levees around the turtle ponds, the eggs are gathered daily, and all dirt is removed from the eggs before they are soaked for 10 minutes in a water and Clorox solution.
"After that, they are cleaned in a commercial washer.
"'We run them through an egg washer manufactured for chicken eggs,' Evans said.
"Once washed, the eggs are placed in a special vacuum tank to eradicate any salmonella. After that, they are placed in incubation trays until they hatch, at which time a state veterinarian certifies they are salmonella free."

[Note: Here is the amendment in question, the Domestic Pet Turtle Equality Act.]

Croc Farm Targeted

Thieves have hit a South African crocodile farm, with several small crocodiles and building materials being taken. (News source.)

Bully Crocs

A researcher at the Darwin Crocodile Farm is looking into farm-raised crocodile social-interaction. Bully crocs can create problems when they pick on runts, making the latter unprofitable for farming. (News source.)

Alligator Meat Promoted

A segment on the Today show recently promoted alligator meat as a healthy diet choice, being lower in fat than beef and chicken. (News source.)

Vietnam Croc Escapees

A crocodile farm in Khanh Hoa Province, Vietnam, which had a large number of escapees during recent flooding is still uncertain how many might remain at large. "The company has said that of the 5,000 crocodiles it had before the floods, 216 have been found and 1,440 moved to a safer area. But it claims not to know how many are still in the farm." (News source.)

Thailand Frog Farm

Here is a brief profile on a 23-year old frog farm in Thailand, where over 10,000 frogs are raised in individual plastic bottles.

Skinning Gators

Here is a brief profile of a working Louisiana alligator farm, Vermilion Gator Farm, with notes on how gators are skinned for their hides.

Crocs in Restaurants

The crocodile is showing up in more Vietnamese restaurants. (News source.)

Snake Farming in Nepal

Commercial snake farming is being considered as an economical alternative to agriculture for a Nepal tribe (the Netuwa people, who have been have been traditional snake catchers for centuries). (News source.)

Australian Croc Farm

A Northern Territory company, Porosus, is planning to develop crocodile farms, which should aid local economic development. (News source.)

Croc Escape

Flooding at a Non Sung, Thailand, crocodile farm led to 34 escapees. 23 have been shot, but 11 remain on the loose. Some are up to 20 feet in length. (News source.)

Turkish Turtle Farm

A German zoologist runs the only turtle farm in Turkey. He exports the babies for the pet trade. (News source.)

Rain Brings Eggs

Heavy rainfall in the Bangladesh has been a boon for the country's only saltwater crocodile farm, as the showers have led to breeding and egg-laying. (News source)