This will be a 3 part interesting story about Wild caught reptiles as posted by and in the New York Times April 9, 2018. The link and illustrations have been deleted and some of the numbers are erroneous. The L.I.H.S. always advocates for captive bought reptiles over wild caught.

Below is an article ( LINK to article, and text ( illustrations removed ), you all might find interesting. It recently ran in the NY Times. It is a general attack on the reptile pet industry, and appears to be erroneous in many of its facts, especially in regards to the North American reptile trade. We ( the LIHS Executive Board ) thought it would be a good idea if you took the time to read it, and pass it along. Much of the information in the article pertains to the European market, and markets that do not have such a robust reptile breeding programs such as the ones found in America.
As many of you know ( you all should know ), the Long Island Herpetological Society, Inc. ( LIHS ), that while wild-collected reptiles are still being offered in the hobby ( in smaller numbers and species ), we strongly advocate purchasing captive bred and raised animals, as they make a superior pets to their wild collected counterparts.
Ultimately, you must be the one who decides how true or erroneous the article is. Anyway, thought that we should pass this article along to you all.

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That Python in the Pet Store? It May Have Been Snatched From the Wild
By RACHEL NUWERAPRIL 9, 2018

JAKARTA — In the market for a new pet? Maybe something a bit exotic? For many consumers, reptiles and amphibians are just the thing: geckos, monitors, pythons, tree frogs, boas, turtles and many more species are available in seemingly endless varieties, many brilliantly colored, some exceedingly rare.
Exotic reptiles and amphibians began surging in popularity in the early 1990s, not only in the United States but also in Europe and Japan. From 2004 to 2014, the European Union imported nearly 21 million of these animals; an estimated 4.7 millionhouseholds in the United States owned at least one reptile in 2016.
But popularity has spawned an enormous illegal trade, conservationists say. Many reptiles sold as pets are said to have been bred in captivity, and sales of those animals are legal. In fact, many — perhaps most, depending on the species — were illegally captured in the wild.
“It’s the scale that matters, and the scale is huge, much bigger than people realize,” said Vincent Nijman, an anthropologist at Oxford Brookes University in England.
“Most conservationists are only focusing on charismatic species, but this trade is likely having a massive impact on ecosystems and populations of lesser-known animals.”
At a meeting last summer, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species — a treaty meant to regulate wildlife trade and ensure that it does not detrimentally impact species — identified 18 instances in which animals are exported as captive-bred, but likely are not.
The examples included Indian star tortoises from Jordan; red-eyed tree frogs from Nicaragua; and savanna monitors from Ghana and Togo.
“These are the most blatantly questionable cases where we think something must urgently be done,” said Mathias Loertscher, chair of the Cites’s animals committee. “They are all critical".