RohitK29

Don't feel guilty at all, its just business. 2 primary reasons are :- 1. People from other countries pay better then the local markets, or rather exporters can charge a lot when shipping to other countries. 2. It happens in the US as well, where native species are overlooked and imported species are fancied. Its the same here as well. Hobbyists are getting more and more interested in natives, but native barbs and Danios, Badis varieties, catfish varieties,etc. are an easier purchase from the hobbyists' perspective, than snakeheads. I am in the central region of the country, most of the snakeheads that are found in the country are from the north eastern regions.

My Andrao, Drogon is the same.

My Channa Andrao, Drogon

I have a male Andrao as well, named Drogon, have had him for about 5 months now. They are native but we had only been seeing these and Bleheri's in pictures and videos for atleast the past half decade, but the pandemic stopped the export and finally my lfs (that my friend owns) was able to get in touch with the exporter and now the lfs has those pretty regularly. Drogon is hand fed, sits on my hand while I am doing water changes and rushes to the front glass whenever I'm around. He has marked a new era in my fish keeping journey. He also shares the aquarium with 6 Denison Barbs (another native).