w.V. Call the Governor!

It's good that she chairs the committee. Maybe we could hook up with Tri-state Herp and discuss what should be regulated and what shouldn't?

What "should" our angle be here.... 1) Exempt all herps from the restriction, or 2) Exempt <this>, <this>, and <this> but allow these couple here to be restricted?

I know how I feel, but honestly it seems very unlikely that ALL herps would be exempted given that alligators in public parks were part of the scare tactics that got this passed in the first place.

True, but I doubt we would be dealing with the same uneducated delegates or at least very few of them.
I'm not sure on the angle though... my feelings would be exempt them all though.

Yeah same here. I'm hoping since the DNR will be involved that there will at least be some biologically-educated people on the committee.

My wife and I moved down here from PA in August last year and wanted to work on some kind of research project related to herps in conjunction with the DNR or WVU. Last week I got thinking about it and I wonder if we could do a research project relating to the numbers of exotic herps living in the WV wilderness.... to my knowledge, that WV Herp Atlas Project was completed last year, but the results haven't been published yet (although I'm sure we could contact the guy at Marshall Univ and see how many exotic herps were recorded, if any).

I'm not sure if we have many. Our climate doesn't really give many exotic herps a chance.
The director Marshall's Herpetology Lab
Thomas Kyle Pauley
Telephone: (304) 696-2376
Email: pauley@marshall.edu
tkpauley@comcast.net

Yeah that's my point. There aren't any studies out there about exotic reptiles in WV, so if we could get funding for one and couldn't find any (which is pretty much what I'd expect), then it would help our case. If it's really as big of a deal as some people would like the legislators to believe, then they should be willing to foot the bill for a legitimate study.

I wonder if we would have enough time to get a study like that done. Or we could do the highly scientific Florida FWS method and drive up and down the road looking for exotics.