w.V. Call the Governor!

WV SB477 has been passed favorably out of both the Senate and House, and will likely now go before the Governor. THIS IS THE LAST CHANCE TO STOP THIS DANGEROUS AND ILL ADVISED BILL! Please Call Governor Tomblin and tell him to VETO SB 477!


Contact Address:
Office of the Governor
State Capitol
1900 Kanawha Boulevard, East
Charleston, West Virginia 25305

Office Telephone:
(304) 558-2000 or 1-888-438-2731

Governor’s Mansion:
(304) 558-3588
http://www.governor.wv.gov/pages/contact.aspx

Forwarding this to the far reaches of the internet. :P

Same here.

Hopefully Tomblin will listen...

"From our understanding this bill, because it is so vague and ambiguous will go to Rules Committee where rules will be promulgated to flesh out bill. This will be an opportunity to influence what the bill actually ends up looking like and what it will actually do. Whatever happens will not go into effect until 2013. This si still a long way from over!"
Quoth USARK

I'm confused to this bill now. I'm still calling the Governor.

The bad news is it passed. The good news is it was amended before it did.... the amendment at least keeps it from necessarily being the huge umbrella law extending to all non-native species. It could still hit us hard, but there's still hope.

I got this email from Delegate Bonnie Brown today after it went through:

Quote:

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Jeff,
The bill authorizes DNR to promulgate rules regarding the listing. That will provide for public input and participation during the process. And, public comment carries a lot of weight. Bonnie Brown

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I've also heard from another delegate exactly what the USARK quote states: This period with the DNR and Dept of Agriculture will take between 14 and 16 months including the public comment period. For my wife and I, that means we have a year to find a house across the state line....

I will be making some phone calls monday, to try and give us a voice as to what is included and excluded to the list.

Sent from my N860 using Tapatalk

Well here's what I'm wondering about.... I'm assuming we call the DNR and whatever other committees are creating the lists, but how do we find out who to speak with or when to even begin calling. If this hasn't crossed the governer's desk yet, I doubt the DNR even has a group set up to deal with this at this time.

I think calling the Director of the DNR would be a good first call. Either way I would still call the governor to get the bill vetoed.

It sounds like from the bill, if the DNR doesn't have a list within a certain time frame then it just defaults to all exotics. But I don't know how to read political mubo-jumbo

I don't really know how to either, which is why I always ask for the "plain English" version of it when I talk to a legislator or someone else there that should be in-the-know. Based on those conversations I haven't gotten that impression (that it would default to all exotics after a certain time frame has elapsed), but I can't say for sure that isn't the case either.

Here's another update from Delegate Bonnie Brown (what the heck kind of schedule are these guys working if she's emailing me back at 11pm on a Saturday anyway??). I'd be willing to bet she opposed it to begin with, so it'll be nice to have her on our side.

Quote:

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Jeff,
Thanks. The rulemaking process takes about year. I chair that committee, and, believe me, I will be monitoring that process. You will be notified, as a stakeholder. Bonnie

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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.