UK: Animal Activity Licensing (AAL) for Commercial Vendors & Breeders

[bcr229]

http://fbh.org.uk/AAL.pdf

Some... interesting... news out of the UK about regulations that will be going into effect by the end of this year. The first one involves how a commercial vendor is defined, and I suspect a lot of hobbyists would end up caught up in it.

The second is for minimum reptile enclosure sizes for "commercial" (as defined above) breeders and pet shops on page 27 of the document as opposed to hobbyists/pet owners. Someone breeding snakes commercially must house them in an enclosure equal to:
length: snake's length
width: 1/3 snake's length
height: 1/3 snake's length

While this is doable for a ball python or smaller colubrid, keeping a 15-20 foot retic or burm breeder female in an enclosure that's 15-20 feet long x 5'-7' deep x 5-7' high is ridiculous.

[Bogertophis]

I'd have to check back, but I do recall similar caging size requirements for keepers of snakes covered by special permits from Fish & Game (when I had
such permits in CA). To be honest, I am happy to see more consideration for the quality of life faced by captive-bred snakes, since many of them spend
far too much time held in enclosures that I would call "inadequate" (when I'm being polite). I agree such regulations will doubtless reduce the number of
people breeding the giant snakes, but who couldn't see that coming anyway?