New Lacey Act Amendments

[Crowfingers]

I have also reached out to various officials - one thing that no one I've talked to seems to have had explained to them is that this 'new wording' would literally prevent any petstore of any size or reputation in the US from selling most pets. Big box stores get there stock from wholesalers all over the place. If they can't sell the animals, then they likely won't sell the food / cages / equipment either - which would def reduce profits. I would imagine places like petco and petsmart could have more pull with the government than just us hobbyists, so I reached out to them as well.

On a side note - people, especially in the government, don't understand what an injurious species is. Everyone likes to label large "dangerous" wild animals like big cats, wolves, the big pythons, etc as scary and harmful. But, normal regular house cats kill billions of native and threatened bird species every year, almost as much as wind turbines and window strikes put together. They regulate nothing such as sale and breeding of hybrids - savanna cats, domestic fox, etc either.

The other thing, this would harm private breeders more than most, targeting them as they conduct sales online. But for the average person with just a single pet ball python or tegu, the FWS is not staffed / funded / or able to search every car crossing state lines that *may* have an animal in it. And on top of that, say you were rushing your snake to the vet for an emergency, got pulled over for going over the speed limit - how many average cops have you all met that would either a) know that the Lacey act is a thing or b) could correctly identify any species of reptile? I've worked for years with animal control and federal wildlife services, and they are on average woefully ignorant of the animals they seek to protect.

just my two cents.