I Attended the HR2811 Hearing on July 29th

[Adam_Wysocki]

I am not a fan of HSUS or that idiot Pacelle. I read his blog entry and could not find where he said that exotic animal owners had no idea how to properly take care of their pets - or was that not in the blog?

I also thought that he states that it was foolish to keep lions, chimps and burmese pythons as pets. For the record, I agree with 66% of that statement.

Going back to his statement (whether written or otherwise) regarding exotic animal owners not being able to properly care for their pets - even a blind pig gets an occasional acorn.

There are alot of dedicated and excellent reptile keepers - there are also a fair amount of people who buy reptiles with no idea how to care for them. We see it on the forums all the time - don't we? Some are lucky enough to come here and get advice from some very patient people that puts them on the right track before they kill or sicken their animals, but an untold number do not.

While someone seeking a ball-python morph may not fit into that category, I've seen an awful lot of young, inexperienced people getting into retics, burms and anacondas.

So while Pacelle is a jacka$$, his statement could easily be amended to be essentially correct - MANY exotic animal owners have no idea how to properly take care of their pets.

A couple of weeks ago it was debated here that the legislation passed in North Carolina was unfair and restrictive. While parts of the wording could be open to interpretation with respect to enforcement, I could not - for the life of me - understand why a responsible snake owner would have issue with being required to properly cage, transport or transfer ownership of venomous or giant snakes. I'd say we were just about split on support of the concept of the bill.

How do you feel about people's efforts to thwart sensible legislation backed by people in THIS hobby?

Here is a blog post that I wrote about HSUS's position on exotic (aka non-native) animals as pets. http://nohr669.com/blog/?p=321

As far as your question goes, I feel that people have the right to question and/or criticize anything that makes them uncomfortable. I don't believe in taking anything at face value. By questioning, debating, even criticizing legislation and proposed legislation whether introduced by the anti-pet movement or by our pro-pet advocates, we can only move forward in a positive direction. Silence and blind acceptance are the precursors to the death of democracy.

-adam