News article--African Rock pythons and Burmese pythons

[Adam_Wysocki]

Just some thoughts ...

For almost one half century, people in the United States have been keeping reptiles as pets by the cumulative millions ... the number of deaths related to pet reptiles, while tragic, are so small comparatively they are almost nonexistent. Reptile ownership as a hobby has a greater safety record than snow skiing, motor-sports, scuba diving, and a plethora of other hobbies that are talked about every day in America without mention of a death or "invasion".

We live in a country founded on the principle of protecting the innocent. Our court systems are run in a way that favors letting the guilty go free in order to prevent falsely punishing innocent citizens ... citizens that are obeying the law and living in a way expected of them by our society and our government. This protection of innocent citizens is conveniently washed away and forgotten when it comes to the hundreds of thousands of reptile owning Americans in this country who are assumed to be irresponsible and not worthy of being afforded the liberty of innocence like every other citizen. For every reptile law that is created or even thought about because of an accident or the speculation of what could happen, the innocent suffer. Every time someone that keeps and breeds ball pythons hears about a new law and then wipes the sweat off their foreheads and thanks God that it won't affect them, innocent keepers are forsaken. The people that have been keeping giant snakes for decades. The people that are doing it right with appropriately sized enclosures, cage locks, and safety protocols are being condemned. A giant machine has been created in this country ... built on political influence, money, power, and media headlines ... it is a machine bent on eliminating the ownership of giant constrictors and monitor lizards. Once that happens, does anyone honestly believe that the powers that be will park that machine in a garage and forget about it? The attacks will certainly continue and they will very likely be aimed at your reptile of choice sooner or later.

Next time anyone reading this considers what "surely could " or "might" happen as the result of a burm, or retic, anaconda, or other large reptile think about the people who's liberty will suffer as a result of those thoughts. Think about the people that wake up every day afraid that this might be the day that they lose everything that they are passionate about because the millions of success stories are being ignored and the "maybes", "probablies", and "surelys" are at the forefront of this discussion. And after you have those thoughts, do something about it ... educate people that these animals can be kept safely, without incident, and that we owe it to the people that keep them to do better than just sweep them under the rug and forget that they exist ... if not for their sake, how about for the 9 year old boy in Arizona that just got his first leopard gecko ... or for the 12 year old girl in Nebraska that with the help of her father, just produced her first baby sand boas. They represent a future that if left unchanged, will not afford their children the opportunity to experience the same fascination with the natural world that they had as children.

Even if you don't keep snakes, even if you just own a dog or a horse or a bird ... like it or not, you are part of something bigger than yourself. You are part of the 67 million American households that responsibly own pets. Today we are fractured but tomorrow, if we wanted, we could be united ... we could be close to a hundred million strong and ready to stand up for one another. We could have a voice that protects the people that are doing it right and the pets that need our help. And even more importantly ...

WE COULD BE THE ONES MAKING THE LAWS.

Respectfully,

-adam