Anybody awake?

[WingedWolfPsion]

Rich, you are confusing the current proposal to add large constrictors to the Lacey Act with this new FLORIDA law which has just passed, and bans large constrictors and Nile Monitors. They are NOT the same thing.

[BPelizabeth]

oye!! It amazes me that they state there are over 100,000 of them but the last hunt did not go so well. Ummmmm maybe because many died during the cold snap. Selective journalism....drives me nutso!!

[Sariel]

oye!! It amazes me that they state there are over 100,000 of them but the last hunt did not go so well. Ummmmm maybe because many died during the cold snap. Selective journalism....drives me nutso!!

Id love to see some energy being put into laws to make the people who are supposed to be giving us the truth actually do just that <yes I know, pipe dream at best>

That said we all know this is real guys, and becoming more real by the minute. Type up those letters and call your representatives. We can QQ and gripe all we want, but we will only have ourselves to blame if we don't actually act. I know some of us are, and some are doing more than their fair share, but I know theres also alot more complaining than action by others.

[Skiploder]

They could have saved everyone a lot of economic hardship and heartbreak if they had done this several decades ago.

I honestly have mixed feelings about this. I think it's closing the barn door after the horse is already out, but the truth is that Florida should never have been an importation hub for tropical species in the first place, and it still shouldn't be--whether they're snakes and nile monitors, or tropical fish, or plants, or whatever.

I suppose existing breeders and importers there will have to either move, or stop dealing with those species. That isn't going to be kind to their local economy, or to those businesses. But with this in place, there is really no more need for the proposal to ban these animals Federally, so we may have an easier time stopping this for the rest of the country.

It's a case of enough is enough.

I know this is an unpopular perspective on a reptile forum, but I'll come out and say it:

As a whole, this community does very little to educate prospective buyers. Breeders will sell a venomous snake, a giant constrictor or a large, potentially dangerous monitor to any idiot with the money to buy it.

So while some of you are scratching your heads as to why both the Feds and the States are lining up bills to place limits on reptile ownership, this isn't a case of big government out of control or animal rights organizations running us up.

No, it's a classic case of greed and overindulgence and people in this hobby - not in the media and not in the government - have made us easy pickings for a firestorm of bad publicity.

I see where these bills are coming from and although I don't agree with over-legislation and the loss of personal liberty, I am sick and tired of people running out an buying giant constrictors, giant varanids and hots who cannot provide them long term care and who house them irresponsibly.

I'm amazed that the breeders and importers didn't have the foresight to figure out that selling potentially dangerous animals indiscriminately to the public wouldn't eventually come back to haunt them.

USARK has a partial answer - look to last year's legislation they backed in North Carolina. The problem was that many of you blabbermouths had issues with it because it infringed on your ability to irresponsibly keep dangerous reptiles.

It was rather hilarious watching a bunch of you morons run around blasting the North Carolina legislation while running your USARK sigs - oblivious to the fact that it was a USARK-sponsored bill.

Here's an alternate point of view - make every hot, every large varanid and every giant constrictor available by permit only and contingent upon standardized caging and husbandry requirements (just like USARK advocated in N.C.).

Do everything you can as a group of responsible owners before you start getting all huffy and pissy at the general public and the politicians reacting to decades of excess with mounting environmental and tabloid backlash.

[WingedWolfPsion]

The PERSONAL impact of this bill has to do with my own desire to breed some of the dwarf island forms of these animals. I don't care to own any dangerous species, personally, but I would like the opportunity to work with dwarf Burms, super-dwarf retics, and perhaps even the smaller boas such as Hogg Island boas.

[wolfy-hound]

What issues are there really as to owners of large constrictors and varanids? Are there hundreds of cases of giant pythons attacking people? No. Are there populations ANYWHERE in the US except south florida where the overwhelming evidance says they were released by hurricanes damaging facilities, NOT irresponsible owners releasing them which people CONTINUE to tout despite it being pretty much proven false?

So please... what exactly is this impact that caused these bills to be enacted due to irresponsible owners?

I don't agree with selling a hot or giant or large varanid or hey.. ANY pet to any unprepared owner.. but banning them isn't the answer.

If you are going to make a big permit system for any "dangerous" animal to be purchased for a pet, then every dog, horse, cow, cat and pig owner should have to get permits. There's more deaths due to dogs every year than there have been total from giant pythons.

[Jason Bowden]

Just wanted to BUMP this!

[WingedWolfPsion]

Dangerous pet:
http://www.katu.com/news/92201704.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/463733.stm

http://www.peoria.com/messages/woman...rent_id=116677

http://www.associatedcontent.com/art...es.html?cat=53

Looks to me like more people are killed by house cats than by giant pythons.

[BPelizabeth]

Dangerous pet:
http://www.katu.com/news/92201704.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/463733.stm

http://www.peoria.com/messages/woman...rent_id=116677

http://www.associatedcontent.com/art...es.html?cat=53

Looks to me like more people are killed by house cats than by giant pythons.

Amen to that!! There was a post some time ago that someone looked up things that had killed more ppl. Horses, dogs, cats, lightning...etc.

[Skiploder]

Amen to that!! There was a post some time ago that someone looked up things that had killed more ppl. Horses, dogs, cats, lightning...etc.

It's irrelevant Elizabeth. If facts were relevant, this debate would have been over a long time ago.

At a certain point, facts go by the wayside. You can send Marshall and Andrew and Elliott before all the senators and politicians in the world and this is what you get - a 116 to 0 vote.

How smart was it to make the import hub of exotic tropical reptile, bird and mammal species in the one part of the one state that would support them if they escaped? How smart is it, in the face of all this legislation coming down the pipe, to waive the same explanations in the faces of people who refuse to listen?

116 yeas to 0 nays. If that doesn't make some of you stop and think, then I don't know what will.

This isn't about banning anything - that's their game - not ours. It's about getting the message across via pre-emptive legislation, that we are cleaning up our own messes.

What good is a gun if there are no bullets in it? North Carolina should have been a template for USARK to follow nationwide.

We are not in a debate. A debate entails two sides laying out logical arguments and facts. Nothing looks stupider than blabbering on and on about how safe reptiles are compared to other pets or just exactly how those darn burms infiltrated the Everglades when the other side has already made up their minds. Where have all the letters and e-mails and testimony gotten us? 116 to freaking 0.

Until we make some sort of effort at self-regulation and self-control, law after law will be forced upon us. Both PIJAC and USARK have indicated that this is the path to follow. The question is, after a 116 to Nil vote, are you still clinging to a bunch of facts that the public, the media and the politicians blithely ignore, or are you going to support self-regulation?

While everyone was half-assed focused on Federal Legislation, the State of Florida snuck one by most of you. Do the rest of you, in other States, have any clue as to what's going on in your back yard?