Snake Owners See Furry Bias in Invasive Species Proposal

[Slyther83]

It is not illegal to own a Wolf, large Cat, or black bear in Ohio. Currently due to an executive order issued by the outgoing Governor Strickland it is illegal to sell, purchase, trade, transport, and breed these animals though along with lots of others including several of the larger species of constrictors. This rule was created due to a back room deal with HSUS and the previous Governor.

Currently we the people of Ohio, USARK, and Ohio Association of Animal Owners are trying to work with the new Governor Kasich. The best hope is Governor Strickland passes an Executive order nulifying this one. Second best is 90 days goes by and Governor Kasich and no one else in the Ohio Government does anything with this. Other possibilities exist as well.

While I don't own any large constrictors, I support the rights of those that do. Also the US is a large exporter of captive bred snakes like the burm, Retic, and such. If we were not breeding these animals in captivity and exporting them then the places we supply would be pulling the animals out of the wild.

Currently I would like to see legislation that promotes more captive breeding of some of these animals, but starts to limit some of the wild collection of them. Yes some wild animals need to be brought into the country, but not everyone that can care for a captive bred ball pythons is ready to care for a captive hatched or wild caught ball python. We do need some still brought in to keep the blood lines strong, but it should be limited. (I have some ideas on how to do that, but not going into it here.)

Ohio is a bad example, they dont even have motor vehicle inspection for gods sake. The vast majority of states have outlawed ownership of wolves and large cats except by licensed professionals- and rightfully so. They havent made pitbulls or rotties illegal despite their bad name, why would anyone assume anything progressively worse snake bans beyond the largest constrictors?