I'm sorry that you feel that the laws in place regarding your keeping of your animals are above the top and unnecessary. Unfortunately for you, the role of the government is to serve the people of this great nation, and enacting laws to protect our natural resources (the ecology of the Everglades, for example) , falls within that realm. Will banning the ownership of certain snake species erase the cological damage that has been done in the Everglades? No - it is a knee jerk reaction to something that at this point cannot be stopped. Legislation promoting responsible ownership, however, could make a difference. Governing is about also compromise (and sadly none of policians in power today realize this). You can't please all of the people all of the time and you will always have groups with ideas, views and opinons that are diametrically opposed to each other, irreconcilable views or opinons being the root cause. The HSUS will never believe that any animal should be "subjected" to being a pet, period. At the same time you and I will never agree that we shouldn't be allowed to keep pets, so long as their basic needs are met and they are cared for in a humane manner. I wouldn't agree to a piece of legislation on a middle ground in regards to keeping reptiles in order to compromise with the HSUS. I would, however, do it for the sake of ecologists being worried about feral reptile populations causing damage to an ecosystem where a species becoming invasive would cause the ecosystem to suffer a great loss of biological diversity, in turn decreasing the staibilty of the ecosystem (one of the basic tenets of ecology is that diversity begets stability). Like I stated in my letter, I do not support an outright ban, but I would support legislation that would be aimed at ensuring responsible ownership and holding pet owners accountable.
Now if only we could get legislation passed that would hold the same standards to cat owners we'd be doing alright, in my opinon...
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