New Lacey Act Amendments

[Erie_herps]

Gotta wonder what big box pet stores (PetSmart, Petco, ect.) think of this. Because it has the potential to take a MASSIVE bite out of their profits if commonly kept animals keep getting put on the list willy nilly (not only could they not sell animals, but eventually it would render the products they sell FOR those animals moot as well). The one time where corporate lobbying would work in our favor if things come to blows...

And like Crowfingers pointed out, this whole thing is one of the endless examples of how clueless and backwards the intentions of the government are. If they truly actually cared about limiting invasive species and protecting biodiversity, domestic cats would be the first thing on that list due to the untold damage they cause to ecosystems (one cat outright wiped out an entire population of birds on an island once for crying out loud). The fact that this bill was tucked under another one also tells me what this is really about. More control. More wagging their fingers at what we aren't allowed to do. And they think they can get away with it by going for more "acceptable targets" first in exotic animal keepers, which if they do, who knows if that will embolden them to try and remove the right to keep ANY animals, because that's how the lust for power grows. Give an inch, take a mile. Every time.

I've emailed a couple large pet stores telling them about this. It would probably be good for lots of us to do the same. Because there's no way that they are going to let this pass.
I agree with the rest of your post, the extremist animal rights group are the ones behind this, like dozens of other bills. The goal isn't to help the wild populations or preserve human health (there have only been about 10 deaths from nonvenomous captive snakes ever recorded, compared to about 30-50 deaths from dog attacks per year), it's all about control and removing all animals from our lives.