USARK: LA Herp Hearing & Changes to the Animal Welfare Act

[Malum Argenteum]

"HR9571, which will "amend the Animal Welfare Act to include cold-blooded species as animals, and for other purposes." This will add reptiles and amphibians "as animals" under the Animal Welfare Act (AWA), meaning the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) must develop rules and regulate herps. Basically, the USDA would inspect facilities with herps, and businesses would need to comply with new USDA regulations or lose their licenses."

The direct extrapolation to "the USDA would inspect facilities with herps" is a bit disingenuous (it is clearly scaremongering, since this is a hot button issue for herp keepers generally). There's currently no public text of HR9571 available right now, so any claim about what it might entail is mere speculation. But, there's a de minimis clause for bird breeders (200 birds <250g; 8 birds >250g, annually), which is an explicit carve out for "hobby breeders". A similar carve out for hobby herp breeders would likely be made (once it becomes known exactly how many inspections USDA would have to do, and how many times that number is than the number they could possibly do), and may well be a higher limit than for birds (given how many herp breeders there are, and how many inspections that would entail).

There's also a <$500 annual sales exemption under the current regulations (which is pretty low, IMO, but that's what it is). Interestingly, this is approximately the amount above which income taxes must be paid on annual sales (which is $600), which I'd wager a very small percent of herp breeders pay. Two things follow from this observation: (1) those herp breeders who are already engaging in tax fraud likely won't be troubled by dodging USDA regulations (compare: the many, many invert breeders that are flouting USDA regulations in openly selling illegal arthropods). And (2), if more herp breeders were above board (i.e. licensed and filing business taxes), that data might be useful in showing that this AMA amendment would be more trouble than it is worth.

On the flip side, having regulations and enforcing them would serve to bring herp breeding into mainstream attention, and help to legitimate the hobby.