I heard Dave Barker on NPR today

[dsirkle]

I was driving in my car and National public Radio was having a discussion on the keeping of exotic pets and the necessity of banning ownership of such animals due to the recent chimp attack. NPR as usual leaned toward limiting citizen's rights in order to protect the people from themselves. After a lady mentioned "sensible" efforts to ban dangerous animals such as "non human primates" and yes, constricting snakes, Dave Barker called in. He mentioned his credentials in zoology and at first was treated with respect by the host. He brought up the point that dangerous animals and exotic animals were not one in the same and should not be viewed as the same in the law. He started talking about pythons and mentioned that while some were giant, the majority were small and harmless.He mentioned how many that he estimated were in the US and that the great majority were bred here not captured elsewhere. The host was seemingly horrified and asked why pythons were being bred by anyone. Dave answered that people were breeding for coloration, beauty etc. The host seemed to realize at that point that Dave was not towing the party line and blew him off and rather rudely said that he wanted to let others speak and hung up on him. Dave made a good effort. Thanks, Dave.

[AaronP]

Yeah, radio talk show hosts don't like having their foot shoved in their mouths. Nice job Dave.

[littleindiangirl]

Wow, cheers to Dave for putting his two cents in on this radio show!

[kc261]

If anyone wants to listen, try this link. I haven't actually listened yet, but it appears to be a recording of the show. You can also add comments.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...ryId=101430578

[AaronP]

Everyone of those commenters seems to be against Exotic Pets, period. Hell screw everyone let's ban ALL pets, dogs get put down all the time for biting people, let's get rid of the problem at the source and stop keeping dogs!

[/sarcasm]

I hate people.

[DutchHerp]

Just listened to the show, and Dave was putting out all the good arguments and the host was just trying to think of (bad) things to say.

[Slim]

What do you expect from NPR. Good on ya' Dave! Thank you for what you did on the show!

[rodentslayer]

I think Dave just shot that discussion dead in its tracks! Good job Dave!