Mr. Rochford,
This is a statement that you made in another thread here in the Burm Forum on Kingsnake.

"I hope everyone understands the delay and knows we're not trying to hide anything to get the legislation passed. I don't even want the legislation to pass.

Mike"

Because, I feel you deserve some benefit of the doubt, I will not call you a liar, but I will say, I find your statement hard to believe.

I happen to know one of the individuals that you have spoke of here in the Burm Forum and you work to some degree with this person. (He has not spoken in this forum, so I will not say which person it is, but if he does speak, he will then open himself up to the firing squad as you have.) The person that I speak of is totally against the ownership of the big snakes and he is in on all of these studies. He is very influential in the community, and is well respected. Funny thing is, this person has owned a lot of different snakes throughout the years.

If your claim is true, that you don't want to see this legislation pass, then why is all of the media so negative and biased? Everything that I have seen or heard, whether written, said, sugested, implied, documented, accused, acuired, imagined, speculated, or what have you has always been against the snakes, ownership of the snakes, personal rights, reptile owners in general, and a complete disrespect to the reptile community as a whole. Why is that?

I will give you my opinion. You as well as the others in all of these studies have to answer to someone. You and those you answer to all have their own opinion, so all of your documentation is going to conform to your biased opinion. You and others like you want to deliberately put fear into the general public to further the cause of banning the big snakes. If this were not true you and your colleages would do something to change the public perseption that these big snakes are bad and they are going to invade the country and eat or kill everything in their path.

Do you Mr. Rochford, or any of your colleages, employers, or institutions recieve any money from any of the animals rights groups? I would be willing to bet that someone somewhere does.

If you are for the ownership of these snakes you have not shown that to be true. Why can't you and others like you speak publically about the truth and the reality of the situation. You and others like you know and have known that these snakes cannot live in cold climates, yet you constently allow bad press to scare and form negative opinions in the general public.

Hurricane Andrew released most of those big snakes and you and others like you know it. But you and others like you continue to portray it as being irresponsible snake owners. Not one person has been caught releasing a Burm into the Everglades, but it has been proven that Hurricane Andrew destroyed reptile businesses and all types of structures that housed Burmes and other wildlife, therefore releasing these animals into the wild.

Why can't you people start making press appearences telling people that they don't need to worry about a giant snake invasion? If you and others like you don't start telling the truth, there is only one answer as to why, it's because you don't want the truth to be known.

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