Posted by:
EricWI
at Tue Feb 7 04:38:02 2012 [ Report Abuse ] [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by EricWI ]
Illinois Reptile Letter Campaign and SPAM Filters
Some peoples letters to Illinois Senate Assignment Committee are being filtered out as spam. You can try to send the letters to email addresses individually. Cut and paste sample letter and emailaddresses below.
Senate Assignments Committee:
hsteans@senatedem.ila.gov dharmon@senatedem.ila.gov jclayborne@senatedem.ila.gov klightford@senatedem.ila.gov kdillard@senaterep.ila.gov drighter@senaterep.ila.gov
Sample Letter:
Senator Steans and Committee Members,
As a resident/stakeholder in the Illinois reptile community I appreciate your concern for public safety. However, your proposed bill is far too over reaching in regards to reptiles. Illinois isalready highly regulated. Over-regulating harmless pets lacks common sense. Who ever assisted in the construction of the bill obviously doesn't understand the natural history or economics of reptilesin IL; nor their relatively simple captive husbandry requirements.Further, there seems to be no understanding of the difference between occupational hazard and public safetyrisk.
The reptile industry represents $30 million annually in commerce in Illinois. Thousands make their living in this State because of this business. To cavalierly destroy this non-traditionalagricultural interest because of a fundamental lack of understanding is unacceptable. As written, this bill will hurt me and my family. It is bad idea to kill jobs in this kind of economy.
Working with certain reptiles entails a moderate occupational risk, but historically and statistically, reptiles represent virtually zero public safetyrisk. Dogs account for 35 deaths a year in this country. Captive reptiles less than one per year. Traditional livestock and pets have proven much more of a public safety risk than reptiles.According to US Fish & Wildlife and US Geological Services studies, the rare event of a death as the result of a captive reptile falls into the category of occupational hazard. Thereis no record whatsoever of a captive reptile creating any measurable risk to the public... NEVER!
Please remove ALL reptiles from SB3264. Thank you.
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