Today myself and a number other people involved in the reptile industry were involved in a meeting with PIJAC. PIJAC will be issuing a PetAlert regarding the USF&W proposal hopefully by the end of the week to it's member base as well as posting the information online.



While PIJAC is a Pet industry oriented organization, and we are more of a pet owner oriented business, there is enough overlap in interests that we are recommending that our reptile site users join PIJAC at the hobbyist level at the very least. The cost for hobbyists is only $35.00 per year and you may register online at

https://pijac.org/i4a/forms/form.cfm?id=9



This does not mean that we, or you, should rely on PIJAC alone to resolve this issue. We will continue to maintain a separate, yet coordinated effort, aligned with PIJAC's effort.



We also strongly recommend that all of our users join their local herp club or society, or join the nearest club available. A list of herp clubs is located at www.kingsnake.com/society.html



Herp Clubs have to be the mechanism to deal with issues at the state and local levels and they need to be connected with an organization such as PIJAC at the national and international levels, to coordinate larger efforts down to the local level.



In the end this will take the efforts of PIJAC and other herp action groups as well, the local herp societies, herp businesses and hobbyists, as well as pet owners to generate the thousands of comments that will be required. PIJAC and kingsnake.com will be generating industry statistics over the next few weeks for use in responses by anyone interested. Both kingsnake.com and PIJAC will be looking for volunteers to help collect and collate data as well as filling other roles as required.



kingsnake.com has started a new mailing list to allow our users to monitor the latest updates regarding this issue as well as other pending reptile regulatory efforts. This list will also be used when the call for volunteers is made. If you would like to get these updates or would like to volunteer we encourage you to join the Herp Law Alert mailing list at http://news.pethobbyist.com/index.cgi/list/herplaw/



On a final note. Please be aware that our opponents read the internet as well and as the comments to be submitted are public as well, they will be reading comments here and elsewhere to try to determine our strategy and tactics. As such information released here and at PIJAC publicly will have to be general in nature and we recommend that everyone hold off on making their official comments until the very end of the comment period.

Additionally, PIJAC, because of its nature, will not have a "quick" turnaround on publishing information, which may leave many people with the impression that nothing is happening. It is aggravating not only to us but to you as well, but it is the nature of the beast. Neither PIJAC nor the Federal Governement are designed to operate on "internet time" as it were. While PIJAC is certainly not a perfect organization, their resources and access will be required to defeat this.



One last note, USF&W employees are human beings as well, and many of them DO NOT SUPPORT THIS REGULATORY EFFORT. It does no one favors to post negative comments regarding the agency or it's members. Had it not been for the effort of one unnamed member of a fish and wildlife agency bringing this to our attention odds are high we would still be in the dark about this effort. In the end those USF&W people that do not support this effort may turn out to be our most important allies.



Thank you for your patronage



Jeff Barringer

kingsnake.com



Edited on February 6, 2008 at 00:28:19 by jeffb.



Edited on February 6, 2008 at 00:29:22 by jeffb.



Edited on February 6, 2008 at 00:38:53 by jeffb.

Edited on February 7, 2008 at 09:20:27 by jeffb.

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• Herp Law Mail List/Joining PIJAC - jeffb, Wed Feb 6 00:02:23 2008