As I was told, government officials work best under mild stress.
Government specialists have a public duty to make educated judgements. I don´t know about the US but in Norway government employees have a duty to reply within 2 weeks.
In Norway our ban against the private keeping of reptiles is managed by the food safety authority. When someone is caught keeping illegal leopard geckoes, they end up in the freezer of the food safety authority. Pople caught keeping reptiles often appear in the newspapers. The food safety authority is ond of talking BS about "the illegal reptilekeepers".
We also experiance that sending letters to our food safety authority is like speaking to a wall.
However, at some point some forumfolk amongst terrariumkeepers started confronting the foodsafety in the newspapers every time we grew aware of some rediculous coment from their part in the newspapers.
Given a little time several functionaries in the food safety authority grew considerably more careful about what they said to newspapers and how they formulated themselves.
The animal rights movement in our country uses several channels to win public sympathy for their views. One of these channels I believe is one of our zoos, the Aquarium in Bergen (AiB).
AiB have been talking alot of BS about private reptilekeeping since the they got a new director. Kees Ekeli, the new director had a blog against reptile keeping for a while, until we raised alot of attention and rage in the herpetocultural comunity and got in closed. AiB through Ekeli is also very very fond of slinging regarding herpetocluture in the newspapers.
So, last spring in a moment of idiocy I stole one of their caimans on a busy saturday. Even though the zoo is open all days the theft was discovered 2 days later. After that I claumed responsability for the theft returned the caiman and accused AiB of mistreating their caimans. This exploded in the newspapers for several days.
Now..
Since reptiles are illegal, there exist no guidelines for keeping such animals. Zoos recieve dispensation for keeping animals by the food safety authority but they don´t have any competent personel who can see the difference between responsible and irresponsible caiman husbandry.
When I accused the zoo for mistreating it´s animals the food safety authority had to answer alot of questions to alot of reporters and alot of their quotes were published in articles in newspapers.
It is alot easier to nail a government specialist to the wall when there is alot of media attention present.
Maybe you can find some smarter way to confront them other than stealing caimans but when you are able to attract the medias attention, you can provide the journalist with the input from the herpetovultural society, the gocernment specialists, the pet industry and the animal welfare movement and see what kind of article you get.
In any case some journalists will pe partial to either herpetoculture or animal liberation and their articles will be tinted accordingly. When an animal rights oriented specialist talks to an animal rights oriented journalist you will often get very nice quotes which you can use to your advantage in followup articles or future correspondence.
When you get a tasty quote, fire up your troops and have them flame (in a civilised manner) the specialist who has given the quote and hers/his boss. Often you can experiance a bottleneck effect in an area where one boss is connected to several specialists who like to talk BS about reptilekeeprs in the newspapers.
Divide and conquer is a favored strategy used by the AR movement to impose small restrictions in small places but this strategy can also prove effective in confrontation of local government.
In my oppinion the local reptile forum, herpetological society, zoo and pet industry have to act toghether with local media and USark and or kingsnake.

regards
oby

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