I wrote the following letter immediately after our apparent "victory" concerning HR 669. I sent it off to both USARK as well as another animal rights group (the latter of which I will no longer support and so they will go unnamed).

Initially, I was planning to possibly post this letter and/or send it out to more people, now I see that perhaps I should have. Some of the things I foresaw when I wrote the following letter are beginning to happen and so I feel it is time that this is posted. I know it's "long" but please read it all before you reply.

A Call for Industry-wide Standards and Goals (Stay United)

I believe that with the recent victory over HR 669 now is the time for us as a “Reptile Nation” to establish a cohesive set of standards as well as some goals for our future. It is critical for us to remain united as a group. It has been said, “Nothing unites a group of people as well as a common enemy.” There is truth in those words and, sadly enough, history tells us that once the common threat has passed the bond that held those people together also breaks down unless that energy is somehow refocused on new efforts.

Right now we are at the stage where our group “victory” could actually be the very thing that allows us to lapse into our old, segregated ways. We cannot let that happen. If we do it will only become increasingly difficult to rally the support that is needed in the future to tackle similar issues. This may seem like an implausible or far-fetched idea right now, but now that we have seen the numbers we are able to generate, we face the potential for a portion of our “membership” to become apathetic. This would be mainly due to the “everyone else will take care of it” attitude. Believing that there are enough other people that will take care of the letter writing, emailing, and phone calls will be one of the major reasons our next effort could turn out far fewer people. This would obviously result in fewer people contacting their representatives and, in turn, we would have a lessened impact on the next bill, proposal, or other perceived “threat” to our hobby and industry.

This loss of inertia is what our opponents will be hoping for and we cannot allow for it to happen. The next time we find ourselves opposing these groups we need to show them that not only have our numbers grown, but that our voice has also become louder, our efforts more focused and our tactics have grown to become more intelligent and difficult to combat. One way for this to happen is for us to establish guidelines and regulations that we will uphold and abide by as a community.

Showing that we are not only united, but that we are also able to form a true community will give us much more credibility and make us more difficult to stereotype. (I will address stereotypes later.) To form a true community we will not only need to establish regulations that we all agree to abide by (as already mentioned), but we will also need to develop methods for selecting members to join us. We cannot accept every person who decides they want to be a part of our ranks. This does not mean that we should become a elitist group, instead it is proposed that we determine that anyone not willing to follow the set guidelines should not be allowed to join and any person or business that breaks these guidelines should be asked to leave the community. Laws, a governing body, and a selective inclusion and exclusion process are the building blocks that form every community.

There are many aspects of this industry (or hobby – depending on each person’s level of involvement) that we still do not fully agree upon. We have many unwritten rules that are not clearly defined and unless we make efforts to define these issues they will remain sources of contention within our community. Examples include:

a.) Defining the terms “Wild Caught” versus “Long Term Captive” – neither term allows for interchangeability, yet we have done so for years

b.) How long must an animal be in captivity and at what point in it’s acclimation can it be called a “Long Term Captive”

c.) What defines a Captive Bred animal versus a farmed animal

d.) The idea of “Snake Years” has been proposed in the past. Similar to the regulations established by Falconeering community, this would serve to not only prove an individual’s level of experience, but also help decide which animals they could be approved for raising or breeding

e.) Should we limit who can and cannot keep certain species based upon their level of experience? No one person or entity would be excluded forever, but they would have to “work their way up the ladder” so to speak before being allowed to keep some of the more difficult species

f.) Venomoids? This is an issue that is an obvious line in the sand for anyone keeping venomous reptiles. Should we officially allow for venomoids? If so, under what circumstances?

g.) Venomous reptiles in general – next to large boids, the issue of keeping venomous animals is one of the reasons this industry is targeted. Should we continue to allow for individuals to keep venomous animals? If so, what types of qualifications (if any) should they merit before being allowed to purchase, keep or breed these animals? What types of safety devices and precautions (if any) should be imposed (locked and escape proof housing? anti-venin on-site? age requirements? permits?

h.) Should price controls be imposed upon the various markets? Would they serve to help reduce the number of “fly by night” and opportunist breeders as well as turning certain species into “disposable” pets?

This list is not an all inclusive by any means. However, it does represent some of the more contentious issues we face not only with the general population, but more specifically within our own ranks. The resolution of these issues and taking an “official stance” on them would go great lengths to show the general public that we are a responsible community able to not only govern our own actions but also one that understands their (the general public’s) concerns and is willing to address these issues. We absolutely must find a way to solve these matters on our own or someone else, outside or our community will solve them for us (typically their solution will be an outright ban which would clear up all of these problems with a simple vote and the stroke of a pen).

In the past, there have been a number of changes that have been proposed by various members that have been shot down by the community as a whole. Generally, these proposals would have positively impacted us and would have served to unite and maintain some of the sense of community that has already been discussed. Sadly, the main reason the proposed changes were shot down was due to simple laziness. Members have made it known that they felt some of the changes would be “impossible” or difficult to either enforce or establish. Our recent achievements should serve to show that nothing we do as a group is impossible and that anything worth doing has the possibility of being difficult to establish. We only need to use our current momentum and we can alleviate some of these difficulties. It’s either that our we allow for that momentum to lapse, but remember: it is much harder to get something moving than it is to keep it moving. Starting over in the future should not be viewed as an option.

In addition to setting standards and regulations for our membership we also need to set some common goals. Without a set of goals and objectives we will eventually reach a point of stagnation within our ranks. It will become taboo to question the status quo and we will risk becoming the elitist community that is unable to respond to or handle change. This also cannot happen. If it does, it will only serve to weaken us.

We need an idea of where we ultimately plan to go. Obviously, one of our main goals is to remove the stigma that is placed upon not only our animals but also those that decide to keep them. Our hobby and industry should be looking to make itself more mainstream so that the idea of keeping or breeding a reptile or amphibian is no more “strange” to the general public than the is the practice of keeping or breeding dogs, cats, or fish is. This can only be done through an increased effort to educate the public. We must also strive to make advances in the keeping, breeding, and understanding of the species we currently have. This means that actual medical and scientific studies should be funded. We may be able to successfully breed an animal but that is only a small part of understanding it. We still have an enormous amount of information to learn from these animals. Even the species considered “common” are not as well understood as they could be.

Funding for much of this type of work is not easy to come by. However, this obstacle could be lessened with more cohesion amongst our community in addition to public education.
Outside of our community we face a fairly negative perception of our hobby. This is mainly due to only a few factors:

1.) The misleading information offered to the public by rival groups and organizations. Many of us are aware of most of this misleading (and often times, completely incorrect) information. Everything from personal health issues (salmonella, for example), to environmental concerns (such as exaggerating certain non-native species’ potential to establish themselves in the wild).

2.) General preconceived beliefs. The public overall is not very well informed about reptiles and amphibians and much of their fear lies in the false beliefs they were taught while growing up. These teachings are usually passed on from one generation to the next and some of them have taken on attributes similar to urban legends. (Everyone seems to know someone who has seen or experienced a particular trait or incident involving the animal in question, but it is nearly impossible to find anyone who has witnessed these things first hand.) Many of these beliefs seem ridiculous to us, but to the uneducated, they are not that far-fetched. A person doesn’t have to go far to find examples:
a.) Large boids can consume a full grown adult human (this has never been conclusively proven for any species of boid)
b.) Snakes are slimy.
c.) All snakes are venomous (or deadly, or aggressive)
d.) They serve little or no positive role in their environment (the only good snake is a dead snake mentality).

3.) Finally, the general public has preconceived stereotypes of the type of individual who would keep or breed reptiles or amphibians, none of which is looked at (from a societal viewpoint) as being particularly positive. Generally, if a person has a reptile or amphibian as a pet the first image the public conjures of that person is a negative combination of some of the following stereotypes: bikers, people with tattoos, law breakers, social deviants, mentally unstable personalities, outcasts, heavy metal enthusiasts, the uneducated, devil worshipers, the poor, and drug users or dealers – this list isn’t all inclusive, but it is a fair example of some of the images the general public will come up with when thinking about “the typical” herpetology enthusiast.

The first two factors can be dealt with through education campaigns by our current membership. Education of the general public must be one of our main goals. There is simply no other way for us to combat the propaganda that rival organizations use. They know the general public has fears and misconceptions about our industry and they will play on every single one of them (with exaggeration, if needed) to fulfill their goals. In addition to the public's stereotypes, this propaganda has been extremely effective in bad mouthing first our animals and then us as a community.

The last factor is one of stereotype. This is a major hurdle for us. Aside from our love of our reptile and amphibian pets there is honestly no other group we can be placed into as a whole. Not all of us have tattoos, ride motorcycles or listen to heavy metal music. Yet, that is part of the stereotype the public has of us. Essentially, there is nothing wrong with many of the groups that we are associated with. However, the public does not view us to be a part of the larger majority of these groups that is “good” and law abiding. When they think “snake keeper” and “biker” in the same thought it is not in a positive light. Their first thought tends to be “outlaw-drunk-biker” not “family-man-who-enjoys-riding-for-the-fun-of-it”.

We need to change the stereotype the public has of us as people. There is simply no way to eliminate a stereotype altogether, but it is entirely possible to change the stereotype to something more positive. A great example of a group’s ability to change the stereotypes they were branded with would be the African-American civil rights marches in the 1960s. On the surface, it may seem that it was sheer numbers that allowed for the effectiveness of these marches and demonstrations. However, a closer look would reveal that the most effective part of their campaigns was their drive to get out into the public and be seen for what they actually were so the public could see that the typical stereotype of a black man or woman they carried was very different from reality.

A major reason the number of members in their ranks grew was because they successfully broke down the negative stereotypes that were associated with what it meant to be a minority. It was difficult to say that all black men were uneducated when Dr. King was speaking so clearly and eloquently. The same goes for the idea of them all being poor or law breakers. Many successful black men and women were seen within the crowds of demonstrators and when it was noticed that they were able to form a cohesive group that could get their ideas and beliefs across in a peaceful and law-abiding manner it became even more difficult to uphold the negative stereotypes.

We need to have a similar drive to change the stereotypes and prejudices we are associated with. By doing so we will be able to become more “mainstream” and socially acceptable so that when one of us mentions that we keep or breed reptiles it is not considered a taboo or deviant activity, instead we should hope that is either raises positive points of conversation (chances for education) or that it elicits no more reaction than if we were to mention that we kept a dog or cat as a pet.

None of these goals will be easy – nothing truly worthwhile is, but that should not stop us from striving to achieve them either now or in the future. Our first and most important step is to remain united. After that we can open the lines of communication within our ranks to decide exactly what types of goals we want to achieve and how we plan on implementing them. Of course, some of these conversations will spark more heated debate than others, but in the end, we will need to actually come to some conclusions on these issues and then stick by the decisions that were made. I’m not naïve enough to believe that we will be able to make every member happy with all of our decisions, but that shouldn’t be a goal of ours. Instead, we will all need to make certain concessions in our beliefs and (possible) sacrifices in our practices so that the community as a whole can remain strong and continue to grow.

Stay United,
Brandon Sander
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Stay United!


"...I say 'apparently' because despite all our progress she is not at all a tame or handle-able snake and gettting her from that cage would re-start a war.. and we've had a good armistice for several months now."-Gus Rentfro - I love this quote!

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