Some of your points are valid and have been discussed for many years now. Self regulation is the first move of desperation in an industry to try to head off government intervention. It is why the car companies have voluntary recalls and why the agriculture industry has followed their example and set up voluntary recall procedures.

Your biggest obstacle is money. This is primarily a cash business and that will always attract people who do not care about the well being of the animals, just profit. At the same time it is hard to get anything worth while done because it is such a tiny industry. Just in comparrison to the pet trade, reptiles, amphibians and invertebrates make up less than 5-7% of the US anual pet business from trade and industry sources. That is not much compared to dog, cat, fish and bird $ that make up the other 93-95% of sales and that is why those groups have well organized and financed lobby groups.

I was with some of your points until you started talking about exclusion from the group, price fixing, what animals people are "allowed" to keep, etc.. With those points you are moving from self regulation to beyond government regulation and just into plain old facism. There are a million things that can be done to make this business and almost any other business better, but when you want to start telling me what I am going to sell my animals for, what animals I may and may not keep and what I have to do to be included in a voluntary effort... you are in the wrong country.

[ Hide Replies ]

• I should have posted this LONG ago... - BrandonSander, Thu Nov 5 11:13:37 2009
• RE: I should have posted this LONG ago.. - watever, Thu Nov 5 12:16:18 2009
• RE: I should have posted this LONG ago... - evansnakes, Thu Nov 5 12:31:15 2009