I strongly agree with the fact that Boa Constrictors certainly do not belong lumped in with Retics and Burms. Becasue of their more manageable size, there is little public safety issues with Boas and also people are not so inclined to release them in the wild becaseu they are more manageable...... and easier to sell or give away if someone loses interest.

Maybe the thing to do is as a "backup plan",everyone send all these politicians a separate letter explaining the difference between keeping Boas and Keeping Retics , stressing that Boas do not belong lumped together in the same group.

I do not like the idea of permits, licenses etc. this just leads to many headaches....paperwork, fees and then a bureaucracy is created that in itself can lead to mistakes and problems.Would prefer to stay away from that.

Keep in mind folks that unlike the previous set of hearings where there were a small group of sponsors to try and persuade over to our way of thinking, now we are dealing with 535 members of congress ! While we know they are all not going to read our letter and hear our arguments - most will just get a tally of "for" and "against" people, BUT remember we dont need every politician to read our facts..... we need a few...... and if we send enough letters with enough factual information and we explain more about who we realy are and what we do and we explain

how this bill will affect us and we explain how the USGS report is not accurate.... some, maybe a few will hear some of our arguements.There will always be a few politicians more open minded or by chance reading some of our comments....and those guys are the ones who will talk to and debate the other members of Congress. If we get through to 1 Senator, then we get our message to 25 Senators.If we get our message to 2 memebrs of the HOR, that in reality, we may get our message to 50 members that discuss and debate the points brought out by one or two members. They may not all be interested in reading our letter or hearing our arguements, BUT when they hear it from their colleagues, they wil hear our agruements indirectly. This is why we must write to every one of the 535 members of congress.We simply dont know which letter will connect with with representative..so we must all contact them all !

As for myself, as part of my letters to all the Reps of Congress, I am also sending them a handful of selected classified ads for Retics, Condas, and Burms. I want them to see ads that refer to the animals as TAME. I want them to see a normal cross section of US citizens holding their tame large constrictors, and I want them to see that there are price tags of $ 1000-$ 10,000 on some of these animals !I think any politician in congress would find it an eye opener to realize that there are Retics that sell for $ 5000 ! And I think anyone can realize that the person paying $ 5000 for one snake is most likely very well prepared to care for it and the likelyhood of release is nill.

BAN THE IMPORT OF THE BIG 4 and then leave us alone to do what we do ! And 99.9% of the problems will be solved.

[ Show Entire Thread ]