The situations are similar. I did not say exact. Your premise seems to be that they would never do something so unreasonable as to ban thayeri/ruthveni hybrids and that a nationwide ban on the big 9 is reasonable because they have been found feral in just one state, Florida.

What we are talking about here is really just opinions on what is reasonable. I think a ban on imports into Florida and other states that have habitats similar to the everglades is reasonable. I don't think extending that ban to other states that don't have condusive habitats is reasonable.

What you might want to consider is that there are many degrees of interpretation on what could be considered reasonable. The ban that was originally proposed was going to be nationwide based on Genus. Some considered that reasonable. I considered that extreme.

Other more extreme standards could be considered reasonable by some. Brown Treesnakes are a Colubrid in the family Colubridae. They have been found feral on Guam and have done alot of damage there. Since Guam is an unincorporated territory of the US and Brown Treesnakes are a Colubrid, one could make a case for banning all nonnative Colubridae in all US states and unincorporated territories of the US. This would aid in preventing the spread of all nonnative Colubrids throughout the US and it's territories.

You and I might consider that extreme or unreasonable. We might say the Brown Treesnake is a tropical colubrid and Guam is a tropical country, therefore we should limit the ban to only tropical colubrids. And only ban them in tropical states and territories such as Guam, Hawaii and Florida. But others might argue like you did in the other thread, that we need to ban them all in all states so that a person in Texas will have a harder time sending them to Guam or Hawaii.

As far as what you said about letting those who choose to go underground suffer the consequences of their actions, you seem to have missed the point. The point is that the overall hobby will be weakened, not just that those who go underground will be suffering. This is because the ones who go underground will be less able and less likely to effectively participate in fighting any future anti-petkeeping legislation. They will be more worried about getting caught than they are about helping the rest of the hobby fight and they will feel like they have no reason to fight since they have already been criminalized. As the overall numbers of hobbyists actively participating in these fights decreases, that will pave the way for increasingly broad anti-petkeeping legislation.

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