Posted by:
Hiss_N_Herps
at Tue Feb 23 22:39:32 2010 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by Hiss_N_Herps ]
I only live 3 hours from Tinley Park so I took time from my part time, weekend job at a local pet store to attend the Friday night meeting and both days at the show.
My biggest disappointment from the whole weekend was that from my point of view at the local pet shop, the message is not getting across to the local pet stores. Yes we have the ear of the breeders. Yes we have the ear of the true hobbyists. But we still do not have the ear of enough pet shops and the general public to make a real hard hitting stand. The same people that sell many of the reptile supplies and feeders to the general public should also be actively involved and they quite frankly are not. I spoke with a representative from the Indianapolis UNCLE BILLS Franchise and the response was that a mass e-mail was sent to all of thier employees to have them sign and send out. There was no answer as to how many had actually forwarded the e-mail. I even made copies of the form letters to our state senators and handed them to the store manager for them to get people to sign. After 1 week of that I had 1 set of papers from the Fort Wayne store. I had collected about 75 copies from my store. Isn't the business the same business that the local pet stores are in too? This is really quite saddening to me since we could have had the next group under fire (the aquarium coral community) on our side in a scratch my back and I’ll scratch your scenario. I subscribe to CORALS Magazine as well and in my on-line subscription notices, I found out this week that the aquarium coral trade has just been hit with the same scenario where some activist group out west has asked that more than 80 species of corals be added to the Endangered Species Act.
The dummies out there are citing that Global Warming is creating habitat destruction for the corals making them more and more rare. I really don't think that corals can just crawl off of their rocks and move to deeper water. This Endangered Species Act would have exactly the same consequences as the LACEY Act in that there will be no more importation, no more Intrastate Transport and you would have to have special permits just to have corals. I sure wish they were coming to us saying “Hey, could you return the favor and sign this petition”. Point is, the local pet stores are not involved enough. USARK has done a pretty good job so far but I think that PIJAC and the National Pet Counsel need to step up their efforts in this area. Fortunately for the store I work at, I am the sounding board for these issues since I’m a “Lifer” when it comes to both Reptiles and Fish.
Chris
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RE: Tinley: what exactly happened? - Hiss_N_Herps, Tue Feb 23 22:39:32 2010