"The last part of that excerpt really points out the absurdity and the irony of these kinds of laws. An adult private citizen in Tennessee, who may have plenty of room and the required knowledge and expertise to care for these animals, can't own them, but someone with a permit to use them for educational purposes can keep them in a crowded, inadequate habitat in a classroom, where they will be handled by children on a regular basis. Of course most of the existing regulations restricting the sale of turtles grew out of the Federal four-inch law that was enacted to keep children from handling turtles and being exposed to Salmonella to begin with. So the laws that began as an attempt to keep children from handling turtles are now taking turtles away from responsible adults and putting them in classrooms where they can be handled by the very children that they were meant to protect. I don't have a problem with turtles in educational settings as long as they're cared for adequately and have enough space. I just think all of these laws restricting private ownership of animals that are not endangered or threatened have way overreached the scope of their original intent"
It's so odd that they tried so hard years ago to keep reptiles away from children, but at the zoo I went to (posted pics some time ago), they have an Aldabra tortoise that children can handle (and, as it turns out, I have read up on Aldabra, and they are well known ot LIKE attention, almost like dog likes being petted and having its ears scratched).
At the Aldabra tortoise exhibit, they do, however, have a sign that says that the USDA recommends sanitizing (they supply sanitizer at the exhibit) one's hands after touching Big Al, but I don't know whether everyone actually does it.
