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Since the federal government did not check with my schedule prior to changing the time, I missed today's hearing. As soon as it becomes available for watching, I will let folks know. However for those who watched, what were your impressions?
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Cindy Steinle
PHFaust
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I watched the last hour and taking into account my glass half empty nature, I think it did not go well. Not for lack of trying on USARK's part but because it seemed like alot of minds were already made up prior to the hearing. They seem to be giving alot of creedance to the USGS report which does not bode well for the big 9.

I agree. I only caught the last 20 minutes or so, and even with that time frame, I was able to see that things weren't looking good. Unfortunately, and I don't mean this necessarily negatively towards him, but Dr. Jacobsen, talked wayyy too much. He provided more ammunition for them, than what he was realizing. Even though I understood his point, and other herpers will understand his point...it doesn't come across well to non-herpers.
Explaining how a Russell's viper escaped a college dorm room ages ago and was never recovered doesn't sound good!
Both of our representatives in this case seem a bit shaken up. Andrew Wyatt definitely tried his best, but it seemed he only came prepared to express his reasons for opposition, but not so much to defend those reasons against their responses.

Chris
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I saw momentum building for including all 9 of the USGS studied species. There was general acceptance that the Burmese are not going to be eradicated from Florida, although there remain many methods of controlling that population that need to be explored. With that being said, it seems they are likely include all 9 as a proactive approach to preventing more "invasions"... It will accomplish nothing of the sort, but that is how I believe they will rationalize including all 9.
Paul

My response is in the next thread.

Don't they care about the numbers of fatal canine attacks every year? Maybe certain breeds of dogs should not be allowed. "4.7 million people are bitten by dogs yearly, 800,000 require medical attention, 33 people died in 2007,and 18 in 2008".

Don't they care about the number of children that choke to death on their toys or pieces of their toys every year? Maybe toy manufacturers should be put out of business. "Every year in the United States, thousands of children are injured or killed by defectively dangerous toys"

They don't go after the dogs because they are cute and cuddly...except for the ones that are viciously maiming children and adults that is. There's too much money to be made in the puppy mill production of dogs to stop that activity...too many votes lost too!

They don't go after the toy companies because as long as there's a warning printed on the packaging it's up to the parent to make sure their child doesn't suffocate or bleed to death because of a faulty toy. Oh yeah...and there's too much money to be made with those toys and you have to keep the voters children and grandchildren happy...that is except for the ones that are turning blue because a piece of their toy is lodged in their airway...they aren't too happy.

Isn't there something else more important in this country besides banning snakes because of a 'What If' scenario from socialites who know nothing about them except they make really cool handbags, wallets, and shoes?

The government knows how many people die a year from cigarettes..."Over 443,000 Americans (over 18 percent of all deaths) die because of smoking each year. Secondhand smoke kills about 50,000 of them." But lets not ban smoking...after all there's way too much money to be made off of those dying people!

Lets focus on some disgusting, slimy, creepy, crawly snakes...that will help the country out. It's a start right?
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Matt Lerer
Ghi Reptiles

>>Don't they care about the numbers of fatal canine attacks every year? Maybe certain breeds of dogs should not be allowed. "4.7 million people are bitten by dogs yearly, 800,000 require medical attention, 33 people died in 2007,and 18 in 2008".
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I do have to take exception to this Matt. They absolutely legislate against dogs. Not currently on a federal level but on a local level with such FORCE that it isn't even funny. The City of Cudahy WI created legislation against the "Pit Bull" breed as of yet I can not locate the exact wording. This is a city at the time had only 2 "pit bulls" registered (and it is a decent sized city). Their reasoning? The local area gang was moving into the area so they banned this dog breed to prevent issues. Huh? Ban a breed of dog to prevent gang issue?

Now the other issue is that many breeds are reported as being a "pit bull" when they are merely a black dog or a brindle dog. Its brindle it must be a deadly pit. The CDC stopped keeping statistics on what dog breed caused a bite many years ago because of human error in reporting. The breed was left to interpretation. I have personally seen black labs labeled as "pit bulls". Having worked in the humane industry for MANY years, I have seen some INSANE labels placed on dogs. I actually had a kennel manager who would label anything she wanted to euthanize a "pit bull". I am sharing a photo below of two dogs labeled "pit Bull" by that boss. Had these dogs biten anyone and it noted in a file, they would go down as a pit bull.

The reason I am sharing this is I am not only a reptile owner (who keeps in my personal collection pythons exclusively) and a reptile rescue person. I own the many or have owned many of the 9. We are not fighting a totally rational fight. We are fighting against HSUS who feels reptiles should be left in the wild. We are fighting PETA who is currently actively campaigning for the eradication of a breed of dog "For their own good" We are fighting people who are VERY good at twisting the stats.

Creating one ounce of legislation (IE banning a breed somewhere) opens another door. What happens when they decide down the road that something else is next. Banning breed/species A will work to reduce issues, because that isnt around. But what happens when breed/species B creeps up. Ok lets ban that. Ok what happens when breed/species C creeps up as a problem. Ok now thats gone.

With all animal legislation, you open doors to allow more. Municipalities will tack on things like banning of reptiles to a dog ban to make it scarier. Ok Pit bulls and burmese are evil lets ban that. Right? Ok now the labs are biting more and people decided they want retics. Well ALL retics get huge right? Lets just ADD them to the list of animals in our exisiting ban. Its a fun game.

Alot of this created by human error. While I will agree more dogs cause human harm than reptiles, looking at it on a breed/species perspective is not as easy as it sounds.

Remember these two dogs were slated to be euthanized because one person labeled them something they were not. Both of these issues are very near to me. Just wanted to give you something to chew on for those stats.

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Cindy Steinle
PHFaust
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Now, I only got to catch the last 20 minutes or so of this broadcast. However, even that wasn't looking good. Many of the proponents for the legislation came ready to rumble. The legislators all seemed to have their minds made up as well, and only a couple truly asked questions that might persuade their opinion on one side or the other.
Upon first logging on, I could quickly see that USARK's, Andrew Wyatt, and Dr. Elliott Jacobsen were a bit rattled. Andrew Wyatt was questioned in regards to safety, etc of these snakes and he attempted to bring about statements on how dogs have a higher rate of human mortality than large constrictors. Counteracting, the legislator made the statement regarding the large numbers difference between the two and how their are far more dogs within captivity than large constrictors. At that point, Andrew seemed to back down a bit, which to me, shows that he only came prepared to address reasons for his opposition, and not prepared to defend those reasons. That attitude taken by the legislator easily could have been challenged and in a respectful manner.

Ms. Jackson Lee (I could be wrong on the last name) seemed to already have her mind made up and attacked pretty harshly. Her responses to people keeping potentially deadly animals were simple...they shouldn't be. She felt that as citizens who are guarded and protected under the same laws as the rest of the state, that citizens should be controlled on their allowance of ownership of such animals. She even went as far as making comments about people possibly catching and keeping sharks in aquariums. While her comments were outlandish in many capacities, they apparently made an impact.

Dr. Elliott Jacobsen, while meaning very well, he seemed to talk a bit too much. He walked off the beaten path far too many times and slipped from actually responding to their queries. In the midst of that, he was trying to validate points that he was making, however, in doing so...he was admitting to additional keeper failures. This only provides more ammo. He openly stated that while he was in college in Missouri, a buddy had a Russell's Viper in the dorm room. It escaped and was never recovered.
This doesn't set well with legislators. He made a couple other comments that made me a little nervous as well as he was skimming hot water.

In the end, I don't feel that our representation was quite as well prepared as they might have thought. Granted, you're limited on how you can defend yourself against a large group of people who already have a negative mindset. But when you do, you MUST be prepared. When you look like your very own industry is less educated than you make yourself out to be, then you're only opening yourself up for more attacks. This is only the first of many to come now in my opinion, as I"m quite confident that this will pass into law.
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I too was only able to watch the last hour of the debate. The representative from Florida and Ms. Lee were both on the attack. It’s difficult to answer questions when the inquisitor is jamming their personal opinions down your throat! When Ms. Lee brought up “abuse issues” I came out of my chair.

The representative to the right of the chair did bring up the point that the ownership of these “big 9” should be decided upon by the States. This put a couple of thoughts in my head. The first being that this is a “Florida Issue.” Not a national issue. I believe that the same representative questioned why Florida had not outlawed these species. That showed me that he was thinking outside of the rhetoric being dispensed by the HSUS. This brought to mind the second thought. Why aren’t we hitting harder at the States right to govern as protected under the Constitution of the United States? I know that the old piece of paper doesn’t mean much to our government, but we may want to enlighten our representatives that we still believe in it and hold them to its standard! Andrew brought up the fact that many States have their own regulations concerning large constrictors, but I don’t think that these folks are listening!

I do agree that Dr. Jacobsen rambled, spinning a few to many yarns. Though he was good intentioned. I think we may be best served by having the Barkers testify against the USGS study. After all they were sourced in this document dozens of times. The Barkers wrote a paper refuting the Florida situation so why not discredit the USGS using their sources of information.

As for the Representative from Florida’s attack on Andrew concerning his not having children living along side the 100K giant snakes in the Everglades. I had to chuckle at her anecdote about seeing Alligators basking in her yard once or twice a year. I’m sure that she let her children run out and pet the pretty Alligators!

On a personal note. I was bitten by a nine foot Retic on the right wrist several years. I removed the snake and cleaned the bite with peroxide and went about my business. A few years prior to that I was bitten on the same forearm by an English Setter. It put me in the hospital for four days! Let them choke on the statistics!

Yes but according to them there are more dogs so that makes it less percentage-wise. Someone who would say something like that has a low IQ...or low self esteem...one of the two...and it scares me that these people are representing our states. I guess that's why it's called politics...masters of spinning and deception.

The great thing was the water management guy! Of course he would say anything at all to get more grant money so he could keep a cushy job. So he's got a guy hunting snakes who can actually smell them...huh. I bet he casts spells too! And the story about WM employee being chased back to their vehicle by a giant burm...please. I've already heard that person was fired for her burmese BS so she wouldn't have to go out in the field to work. Too bad nobody knew about that at the hearing...
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Matt Lerer
Ghi Reptiles

They're not out and out banning the constrictors; they're banning the interstate commerce and importation of said constrictors, which is explicitly allowable under the US Cons't; the federal government shall have the authority to regulate commerce between the several states. Which is why we have to attack the junk science, not the legality of the bill.

The average common Boa constrictor is 5-7'. Do they even know that? It's not a giant snake. Someone has a copy of Pope's Giant Snakes and is using it as a textbook.

I watched the whole House Judiciary Committee Hearing on HR2811, and I believe the Reptile Nation should be proud to have Andrew Wyatt and U.S. Ark on our side. I believe Andrew came across as sincere and tried to stay above the nasty questions that were often put to him. I also feel that Andrew communicated his points very well.

I feel that Dr. Jacobson got off to a good start by discussing his love for reptiles and how his interest grew and shaped his whole career. He also spoke with great authority and conviction when discussing the problems regarding the climate basis for the USGS python spread and survival hypothesis out of the Everglades National Park. Dr. Jacobson also scored points for challenging the reproductive potential of Burmese Pythons in the Everglades National Park.

But, I should offer some suggestions where I think more impact could have been made.

First, I believe the legislators were about as misinformed as is the average person who gets their news from the media, i.e. that there is an "out-of-control python problem" in Florida and that something urgently needs to be done about it. Second, that, according to the USGS, the Florida problem is likely to spread to other states as well - the whole reason for federal vs. state action. And, third, that the proposed bill, HR2811, with the changes proposed by USGS, USFW, and HSUS will adequately address the problem. I do not believe most of the legislators already had their minds made up - they were looking for facts, but didn't get enough of them from our side.

Andrew and Dr. Jacobson both stated in their written testimony there were numerous scientific errors and misrepresentations, but I did not get a sense of how egregious these errors and misrepresentations were.

I think that, from a strategic point of view, Andrew could have attacked the USGS report a lot more, explored the urgency and magnitude of "the problem", questioned the effectiveness of the proposed legislative solution, and blamed the media and special interest groups for spreading misinformation and creating all the hysteria.

Lastly, in order to satisfy any legal challenges to proposed legislation, prudent legislators consider certain points of law and legal precedent. I could see the legislators were doing that from some of the questions they were asking, but I did not get the impression that our side fully recognised the legal ramifications of some of the questions being asked (if you did, Andrew, then I apologise that I missed it). So, let's get more expert legal advice.

The lack of unchallenged evidence from USGS, USFW and the South Florida Water Management District, allowed HSUS to simply agree with the other witnesses.