I have decided that I am most usueful in this battle to persoanl speak to my home senator of Michigan, Senior Senator Carl Levin who is the co-sponser of S373. I have known him to be a very fair man in the past and I am now emailing his office every day to get a chance to talk to him on S373. Here is a copy of todays email (not the first and not the last). Evan
The following information has been emailed to Senator Levin:
Regarding: issue
Name: Mr. Evan Stahl,
Phone: 248-977-5175
Email: evansnakes@aol.com
Comments: Senator Levin, I am contacting you as many times as need be to get a moment of your time to talk to you about your support of S373.
It is absolutely ridiculous to ban and restrict animals from all of the United States of America due to a problem that is unique to Florida and possibly one or two other states. The majority of our country will never have an issue of any species of tropical or semi tropical snake becoming invasive when they spend several months below freezing.
The bill is based on bad science and flawed methodology which is the consensus of the scientific community both for and against the keeping of these snakes. It is not a secret that Senator Nelson is pushing this bill as a way to increase his visibility and voter satisfaction. Those are not valid reasons to destroy the livelyhood of thousands of Americans and hurt the income of thousands more that own, operate or work at pet stores, importers and exporters, breeders of feeder animals for those snakes, companies that manufacture cages for those snakes and many others.
The end result will do nothing for the country outside of Florida, it is in fact unneeded in Florida as they have ennacted state laws to deal with the situation and at the same time you will be hurting many people right back here in your home state. The bill is ignorant to the reality of the situation and the inflamatory comments made by Senator Nelson enforce the fact that he has no knowledge on this subject on the scientific or practical end of the matter. I would greatly appreciate a few moments of your time to discuss this matter. I will keep attempting to contact you. Thanks very much. Evan Stahl
