Reptile & Amphibian Forums

All,

Get on the ball folks. There are only 95 comments on the USFWS website to ban the importation and trade in amphibians without high dollar screening. There should at least be several thousand from the herp industry alone. This is banning agenda. Help protect the herp industry and don't sell out your amphibian keeping brothers and sisters by being lazy. There is a link at the top of the Herp Law Forum do it now. Thanks!

Welkerii

pijac.org/_documents/us_pijac_drafting_points_for_fws_comments_-_bd_phibs_2010.pdf

It is death by a thousand cuts, but lets at least go down fighting!
Who else can we vote out of office? lol
jsc
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"As hard as I've tried, just can't NOT do this"
John Crickmer

I have been following this one for quite some time and I feel as strongly about it as I do the constrictor issue. Everyone should read the petition and take note of the AR groups that signed aboard (our good friends, HateSUS, etc.). If you fought for big constrictors then please fight for amphibian people, we are all in this together.

Sent my comment, which, in a nutshell applauded the impetus for this rule change (as I believe we should be very aggressive to prevent the continued entrance of Bd into this country) but said that this was the wrong way to go about it. I've been involved in several Bd studies over the past few years and, drawing on that experience, suggested that rather than testing (which is about 20-50 bucks per animal) that all live amphibian imports be prophylactically treated with an effective drug such as itraconazole (which costs about 40 bucks to treat 100 frogs), which will also eliminate animals that falsely tested negative from slipping through the cracks (as the Bd test is prone to do--test either false positive or false negative). We all need to get on board of this one, as eliminating all amphibians is a HUGE chip away at out rights as animal owners.

Just threw my 2 cents in on the amphibian listing proposal. I am all for shot gun treatment with imported frogs anyway and because of it, I never lost a P. bicolor, even the ones with severe rostral abrasions. Bleach works wonders killing the fungus too. Pretty simple really. We should police ourselves.

I don't know whether this is because no one reads this forum, people are just lazy or people don't care. We need way more participation from hobbyists, pet stores and pet owners that's for sure. We will lose all these fights if we don't have a way to contact the majority of herp businesses and keepers. We will also lose if they don't participate. This is pathetic.

Welkerii

I, and a few other people, posted extensively on Dendroboard (a dart frog forum) about the USF&WS proposal which will most likely have a very negative impact on amphibian hobbyists, however, most froggers there would rather gush about their Vivarium Builds than to do anything about this much more serious situation.

Though I no longer keep any amphibians myself, I intend to make my comments on this proposal, but how can you want something for someone else more than they want it for themselves, i.e. for hobbyists to be able to continue keeping and breeding amphibians?

Those sons of batrachians need to get away from the couch and 1) take five minutes to read the language of the proposed law, 2) take another ten minutes to study what can be done by amphibian keepers to mitigate the threat of chytrid to native populations and 3) take another five minutes to write in and support those of us who keep and breed amphibians and then be done with it Phillippe de Vosjoli breeds amphibians (and if memory serves correctly, he seems to have done a lot for this industry), Ron Tremper did, Sean Mckeown, Bob Mallioux, Ernie Wagner and Ian Heiler ( just to name a few ). Those guys have done a lot for the rest of us and everyone should show some support for those who have made so much happen.

Although I do not currently keep any amphibians, I nevertheless submitted my comments to the best of my knowledge, and accuracy of that knowledge thereof, on the amphibian BD issue on 12/03/10. I did this because I feel it should at the very least be partially my responsibility and obligation to speak on and assist in relaying the concerns of the affected stakeholders in any federal rule change affecting our hobby and industry on the behalf of other such segments regardless of whether I will be directly affected by the rule change or not.

I suggest that all others on here do the same.