There, I said it. Hopefully I successfully defend it.
I have been required by my city to obtain an exotic animal fanciers permit to keep Ball Pythons. Before paying my fee and allowing the local Animal Control officer to inspect and dictate how I should run things I examined the city code to see why I should be required to get a permit.
City code states that keepers of "snakes of the order Boidae" are required to obtain an animal fanciers permit.
I did an inordinate amount of research and could find no reliable source that could prove that this is true, the only trusted sources I could find are the government records of taxonomy and they all confirm that Ball Pythons are of the species "pythonidae" a completely separate evolutionary branch from "Boidae", it is true that some of the Pythons of Boidae are classified as being in the subspecies "pythoninae", but this group of pythons do not ever contain P.Regius (ball pythons). Ball pythons are not ever classified as Boidae or a subclass of Boidae, they are always classified as being "pythonidae" a distinct and separate class from Boidae.
I explained this in detail to out city attorney, who it so happens wrote this code years ago, which further explains his reluctance to interpret the facts correctly.
His response to me is that since some pythons are classified as Boidae, then the law should apply to all pythons, regardless of their correct classification. I am tempted to file a petition to outlaw all cats in our city based on the same logic, that since lions are not allowed then all cats should not be allowed.
This miscatagorization of Ball Pythons being Boids is a well entrenched belief among a great deal of the population, further exacerbated by just about every book ever written about Ball Pythons. I have yet to find a book about ball pythons that does not describe Ball Pythons as being Boids.
With the avalanche of opinion from public, private, and well respected breeders and experts I was beginning to have my doubts. As a last resort I wrote to Mr Roy McDiarmid, arguably the top expert on Herpetological Taxonomy in the World.
http://www.mnh.si.edu/vz/herps/herps_staff_pages/mcdiarmid-staff.cfm
http://www.pwrc.usgs.gov/staff/profiles/documents/mcdiarmid.htm
Here is a copy of my email to Roy McDiarmid
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Hello Mr McDiarmid,
My name is Mark Martinek and I breed ball pythons. I am hoping that you could help clarify what is turning out to be a rather confusing subject. I am having a difficult time verifying if P Regius is or is not to be classified as Boidae.
It is my opinion that it is in the Pythonidae family, a completely separate family from Boidae.
It is the opinion of my city that P.Regius is to be classified as being of the Boidae family, this is based on the fact that sometimes "pythonaides" are classified under the family of boidae, therefore ball pythons are Boids.
I have found that sometimes the pythons of the Boidae family are grouped into the sub class pythoninae, but I don't feel that this somehow makes a ball python a member of Boidae.
I would greatly appreciate it and am quite hoping that you could settle this confusion for me.
Sincerely,
Mark Martinek
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Here is a copy of the response from Roy McDiarmid
________________________________________________
Dear Mark,
I think I can help. The Ball Python is in the family Pythonidae. It is not in the Boidae, although some may argue that both pythons and boas are in the same family Boidae. I do not.
I hope this helps.
Roy McDiarmid
Roy W. McDiarmid
USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center
Smithsonian Institution
PO Box 37012
National Museum of Natural History
Room 378, MRC 111
Washington DC 20013-7012
_________________________________________
Since doing this research and weighing my options I have decided to obtain my animal fanciers permit and pay my fees instead of trying to fight city hall and risking unknown repercussions to my collection, but I feel it is wrong for me to be required to do so.
Perhaps this information will help others having similar difficulties.
Best Regards,
Mark
