I'm sure many of you heard about the unfortunate issue of the Dayton, OH figherfighter who was killed by his Rhino viper. Since then, the "ban everything" angry mob is again rearing it's ugly head in Ohio.
Currently, I am trying to help the Miami Valley HS deal with proposed legislation in Dayton.
We feel that this is probably right around the corner for Cincinnati as well.
The city of Dayton was trying to pass a generic “ban all exotics” law. This week, the Miami Valley HS was successful in getting a postponement. The ordinance will be re-written with some input from “herp-people”
I will be going to help these folks put together a proposal that at least MOST folks can live with and that will (hopefully) be acceptable to the Dayton City Council.
I will be using the ordinance that is in currently in effect in Cleveland, as well as the state wide laws governing herps and exotics in Florida for some ideas.
If you folks know of other cities / states that have effective laws / ordinances in effect that we may be able to use as guides please let me know.
The February meeting of the Greater Cincinnati Herpetological Society will be dedicated to discussing ideas to combat unfair legislation.
WE WOULD LIKE YOU TO ATTEND IF YOU CAN!
The meeting will be on Wed., February 11th at 7:30 PM, at Northern Kentucky University, "old science" building, rm 521. See www.cincyherps.com for directions and maps.
It's just a matter of time before these issues come to YOUR CITY and we should all think about standing united to create something we can all live with.
Many of us are under the belief that no laws at all are best...but I am beginning to believe that if we do not get proactive, we are all going to eventually have nasty, "ban-everything" ordinances shoved down our throats.
City council folks tend to have "emergency" meetings when something like a venomous bite that gets publicised happens, and they can have something on the books before you even know what happened.
We need to stand united...Numbers talk.
