Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I am being forced to go on a high school field trip to the NY state capital in Albany to ask our representatives questions. I'm not sure who my class will be talking to, but chances are its somebody who voted FOR the ban! Obviously I already have quite a few questions to ask regarding the NYS ban. This won't get us anywhere, but if I have to be there, I'm going to pester them.

If anyone has some really good questions I could use to stump them with, I would really appreciate it. I am also wondering if anybody knows where I could find the number of deaths by snakebite, and asphyxiation by captive snakes in NYS or the entire country... maybe within the last 50 years or more. I already know the number is really low, but I'd like to have some hard data to show them. Thanks

- KE

how many people die each year in the state at the hands of other people, from cars, dogs, cigarettes, choking on lifesavers etc.

I don't really have much in the way of ideas for good questions to ask as I'm not very familiar with the NY situation. However, I would suggest to you that it may not be a great idea to be an annoyance to whomever you speak with while you are there. True, you may be upset about the ban. But, it was a slight annoyance, afterall, that begot the ban in the first place. I would, rather than being antagonistic, try to ask constructive, logical, forthright questions without being aggressive or demeaning. This will probably get you leaps and bounds farther. Otherwise, you never know, you may only help to push the problem farther ahead. Good luck to you, and I hope you are able to formulate some constructive, rather than destructive, questions.
-Chance
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Chance Duncan
http://www.rivervalleysnakes.com

Oh I am not by nature the kind of person who will be unreasonably rude and obnoxious. I simply have no intention of being there and NOT asking some serious questions, that I know they will not have any good answers to.

- KE

Since the government sided with the HSUS on the whole "salmonella" fiasco, ask them what they are doing to keep the number of cases of salmonella down in our public school systems, especially since that number of documented cases exceeds the numbers caused by reptiles. Then ask them if they are planning on shutting down those schools like they are shutting down a large majority of the other ones in NY state because of lack of funds. Then ask them where the money from the Lottery is going that is supposed to be going into our schools and highways. Then ask them what they are doing to control the illegal gun population, the drugs, the potholes, the taxes, the amount of businesses that are leaving NY because of the high energy costs and taxes. Then ask them, since the HSUS is a non-profit orgainization, why the top dogs are making well over six figures a year, and ask them if they get taxed like the rest of us. Then ask them where priorities and the voice of the people went. Not that it matters, the bill was apparently signed.
Sorry, it's just a rant.