Reptile & Amphibian Forums

One way we might put a stop to all these STATE MONOPOLY LAWS on venomous reptiles would be to consider the Libertarian Party when the next election time rolls around. (They are NOT bans and we should quit playing the anti herper game of calling them such. They are laws to create STATE ONLY MONOPOLIES on the right to keep herps.) As opposed to the two major political parties who only believe in the sliver of the Constitutional freedom that concerns their particular power block constituancies and throw away the rest, Libertarians believe that ALL rights and freedoms must be upheld even those that individual Libertarians may not approve of (like keeping hot reptiles).

Yeah good luck with that idea. Remember that two parties dominate the elections (republican and democrat) with republicans-regretfully-gaining more control as of recent. You guys and your community make up maybe 1 percent of the total population-not enough for a third party to be even considered a threat to the dominant two.

At last if only we were all indepedents-like me.

"Resistance is futile!"

Does that about sum up your philosophy?

I don't think it is futile, however, the reality is, a libertarian will most likely never win an election. So, we must work w/in the confines of a republican/democratic society and see if we can make some headway into protecting our rights (and hopefully reversing some of the decisions by other states...that in itself is almost a futile task). To be honest though, it is really difficult to try to convince any policital power to be about why its important to not pass bans on venomous herps when all they have to do is look at a few of the press clippings of highly publicized snake bite cases and see the utter disregard by these owners to keep their venomous herps responsibly. If I were in their shoes, I would most likely do the same to cover my political butt. Instead, we need to take a much different approach to protecting our rights; one that will require out of the box visionary thinking and hopefully, the backing of several powerful political folks who just might be willing to propose an alternative to simply banning herps. If we could come up with a permit system in which the states would not have to pay any money to manage (nor use staff time) I think you could be on to something but how this could be done is something I haven't given much thought. We are dealing with a snowball effect as one state after another passes laws restricting our rights to own herps and we must figure it out quickly before all of our rights are gone for good (and force everyone to go underground; what a shame that would be). But, I am staying optimistic and feel that something good will happen...we can only hope. I am all in favor of a VERY STRICT permitting process; one in which most people would have a hard time obtaining unless they met very specific and stringent regulations. This would eliminate the many problems we encounter with irresponsible keepers who have no business keeping hots (and like I said, that would include many on this forum). I have my personal feelings that I will keep silent for now (although I have expressed them in the past) but NO MINOR, no matter how experienced/responsible/etc, should keep venomous herps...there's one regulation I would recommend and I have many more recommendations.

Rob Carmichael, Curator
The Wildlife Discovery Center

Rob Carmichael, Curator
The Wildlife Discovery Center
Lake Forest, IL

>>"Resistance is futile!"
>>
>>Does that about sum up your philosophy?
-----
Rob Carmichael, Curator
The Wildlife Discovery Center at Elawa Farm
Lake Forest, IL

perhaps we might be able to think of a way to make them feel as if using their employees and such could be beneficial. All costs should come out of the prospecting owners' pocket and not the state, so therefore that would be ONE issue resolved. On the other portion, let's say that they dont even need to use thier staff. Perhaps, if we can find somebody or a group of individuals nation-wide, that might be interested in trained prospecting hot herp owners, then all of that can come out of pocket for us and the state will have nothing to do with it.

From the trainer, after all training is completed and passed, then they can issue a release form of some sort, that we can take to the DNR's office and get a permit for keeping the hots.

You should have to have a special permit as a hot breeder, etc.

Lastly, they may be interested (depending on the state), in sending someone out every 6 months or something like that to check your collection, caging, etc.

I dont see personally how my state would have a problem with that, seeing as how are current laws for native ANYTHING is...

1.) The animal must be PIT tagged
2.) Registered with the state for 25 dollars a year
3.) A DNR officer must come and inspect the collection and verify that you still have the same animals, every so often (not quite sure the time-frame however, as I donot keep native species of reptiles).

If they are willing to go to these lengths, perhaps they wouldnt mind going a little further providing they got a little extra money in their pockets.

Just a thought.

Chris

All out bans cost money, probably alot more than we think. A permit system may be able to make some money. That is one angle to play it. It has to cost enough to offset the costs of inspections, enforcement, documentation, administration etc. But it could be done, and it could financially benefit governments instead of the high price to tax payers of an all out ban.

Hey I'm just pointing out an unfortunate fact about our government.

Hot keepers are a very small minority, with the majority of people hating snakes - if you want an indication of this just come up to the black hills of south dakota and look for redbellies with me. In fact just today i talked to a fisherman who after i told him what i was doing remarked "the only kind of two kinds of snakes i know is a live one and a dead one". Try fighting that attitude, the politicians will side with a majority opinion just to get votes.

I'm all for a permit system-I'd like to maybe own a copperhead or a pigmy rattle snake one day but it doesn't look like that is gonna happen with the way the states are going. And with the costs involved with keeping a animal like this it would just be cheaper to drive down to an area and field herp for them.

At least the politicians can't outlaw field herping-thank god for that.

Don't bet on it. Field herping can be easily banned by merely declaring some species THAT CAN JUST BE A BUG AND NOT A HERP "endangered" under the ESA and barring humans from it's "critical habitat".

If we want to save any herping rights you guys are going to have to develop a spine like us gun people did during the Kennedy and King assassinations when polls were showing 80 percent favorable ratings
for handgun bans.

Don't bet on it. Field herping can be easily banned by merely declaring some species THAT CAN JUST BE A BUG AND NOT A HERP "endangered" under the ESA and barring humans from it's "critical habitat".

If we want to save any herping rights you guys are going to have to develop a spine like us gun people did during the Kennedy and King assassinations when polls were showing 80 percent favorable ratings
for handgun bans.

What does "That can just be a bug and not a herp" mean? And they won't outlaw field herping, what are they going to do make all public land off limits? If that happens alot of fishermen, hikers, mountain bikers, hunters, campers, etc (outdoor enthusiasts) will be royally pissed. Field herping is impossible to outlaw without pissing off ALOT of people. Enough said.

Where did you get that 80% statistic or is it just a number you made up? Just wondering.

Actually I got that statistic from the "gun control" related Gallup and Herris polls of that period. (Zogby was not around at that time.) This effect of the Kennedy and King assassinations
on "gun control" polls generally lasted from 1968 to 1970. Because the National Rifle Association started putting out effective counter propaganda when the threat was at its highest these poll numbers in favor of banning or highly restrictive (must show need) permits for handgun ownership started going down after 1970.

Basically we have to follow the example the NRA set in the 1968 to 1970 period if we want to keep our herping rights (including field herping).

1. We should put out newspaper and "letter to the editor" type stories showing the positive aspects of herp keeping. (with hots we can emphisize the new pharmicuticals that might come as a result of studies of venoms by "amateurs" as well as PHDed professionals. Also emphisize that people who keep wild animals of all types RESPONSIBLY do tend to be more environmentally and animal welfare consious than those who never have exposure to them and want to "ban them" out of fear. Point out that such a ban would neccessitate euthanasia of confiscated animals something that goes against both the animal welfare and animal rights philosophies.

2. Emphisize the unenforcability of outright prohibitions ON ANYTHING using the Christian Fundamentalist experement with alchohol prphibition in the 1920s as your model. This prohibition even though it was a part of our Constitution while it was in force was basically killed by a process of jury hanging called "Jury Nullification" in Libertarian, Constitutionalist and PaleoConservative circles. What happened was that most basic possession and basic drinking cases wound up in one hung jury after another after another throughout the period. Therefore we wound up with the alchohol laws we shoud have had in the first place (drinking age limit of 21 years and graded licenses and permits for selling and/or publicly serving alcholic beverages) because even the anti booze crowd was getting tired of paying tax after tax after tax for all those hung jury trials. The gun people in 1968 through 1970 showed that handgun bans could result in the same "hung jury" problems as alchohol prohibition did (mainly in PaleoConservative and Libertarian literature rather than directly in gun literature.) and were very successful with this counter propaganda line.

3. Yet a third method of dealing with anti herpers I heard about recently on a Constitutionalist/Libertarian forum I also post to (again dealing with the gun issue rather than the herp issue) would be to "out" any acts of moral terpetude and/or scandal on the part of anti herp keeping politicians, zoo administrators or other such ban sponsors and force them to have to devote more time defending their "reputations" than making anti herp laws in the first place. (Anyone seeking power over people by banning ANYTHING probably has a skeleton closet that would put a horror movie to shame.)

So here are three ways we can deal with the anti herpers that are completely non violent IF we have the spine to use them.

" Point out that such a ban would neccessitate euthanasia of confiscated animals something that goes against both the animal welfare and animal rights philosophies."

I dont see that working, simply because "animal rights" activists would much rather see an animal dead than in a cage. Simply put.

Another problem with this is that the ban danger could extend to ALL advanced snakes including popular "colubrids" such as kings, corns and pine/bull/gophers thanks to recent venom studies with them. It may well turn out that there are NO NON HOTS in any of the advanced snake catagories, just hots with innefficient delivery systems that make them appear non hot. I've heard on some of the more recent "colubrid" venom studies about the possibility of "three fingered" nurotoxins exactly like those of cobras, mambas, and taipans found in North American racers and whipsnakes as a forinstance.

There is no doubt you are making refference to Dr. Fry's work but the kings, rats, bulls, etc. have been found to only be secreting a mucus and not the efficient toxins which make up a venom. Yes, there are colubrids with three finger toxins but common snese and the research itself shows how most these snakes are harmless to humans. While we could call many more colubrids than we thought "venomous," it would be a stretch to call them "hot"

I'm not talking about what bonefide scientists and private herpetoculturists would do with this research. I'm talking about what POLITICIANS AND THEIR CORPORATE SPONSORS would do with it.

Generally politicians and their sponsors fit into two catagories

The first catagory is "One World" elitists who are outright traitors to their countries of origin. This catigory will propose and pass ANY legislation that enhances their control over money and power over people including anti herp laws. They would also surely start using these new venom studies to scare the populations where hot bans are being considered to add popular "colubrids" to them by putting this new material out over their controlled media into the minds of ignorant "sheeple" in a highly sensationalistic manner just as they do with all their other "crisis management" power schemes.

The other catagory are the simply ignorant. Politicians and sponsors in this catagory will simply not understand that these venom studies are mainly for looking into the general evolution of the advanced snakes and not to say that "colubrids" are now dangerous when the propaganda from "catagory 1" comes flooding fourth. They will fall for the coming propaganda from "catagory 1" and vote for "colubrid" bans as well as hot bans.