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Exotic pets underregulated
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by Phobos on January 11, 2006
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Found this on another website...looks like the battle's on.....
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EDITORIALS
Exotic pets underregulated
Monday, January 09, 2006
Next month in Hamburg, 55 miles east of Harrisburg, "one of the largest reptile shows on the East Coast" will be held, with more than 200 vendors. Snakes, lizards, amphibians, invertebrates and rodents, and even some cages and books, will be bought and sold.
Attendees are advised to leave their pets at home and not bring any endangered, protected or native Pennsylvania species. But venomous snakes are allowed.
The exotic pet fanciers will do it again in Hamburg in June, October and December, just in time for the Christmas shopping season. Also make note that the Lancaster County Reptile Show will be held at the Lititz Community Center in March.
There will be a lot of people attending these events, including possibly some undercover folks from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, if their budget can stand it, to ensure that no endangered species are involved. The Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission might show up to make sure no native copperheads or eastern rattlesnakes are being sold.
But no one will be checking on the trade in nonnative venomous snakes and other potentially lethal "exotic pets." That's because Pennsylvania is unlike California and Massachusetts, which ban the possession of exotic animals, including lions, tigers and other large mammals, and many other states which require permits to possess exotics. Pennsylvania has nothing on the books to prevent the kid next door from going out and getting himself a pet Gabon viper or a king cobra to make life interesting for him and you.
Most of the 8,000 venomous snake bites that occur annually in the United States are caused by native snakes, but increasing numbers of people are showing up in emergency rooms with bites from exotic snakes. A local emergency room recently saw an individual with a bite from a puff adder, a large and dangerous viper native to Africa and the Arabian peninsula. Time is of the essence in treating the bites of poisonous snakes and not every hospital has the appropriate antivenin on hand.
Venomous snakes are far from "pets," as that word is commonly understood. They are dangerous animals that belong in the wilds of their native environment or in zoos, not in someone's apartment or house.
Must Pennsylvania suffer a death from an exotic reptile before the Legislature finally joins the ranks of states that recognize the danger they pose?
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RE: Exotic pets underregulated
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by MoccasinMan on January 11, 2006
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Who wrote this editorial? Where did they get the number 8,000 venomous bites per year in the US? I would like to see the source of that statistic. I believe it to be inaccurate. You were at the recent snakebite symposium Phobus... is that number correct? Even if it is, that means there is one fatality per 1,000 bites... and the vast majority of fatalities are from wild snakes, which has nothing to do with this hobby. Just more half truths blended with fear to craft anti-exotic propaganda.
Andrew
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