Any idea what caused this?
Any idea what caused this?
I'm not a WV resident, so this topic really doesn't affect me directly. But reading over the posts, I've had some observations (which I hope are totally dispassionate, neutral, and perhaps helpful).
If you are a registered voter in the state of WV, it may be a very good idea to contact your legislators with the proposal that a comprehensive list of "pet trade" animals that will absoutely NOT be subject to regulation by the board need to be clearly defined within the law.
Reading between the lines of the actual wording of the proposed legislation (SB384 and HB2774), it seems that the goal of this law is to ban "dangerous" animals that affect public health and safety on a case-by-case basis. Therefore, if it were defined that certain animals were generally recognized as safe, then that would clear things up considerably.
They say a "Dangerous animal means a lion, tiger, leopard, ocelot, jaguar, cheetah, margay, mountain lion, lynx, bobcat, jaguarondi, bear, hyena, wolf, coyote or any poisonous or life-threatening reptile and includes any species, subspecies or crossbreeds of any of those animals". So why not define a list of animals that are not subject to regulation by the board?
The flyers really look like a complete and total joke to me, just the kind of thing that will cause the legislators to receive a lot of nutso emails from concerned hamster owners, and ultimately be strongly counterproductive. Opponents to ANY regulation often spread rumors, fear, and completely illogical assertions. That certainly looks to be the case here.
If you examined every state law within the lower 48 United States (Hawaii is extremely restrictive to any incoming animal - even dogs & cats), do you think that there is one on the books forbidding ownership of hamsters, goldfish, and parakeets? Does anyone honestly think West Virginia is going to be the first? Puhleeeeze give me a break.
However, if I owned a pet store in WV, I'd be totally sweating profusely over this. Any new government regulatory board overseeing my business would be an extremely uncomfortable proposition at the very best. Even though the law seems pretty lengthy if you read it, the wording is extremely vague in my opinion. Potential red tape and oversight without any clearly defined limits wouldn't warm anyones heart. Another reason to get a list of "pet trade" animals (especially birds) clearly defined BEFORE vaguely worded nonsense gets on the books.
BTW - people with pet birds have some well founded concerns. It is my understanding that for many decades (from WW2 until the 1970's) parrots were generally unavailable for US import due to concerns over Parrot Fever (psittacosis/chlamydiosis). Of course this disease can be treated, and is no longer as feared it once was, but is still with us (probably hundreds of human cases a year - if I worked with birds I'd certainly take a lot of precautions and inform my physician). But many other animals catch this disease including cats, cattle, sheep, mice, goats, and dogs. It is such a common disease of cats and sheep, that there are vaccines available for these animals. Unfortunately there is no vaccine for birds or humans.
I'd be very interested to know what incident kicked this whole shebang off. Does anyone know? It has to be SOMETHING - because.....
#1 = It is likely safe to say that most legislators (both on the state and federal level) are lawyers. So anything newfangled that crops up within the legal system just has to be regulated!
#2 = While some laws have a public name that is part of popular culture (like Megan's law for example - requiring sex offenders to register) virtually all government regulations can be traced back to a specific incident that spawns their genesis.
I guess I'm saying that all it takes to spawn a new law is for someone to buy a lionfish at Jomars, get stung while cleaning their tank, almost certainly have a reaction requring medical examination, and then go to an attorney and seek compensation for their ER/doctor visit. At that point your concerned legislator that wants to save us from ourselves (probably the attorney or partner in the law firm that represented the guy that was stung - and probably lost the case due to a common sense judge that threw it out) puts pen to paper and writes the "lionfish law".
I don't think anyone here owns a Hyena, or thinks it would be an especially good idea for someone without a professional facility to do so. But if this law passes, all it will take is for "the animal regulation board" to hear about an isolated incident like the hypothetical one described above to pull out the pen and ban lionfish ownership in WV.
One great way to ensure that doesn't happen is to see that all saltwater organisms are on the "exempt animal list" of SB384.
Again, just some thoughts, and I'm glad that I don't live in WV.
