Except that she had a bad case of... oh, too obvious. Why did I even bother?

What?? I thought you loved spiders! and I don't mean with barbecue sauce, either.

-- Sat Feb 19, 2011 12:53 pm --



What? I don't get this one.

Thankfully!

Though apparently Marlene Dietrich did. Frequently.

And you shuddered at MY earlier joke?

I am fickle, my precious stalk... err... girlfriend.

That is not a spider! It is a giant crab! I reserve the right to shudder at gigantic crustaceans that would and could eat me if they chose.

Wolfie does not want crabs...

Hey! We can do the last few posts all over again!!

Who does?

After what they did to Amelia, I can't imagine too many people do.

A lot has been happening about snakes in the US lately.

As you all know, a few months ago a guy in Ohio who ran a private wildlife refuge killed himself in Zanesville and shortly after all of his exotic animals [tigers, bears, lions etc] got out [none of which were reptiles]. Whether he intentionally released them, or someone else did, is in question. Despite knowing where the keys to the enclosures were, every one of them had been painstakingly cut open with hand tools. We know that militant animal rights groups had been putting him under surveillance for years, so it's possible that one of them took advantage of the situation to intentionally cause the mass-release, knowing it would be useful to attack exotic animal ownership in the US.

Since then;

The Department of Interior wanted to ban 9 of the most popular snakes kept as pets. Officially the reason for this was because of FL's problem with Pythons in the everglades. The state of FL has argued that the snakes will eventually take over the southern third of the lower 48, and will eventually take over half the country due to global warming. This theory has been debunked several times [Among the snakes they want to ban are boas, but boas live naturally in Mexico and have never extended their range into the southern United States. You won't even find them at the boarder]. Congress has taken up the issue every year for something like 4 years now, and every time the proposal has been shot down. The Obama Admin got around this in early January by letting the DOI add the snakes to the LACEY Act as an administrative rule. It did not go through congress. It was never voted on. Legally they can do this, as long as the interstate commerce involving the LACEY Act additions amounts to less than 100-million dollars. Since banning 9 species would be way higher than that amount, they cut the ban down to 4 with the intention of banning more on a later date. Special interest groups supporting this interstate & importation ban were groups like "Born Free" which is against all animal captivity, and HSUS [the unofficial political lobbyist arm of PETA]. What this means for owners is, you cannot take your banned pet across state lines. If you have to move it would be a federal felony to take it with you. So your legal options are to find someone to take it in [most shelters won't touch reptiles], or kill it. The rule is in effect at the end of next month IIRC.

Then, almost simultaneously Rhode Island, Ohio, Illinois, West Virginia, Virginia, and a couple other states proposed state-wide bans of pet snakes. These bans were more broad than the federal ban, because they either are going after all "pythons & boas" or "all constricting snakes." [Most our native snakes are constricting snakes- like corns, garters, etc]. Illinois is considering allowing existing pets to stay in captivity, but to do this you'd need to get a license @$250 per year per pet plus you'd have to carry a $100,000 insurance policy against your pet biting or killing someone. No such insurance policies exist, so you're being required to buy a product that doesn't exist. Even if it did exist, it would be cost prohibitive to purchase; this is intentional to try to force people to give up their pets while making it look like they're not forcing anyone to do so. The other states' proposals literally amount to criminalizing snakes in captivity, with the state going around to people's houses to forcefully confiscate the "contraband" without compensation, and then put them down inhumanely. They're "kill them all" bills. The timing of this was all orchestrated by the animal rights groups like the HSUS to follow the federal ban so that people with the 4 federally banned species will be "trapped" in their current state of residence, and not be able to move away from their state once it rolls out a criminalization law. If you own a burmese in Rhode Island, you literally have two months to move out before LACEY kicks in. If you can't move out in that time, you're stuck in a state that wants to take your pet & kill it. Meanwhile "Born Free" has been writing articles for the media [like yahoonews] to talk about all the states where you can own a pet gator to try to scare the people into supporting these bills.

Unlike the federal ban, which was based on regional support [from both Republicans and Democrats in places like FL] these state bills are almost exclusively being supported by Democrats.

I think that makes sence. I remember a case were a really toxic little snake escaped in a six familiy house. It couldn't be found any more and all the people had to leave the house. After weeks or even month experts found that little snake. They had to damage big parts of the house in order to find it before. So the costs where sth. about half a million dollars and the young man probably won't be able to carry the interest. So who shall pay for? The tax payer? If there is no insurance for cases like this, there is only one reason. The risk can't be calculated. So the neighborhood got to carry an incalculatable risk.

A few days before I saw a report about snakes in Florida. A father called the police, because his snake had strangled his three month old baby. That aninmal just did its job. Kill something and eat it. I think predators who are not domesticated since thousand of years, like dogs and cats shouldn't be kept as pets. It's against their nature and they are a danger for all the people in the neighborhood if they escape. Some always do escape.

It makes sense when we're talking about pets that have the capacity to cause harm. Like pitbulls, the really big species of snake, venomous species, etc.

But making someone with a corn snake that's incapable of posing any real harm to a human buy $100 grand in insurance coverage makes about as much sense as requiring goldfish owners to get a $100 grand policy because "some people keep sharks & parianahs." That's ten times the amount of insurance you need on your car!

Your car is also more likely to hurt more people when you're being negligent. Even the most vicious dogs at most will kill two people in one incident. But with a car you could kill 8 people at once. I don't think a single state in the US requires a hundred grand in car insurance.

That's no problem, if they just eat insects or mices I would not call them predators.