Orange Beach, Alabama Prohibits "Poisonous" Snakes and Pythons

Orange Beach, Alabama now prohibits bringing "poisonous" snakes, pythons, and other "exotic" animals to the beach. Comments by the Alabama game and fish (ADCNR) included. Of course Alabama does virtually nothing about invasive animals including coyote, pigs, armadillo, house cats, feral house cats, etc. - other than open hunting on all but the cats. The ADCNR will not respond to the most recent science (posted in this Forum) that Burmese pythons could not survive in Alabama. And for example, the ADCNR does nothing about the non-native poultry industry wreaking havoc on the environment and waterways. Many other examples of ADCNR sanctioned non-native animal releases exist - for another discussion. The Orange Beach City Council noted in the article that no incident prompted the regulation.

In any event - don't bring your "poisonous" snakes and pythons to Orange Beach, Alabama!

https://www.al.com/news/2023/09/snak...nge-beach.html

Sounds like a big problem:

“We get people who want to bring really weird stuff down here, whether it’s a monkey, a (wild) cat, or sometimes a big snake,” Orange Beach Mayor Tony Kennon told AL.com this week. “That’s the last thing we need is a monkey creating a problem. But we have requests all the time.”

Y'know, here in Wisconsin we don't have a state law against big cats (you've heard this, right? Common enough for these sorts of stories to point this out, and indeed such a link is in the news article). There are people bringing tigers and cheetahs to the beach all the time here. They crap in the sand, steal people's picnics, roar over people's music, destroy beach toys -- big pain. I can understand how bad it is in Alabama.

Or maybe not:

"Kay Maghan, spokesperson with Gulf Shores & Orange Beach Tourism said she was unaware of anyone wanting to bring any animal other than their pet dogs and cats to the Alabama beaches.

Joel Hamilton, executive director of the Alabama Gulf Coast Zoo in Gulf Shores, also said he was unaware of any issues."

But I suppose Mayor Kennon understands the situation in his own town clearly. Oh, wait...

"Kennon [...] said he doesn’t suspect any of the city’s 8,400 or so residents own an exotic pet that might be prohibited from the city’s ordinance."

Yeah, no, he's clueless.