Well, it looks like the Maryland herpers may have to take up the fight again next year. Here's a news article I found on the subject.
Apparently Jim Rapp and the Humane Society are determined to bring it up again, btu at least one of the previous sponsors said he probably wouldn't be pushing it a second time.
Exotic pet debate likely to face lawmakers again next year
SALISBURY, Md. — This alligator is almost cute, just about a foot long with wide baby eyes and a teeny jaw that looks like it could hardly manage a carrot. It's what the alligator will become in a few years — as long as a small car with a fearsome bite — that landed it with Jim Rapp.
Rapp is director of the Salisbury Zoo, where this juvenile gator was sent along with other exotic animals seized by state officials from their owners. Rapp and other animal advocates are pushing for lawmakers to tighten Maryland's rules on what animals can be kept as pets, saying the Internet and animal programs on TV have caused an explosion of people acquiring exotic animals.
"Go on the Internet and search for 'tiger cub.' You can find one to buy," Rapp said. "Some people don't want to go get a dog or a cat at the pound. They want an exotic, wild animal."
Maryland already calls some pets off-limits except to licensed handlers, including large cats, venomous snakes and the alligator, which was found in a Salisbury pet shop.
But a proposal last year in the General Assembly to expand pet laws to ban more animals, including small primates and more snakes, sputtered amid opposition from exotic animal lovers who say the government shouldn't tell people what pets they can have.
"I think that if you have the space and you have the money and you have the knowledge, then you should be able to keep what you want to keep," said Holli Friedland of Baltimore, who works with a reptile and amphibian rescue group and has opposed the exotic pet bill.
The bill, which sponsors say will be considered again next session, highlighted an animal rights divide many pet owners have never heard of. Wildlife authorities concede they have no idea how many exotic or wild animals Marylanders may be keeping as pets, and the bill brought to Annapolis dozens of exotic pet fans that lawmakers didn't know existed.
"I didn't realize there were private parties, untrained individuals, who were keeping animals who were really unreliable as a household pet," said the bill's sponsor, Delegate Pauline Menes, D-Prince George's.
Both sides are gearing up for another fight over exotic pets. The group that originally suggested the bill, the Humane Society of the United States, sent its director of captive wildlife protection to Annapolis during the interim to persuade lawmakers to pass it. At that hearing, the room was brimming with exotic animal lovers who oppose the idea.
"You cannot be messing around with things like lions, tigers, bears, primates and just hope for the best. Someone's going to hurt," said the Humane Society director, Richard Farinato, who works at a Texas sanctuary for discarded or dangerous exotic pets.
Farinato and other supporters say exotic pets could hurt their owners or escape and maul strangers. They say wild animals are improperly cared for and are sometimes mistreated in the hands of untrained owners. Bill supporters also cite the possibility of exotic pets, especially pet monkeys, spreading disease to humans.
"We don't know what the next exotic disease is that may jump from primate to human," Rapp said. Farinato said some monkeys carry hepatitis B.
He also pointed to a monkeypox outbreak in 2003 that sickened more than 70 people in the Midwest with blisters and a rash that resembles smallpox as a cause for concern. In that case, the illness was spread by prairie dogs after they were infected by imported African rodents at a pet distribution center.
To Richard Hahn, director of the Catoctin Wildlife Preserve and Zoo in Thurmont, the fears of animal attacks or disease outbreaks are exaggerated. He doesn't keep any exotic animals as pets — and as a licensed animal exhibitor, he wouldn't be affected by the bill — but he pointed out that far more people are hurt by dogs than by exotic pets.
"This is something that is much ado about nothing," Hahn said.
Opponents have also taken issue with how the pet ban would be enforced. Animals on the banned pet list could be seized without a warrant. Hahn and others have complained that animal control workers may not be trained to recognize banned animals.
"Let's say someone looks into your window and they see a cat, and they think it's a big cat, something they think is on the list. They could then break into your house and take the cat. That's not right," Hahn said.
The concerns have led to a revised bill, which includes fewer animals than the Humane Society originally hoped to ban. The proposal still includes a provision allowing for the seizure of animals, though, something Rapp said is necessary if the ban is to work.
"Somebody has to have the authority to deal with these animals," he said. "If you violate this law, an officer should be able to confiscate the animal."
Not everyone is sure a compromise can be worked out. A senator who joined the bill as a sponsor last session, Democrat Norman Stone of Baltimore County, said he's unlikely to push the measure again.
"Reaction was fairly strong," he said. "No matter what we did, nobody was satisfied on the committee" that considered the ban.
Menes warned that a wild pet is bound to injure somebody if lawmakers don't act.
"I just think that the position of the average citizen as to whether they feel comfortable with the knowledge that their neighbor now can own these exotic pets and they could be exposed to possible danger, they would want this bill," she said.
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Chuck Sasscer
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