A DARN ugly MESS

with Kansas Wildlife and maybe your state also ! How many of you live in a state that doesn't have a competent way to view any laws concerning reptiles or proposals of reptile laws ? When you try the state wildlife links including legislative updates, no reptile info. When you try to search for information on numerous links, the same thing. When you try a state agency office, you get either " DUH " or something similar. When you try to find out if a meeting was held on a given date ( on the date of other people alerting you to it ), again absolutely no info that I could find on if it was held or if anything had passed, voted or worked on. As I may of said before, it's like this state has hidden agendas when it comes to reptiles on the wildlife department.

That is exactly how my state (PA) is. They have some state laws on their websites, but when you try to find your local ones, there are none listed. But when you call local authorities around here, no one knows anything!

Problems with game and fish abound across the country...california and arizona have extrememly harsh laws regarding reptile keeping and culture, and err on the side of "if we don't know the answer, it must be illegal".

Maybe the herp market is so small in the scheme of things, that it falls beneath their radar...I know that our local wildlife agents are more interested in finding poachers of sheep, etc, than in dealing with the reptile trade.

It is a mixed blessing that we have the opportunity to police our own ranks...a niche that the boi has filled well.

greg