Brandon Shuman - Knowingly attempting to purchase state protected animals

Most species of wildlife in Georgia are protected and not legal to own as pets, regardless of origin or phenotype (1).

Despite how debatable these laws are, most buyers and sellers do comply, and should rightfully be wary of those who seek to actively defy these laws. Willingly violating them, especially in a public setting, puts the entire hobby on the defensive and in a bad spot for negotiation of future law changes.

Sellers can't actively monitor all their buyers for legality, but most will do basic checks to ensure that they are not violating the law. Brandon Shuman (crazybrandon83) (2), in a classified ad on this website (3), has posted this in response to being reminded of the legality of owning the native species for which he bumped a four year old ad to inquire about:

Originally Posted by crazybrandon83

y do u care if its legal or not? i know its not legal, i also know its not legal to have a corn snake in ga, but it wont stop me! so please unless your gonna help with finding me a black hognose dont worry about what me or others who never asked u about the law have to say! matter fact what the hell are you doing in a post bout hognoses if your so damn worried about were its legal or not?

So please, sellers, be wary of this individual who knows the law, but is willing to put you and the hobby at risk regardless.

The attachment below is a screenshot of the extent of the conversation, in case the classified ad (#3 above) is removed or abbreviated.

Thanks for the heads up. As a resident of Georgia and as someone who works closely with both the game and nongame divisions of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, I appreciate this information.

The sad part is eventually,if we keep abiding by the "laws",we won't be able to keep anything!

Are you able to post the link to that thread?

http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/foru...d.php?t=281594

Only 2 posts and his rep is already going down the crapper, its a shame

Originally Posted by Occidentalis

Willingly violating them, especially in a public setting, puts the entire hobby on the defensive and in a bad spot for negotiation of future law changes.

So please, sellers, be wary of this individual who knows the law, but is willing to put you and the hobby at risk regardless.

Very well put Alex, thanks for the heads up.

The guys on fauna with the worst reputation still are out selling me and you at reptile shows because their wild caught junk is cheap. Plus the reptiles business if you want to call it that is nothing but a hole bunch of monthly flea markets.