FaunaClassifieds - View Single Post - "Strange lizard" in Florida
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Old 03-06-2009, 02:18 PM   #10
Seamus Haley
Quote:
Originally Posted by varnyard View Post
I am being told that the dangerous animal has been sent to a reptile park in Ocala.
Good.

What I think is a lot less good is the tone that has arisen where people seemed willing to assume the worst and attack Florida's Fish and Wildlife officers.

The LEOs down there who deal with wildlife issues face one of the roughest situations in the world and they do a damn fine job under the circumstances. A climate that makes many invasive species flourish, a delicately balanced natural ecosystem that's having problems due to development, industry and invasive species, one of the highest concentrations of imports from tropical areas in the country (for both animal imports and stowaways with other products)- the sheer number of random, loose animals they deal with is staggeringly large.

This is not a situation where there are a few of these abandoned or invasive reptiles found per year. They find them daily and are forced to figure out a way of dealing with them all. They have one of the better budgets in the country- and better trained and equipped officers, but the simple fact of the matter is that there isn't enough money allocated to their efforts to deal with every invasive animal in a warm cuddly manner.

It's great that this animal was placed with a reptile park. I have no doubts that an attempt to place it would have been made anyway, with phone calls sent out to those who have made it know that they're receptive to reptile rescue efforts. I have some doubts that it would have been accepted as quickly and easily if it hadn't been on the local news- but that may just be my own cynicism shining through. As great as it is that it was placed though, if it had been euthanized, then it would have been because there was no other option and a quick, humane death was a better choice than letting it starve because there was no cash allocated to feeding it. It would not have been because of some local news report that got the species wrong and called it dangerous.

The Fish and Wildlife officers in Florida should be the recipients of your support and admiration, not your condemnation and scorn. They do an amazing job given the ever increasing problems they're faced with.