Wayne Pacelle is a real piece of work.

Anyone who wants to end pet ownership is immediately my nemesis and bans on anything do not work. If it becomes illegal to own a reptile, I imagine a lot of them would be released into the wild. Most would not survive, but I thought the point of these bans was to prevent just that.

How did she help him? She is against any exotic bans. In her case she did those safety precautions to be sure that if something happened there was safety protocol put in place and ready to go. Sounds responsible to me. She didn't say all exotics needed this type of preparation. She spoke out against legislation that only applied to the general public. She also mentioned that the exotic animal attacks against the public are typically in the zoological facilities. The same facilities Wayne claimed should be the only ones allowed to keep animals. Once again I see nowhere where she helped HSUS's arguments. The fact they kept interrupting her I think helps to show that she was saying things that were hurting Wayne's arguments. What she said made sense. If your exotics have the potential to hurt people you should have safety protocol in place. That is just common sense. Common sense would also dictate that a cornsnake or a guppy would not need the same measure of safety that a lion or bear would.

To show why some of us are against all bans, lets look at your last few sentences. "some defined rules need to be setup for "real" dangerous animals (i.e.[,] animals capable of killing a human easily and are inclined to do so)."

Who defines these rules? The government? HSUS? The reptile keepers?
In my opinion it is the hobbyists have to govern themselves. We need to be sure we're keeping these in adequate housing. If too many idiots own exotics, then accidents rise. If that occurs legislation may seem necessary. It is our responsibility as hobbyists to protect our hobby. Don't sell potentially dangerous animals to rookies. Likewise, if you're interested in the hobby, get trained by those with more experience.

Define "easily kill"?
A German shepard can kill you. It is the same species and a chihuahua. Except possibly by choking on it, I don't see too many ways a chihuahua can easily kill. Do we make breed specific legislation? Again who decides? Or we can ban all dogs?

Inclined to do so?
What does this mean exactly? Who decides what is inclined and what is not? Many non predatory animals can kill people so it can't just be diet. Some animals may be "inclined" to defend themselves resulting in a human death, but if raised from a young age around humans the same species may be quite tolerant of human interaction. The terms are so vague that lawmakers and lobbyists can twist them as they desire.

A great example of this is look at HSUS's term exotic. They don't mean lions, tigers, and bears (oh my!). It is anything that isn't a domestic animal. But you'll notice in his panel discussion he was always careful to only mention the predatory cats, large snakes, etc. It is a common tactic in order to divide the opposition (in this case us!) in order for them to see that they are not all the same. Divided he and his cronies can get smaller legislation through that in the long run can lead to further restrictions. That is why I'm saying, HSUS, PETA, ALF, ELF, etc. see exotic keepers as all the same. For that reason we need to group together in order to fight the legislation they're pushing for. That includes other exotic pet owners that keep animals other than reptiles. We should even expand past our industry. Other groups (poultry and dairy farmers) are also being attacked by these groups. Together we'd make a much stronger force than USARK can do alone.

Originally Posted by salottimc

On that note, 0% of most reptiles kill people.

While perhaps true, it is not a helpful statistic when dealing with the general public who realize that some people ARE killed by some reptiles. I see what you are saying, but again it is the public we are dealing with and they read the sensationalized accounts in newspapers, not the much larger quantity of everyday, unremarkable interactions most keepers have with the reptiles they keep.

Originally Posted by jmugleston

one through the entire transcript and added critique and comments.

I would be interested in seeing your comments and critique, and appreciate that you took the time to do that.

I'm not sure if it is against the rules to mention another site, but I posted my commentary as notes on my Facebook page (Joey Mugleston).

I dont disagree with what you are saying, per say. I'm just trying to look at it from the uninformed public's point of view. There is a reason Wayne kept mentioning large cats and large reptiles. These are the things that scare the general public. I feel everything will get banned if we keep approaching this situation like all animals are the same. Large cats do stalk and kill humans in the wild. Boas do not. This is why I would classify a large feline as being more dangerous than a boa. You group these two things together and the uninformed public begins to see them as equally dangerous. That being said, as long as they are cared for and housed properly, they do not really pose a threat to the general public.

Originally Posted by salottimc

I dont disagree with what you are saying, per say. I'm just trying to look at it from the uninformed public's point of view. There is a reason Wayne kept mentioning large cats and large reptiles. These are the things that scare the general public. I feel everything will get banned if we keep approaching this situation like all animals are the same. Large cats do stalk and kill humans in the wild. Boas do not. This is why I would classify a large feline as being more dangerous than a boa. You group these two things together and the uninformed public begins to see them as equally dangerous. That being said, as long as they are cared for and housed properly, they do not really pose a threat to the general public.

The problem is if you divide up the hobbyists, then they are all too small to take on a larger force like HSUS. Most people don't own lions. Most don't own giant constrictors. If you allow the exotic animal keepers to be picked apart and legislation to be passed on these little groups one by one, it won't be long until the other smaller, less offensive (dangerous if you prefer) animals to be banned.
Let the general public know that when HSUS talks about exotics they're not just talking about large cats. HSUS means all non dogs and non domestic cat pets. They tried within the last decade to ban all exotics including your aquarium fish. They kept backing down until they settled on the large snakes. See the pattern. The whole industry is too large. Use creative language and be sure that when you say "exotic" you quickly mention "scary" examples like giant pythons and large cats. By doing this you create an us versus them scenario. One side is the us with small harmless pets. The "them" side is the keepers of dangerous animals. If enough people on the "us" side sit back, the legislation goes unchallenged. In contrast if we as animal keepers show that exotics are everything from your hedgehog and betta fish up to your giant constrictors and alligators, then we can show that most people are actually the "them" group that keep exotics. I cover this in greater detail in my commentary that I put on facebook.

Right now the last thing we need to do is split up the animal keepers any further. We instead need to stand together. Not just reptile keepers. We need to incorporate bird, fish, mammal, and other pet enthusiasts. It also would not be a bad idea to bring in those from other commercial ventures like dairy farmers, poultry farmers, etc. If these groups unite against a common foe, we would be much better off than sitting here debating whether a leopard gecko is as exotic as a lion. Yes one is more dangerous, but our enemy (HSUS and all their bed buddies) sees them as the same. They try to get us to split them up so we are complacent when they try to get laws passed.

Even if a law doesn't affect you directly at the time, it can have repercussions down the line. It was four species a couple weeks ago. They have made it very clear that they want more. Do you think for a moment that if all 9 were listed they'd be done?

Check out my commentary where I develop these ideas a bit more.

J.

I am fully aware of what they want. Check out Virginia house bill 1242. There is no doubt that HSUS, ASPCA and PETA disagree with pet ownership in general. They put up with dogs and cats because A) there are literally over 100,000,000 Americans who own them and B) many of these animals can no longer survive on their own. PETA has a plan to solve this. Forced spay and neutering coupled with banned breeding. This, of course, would equal no pets in a couple decades. All pet owners need to band together against these organizations. I was just illustrating how carefully orchestrated Wayne's rhetoric was. Although he sounded like an idiot to us, he probably made sense to people who know nothing about these animals.

I'll take a look at your Facebook page.

Originally Posted by salottimc

I am fully aware of what they want. Check out Virginia house bill 1242. There is no doubt that HSUS, ASPCA and PETA disagree with pet ownership in general. They put up with dogs and cats because A) there are literally over 100,000,000 Americans who own them and B) many of these animals can no longer survive on their own. PETA has a plan to solve this. Forced spay and neutering coupled with banned breeding. This, of course, would equal no pets in a couple decades. All pet owners need to band together against these organizations. I was just illustrating how carefully orchestrated Wayne's rhetoric was. Although he sounded like an idiot to us, he probably made sense to people who know nothing about these animals.

I agree with you wholeheartedly on this one. I even mentioned this in my comments when he started talking about exotic pets but he is also careful never to mention the smaller pets. I think the general public needs to be shown that exotics is everything including the reef tank at your local doctor's office. Not just the big scary cats.