• Posted 12/19/2024.
    =====================

    I am still waiting on my developer to finish up on the Classifieds Control Panel so I can use it to encourage members into becoming paying members. Google Adsense has become a real burden on the viewing of this site, but honestly it is the ONLY source of income now that keeps it afloat. I tried offering disabling the ads being viewed by paying members, but apparently that is not enough incentive. Quite frankly, Google Adsense has dropped down to where it barely brings in enough daily to match even a single paid member per day. But it still gets the bills paid. But at what cost?

    So even without the classifieds control panel being complete, I believe I am going to have to disable those Google ads completely and likely disable some options here that have been free since going to the new platform. Like classified ad bumping, member name changes, and anything else I can use to encourage this site to be supported by the members instead of the Google Adsense ads.

    But there is risk involved. I will not pay out of pocket for very long during this last ditch experimental effort. If I find that the membership does not want to support this site with memberships, then I cannot support your being able to post your classified ads here for free. No, I am not intending to start charging for your posting ads here. I will just shut the site down and that will be it. I will be done with FaunaClassifieds. I certainly don't need this, and can live the rest of my life just fine without it. If I see that no one else really wants it to survive neither, then so be it. It goes away and you all can just go elsewhere to advertise your animals and merchandise.

    Not sure when this will take place, and I don't intend to give any further warning concerning the disabling of the Google Adsense. Just as there probably won't be any warning if I decide to close down this site. You will just come here and there will be some sort of message that the site is gone, and you have a nice day.

    I have been trying to make a go of this site for a very long time. And quite frankly, I am just tired of trying. I had hoped that enough people would be willing to help me help you all have a free outlet to offer your stuff for sale. But every year I see less and less people coming to this site, much less supporting it financially. That is fine. I tried. I retired the SerpenCo business about 14 years ago, so retiring out of this business completely is not that big if a step for me, nor will it be especially painful to do. When I was in Thailand, I did not check in here for three weeks. I didn't miss it even a little bit. So if you all want it to remain, it will be in your hands. I really don't care either way.

    =====================
    Some people have indicated that finding the method to contribute is rather difficult. And I have to admit, that it is not all that obvious. So to help, here is a thread to help as a quide. How to become a contributing member of FaunaClassifieds.

    And for the record, I will be shutting down the Google Adsense ads on January 1, 2025.
  • Responding to email notices you receive.
    **************************************************
    In short, DON'T! Email notices are to ONLY alert you of a reply to your private message or your ad on this site. Replying to the email just wastes your time as it goes NOWHERE, and probably pisses off the person you thought you replied to when they think you just ignored them. So instead of complaining to me about your messages not being replied to from this site via email, please READ that email notice that plainly states what you need to do in order to reply to who you are trying to converse with.

FWC Kills Captive Pythons and Boa

M

Martin Nowak

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This just sickens me. Was the owner restrained? I would have had to have been in his shoes.

If someone can get me a list of the IP addresses used by FWCC, I will ban every one of them from this site.

If there are members here who work for FWCC that anyone knows of, they will be banned as well. If I found any of them on fire, I would not even piss on them to try to put out the flames.

I used to be very pro LEO, but not any longer. :angry:
 
WebSlave said:
This just sickens me. Was the owner restrained? I would have had to have been in his shoes.

If someone can get me a list of the IP addresses used by FWCC, I will ban every one of them from this site.

If there are members here who work for FWCC that anyone knows of, they will be banned as well. If I found any of them on fire, I would not even piss on them to try to put out the flames.

I used to be very pro LEO, but not any longer. :angry:
Click to expand...

It’s definitely time the line in the sand is drawn. I feel the same way and I’m full support of this
 
I think a compelling response by reptile keepers is to send Governor DeSantis an email - polite yet expressing disgust, disdain for the FWC, and the three FWC employees in particular. Calls are good, but less so than opinions memorialized which can be retrieved in the future. I suspect that the FWC, like all state game and fish commissions, will be resistant and not do much. It seems obvious a superior to the three instructed them to destroy the snakes. They came prepared with "tools of the euthanizing trade". The boa was poorly executed and may constitute animal cruelty. If so, these men acted outside of their job description and parameters and may be personally liable without FWC protection.

DeSantis has his eye on running for president. If enough communications are sent - he cannot ignore the issue. Internet searches indicate approximately 5 million households have one or more snakes. Additional millions have lizards, tortoises, turtles, amphibians, crocodilians. Affinity support may also be available. There are 750k ferret keepers, and over 7 million bird keepers. Untold number of exotic mammal keepers. And overall, it is likely that even people who dislike snakes will be horrified at the video. Most anyone with a love for animals including traditional domestic pets will be disturbed. Anecdotally I have been informed that many people are posting the video on FB, TicToc and other online venues. The more the better. However, without communications to the governor the actions of these FWC idiots will fade. "Tomorrow is always a new news day".

As this reply is being posted, YouTube indicates the video has been viewed 39,000 times. It appears this is about 1000 times per hour since first posted. While impressive, the views are a small percentage of reptile keepers; and a very small percentage when considering all other animal keepers. To get results - views must be followed by communication to the governor.
 
WebSlave said:
I used to be very pro LEO, but not any longer.
Click to expand...

The law enforcement system itself sure seems to be fraying at the seams. There are many fine people that work in law enforcement, though.

One of the most decent people I know is a state trooper, and my wife speaks highly of the officers she interacts with professionally. We went to the wedding of one of them not long ago, he's a local cop and she is military -- they didn't have a cake, but instead served wedding donuts. No lie. :D
 
This makes me worried for any hobbyists who happen to keep any species of herp which might happen to be illegal to keep in their particular town. Many cities ban certain "dangerous" species. Many cities ban ALL species of reptile and amphibians. Of course, these laws are based on ignorance and fear, rather than fact or logic. But, many of us could face a similar situation at some point.

If you want to see something really scary, read the comments section in the various news articles about this event. Around 90% of them express sentiments such as "good riddance", "snakes should not be legal to keep as pets", "snake keepers have something wrong with them", and of course, the standard "only good snake is a dead snake".
That's how the general public feels about our hobby. One can only predict that the herp hobby will be mostly illegal, soon enough.
 
What concerns me even more is the blatant display of disrespect and empathy for living things that some members of law enforcement exhibit. The way people treat animals can usually be directly related to how they will treat other human beings as well. IMHO.
 
The comments section on that NBC video is pretty uplifting, at least as it stands right now. It would be interesting to see how the comments sections on various news outlets' stories differ (I did read those on the current Newsweek article, but Newsweek's audience is a bit hard to pinpoint so I'm not sure how to interpret).

I sometimes wonder if there's any patterns in people's thoughts about the right of others to own reptiles based on their political/social leanings. As far as I can tell there's no pattern at all, but that's likely due to the erratic shifting of the core beliefs of the political spectrum as it used to be conceived (like, in the 1980s when it sort of made sense).
 
I think one of the commentator's got it right. Human Garbage I know for a fact I would have told them they better send for back up. Pisses me off to no end.
 
Those of you familiar with Go Fund Me ....

I donated and tried to add to the comments but cn not find where to submit it and it's impossible together any help unless you're trying to set up a GFM .

Anyone here know how you add comments ?
 
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