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Michigan state law issues

J

John Apple

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One of the people that were busted in the 'sting' into the 'ring' of people in the 'illegal' pet trade had a western hognose confiscated in his house along with some blandings turtles and some woods. This is James that works at a pet store here in Ypsilanti.
To make a long storey short he was allowed to get back his hognose , he goes to the station to get back his snake and the 'officials' there were going to give him back his blandings because they could not care for all of the turtles, he refused and told them he wanted nothing to do with the turtles,[hmmm ,this was because they raided his house by breaking down his door ,waking him with a gun to his face, and then cuffing him naked in front of his daughter while they ransacked the house including his daughters room]
does anyone else here see these animals suffering in the 'care' these 'officials' put them in.
I think many of these animals will die for the sake of an organization trying to justify their jobs.Or be tossed in a freezer as evidence
really helping the species here aren't they???
man stupid....stupid.
 
MI Legislature, MI DNR, and MI Dept of Ag

Here is the link to the Michigan Legislature word searches work well unless you know the specific law your looking for.

http://www.michiganlegislature.org/


This for the DNR and the link for list of laws pertaining to the DNR both compiled and pending.

http://www.michigan.gov/dnr

http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,1607,7-153-10366_11861---,00.html


You need to have a license to take or possess any reptile native to the state of MI. The following are illegal to take or possess: black rat snake, eastern fox snake, copperbelly watersnake, kirtlands snake and massasauga rattlesnake.

Exotics (species not native to MI) are handle through the Dept of Agriculture

http://www.michigan.gov/mda

In a phone conversation there are laws that pertain to owning of exotics, but seem to be for lions, tigers,(nothing to do with the sports teams LOL) non native bears. Breeding may need a license depending on the distribution channels of the clutch(sales to pet shops versus sale to direct consumer) but nothing set in stone to reference.

I will post more as I can gather some information.
 
John, its disgusting isnt it? We personally know a few people that got raided also. We had the joy of finding out what was going on when one of our friends came up to us at our wedding on the 28th to tell us why some long time friends of ours weren't going to be there. I think they were looking at us for a while also. We had some guy that kept calling trying to sell us native animals, claimed he could get "whatever we wanted". Every time he called we'd spout off the Michigan laws about natives. I wonder now if he was one of the agents. The whole thing just makes me angry.


Kara Polhamus
Boasnsuch.com
 
calls

A lot of people I know had those same 'calls' from trappers and people saying they could 'get anything you wanted'.....does that spell entrapment????....yeah ..all in the name of species protection...how well are those animals now??, what is the care like??are they being re-introduced??? are they getting sufficient full spectrum light???good diet???...I would bet not
I for one would like to see some proof...alas that is something that will not happen

p.s. congrats on the 28th
 
From what I have heard:

Sting - an undercover agent offers you something, tells you it is illegal, and you buy it anyway.

Entrapment - an undercover agent offers you something, tells you it is legal, and you buy it under that misleading advice.

This is, of course, not legal advice. Lawyers could argue about these definitions until our ears would bleed.
 
I would also think that not making any alegations as to the legality or illegality of any particular animal would be allowable. If they offer you something and don't tell you one way or the other if it is legal, then you shouldn't be upset at them when they turn out to be illegal and you are busted.

On the other hand, like Rich said, if they tell you they are legal and you buy based on that advice, I would think that would be entrapment and not allowable.

Simply telling you that they can get you anything you want is not entrapment.

I think this is where phone conversations are tricky. Someone calls you and offers you some protected animals. They tell you they are all legal and they have documentation. You agree based on this info, they send you the animals without the documentation (regardless if they had it or not) then they bust you for receiving illegal/undocumented animals. If you didn't record the conversation you are SOL because even if they did, you can be sure that the part about them being legal will be edited out.

Steve Schindler
 
John,
Last I heard, a lot of those animals were being carted to Rochester Hills Humane Society. Little birdy told me. :)
Anyway, I can imagine with all the different kinds of animals that were confiscated from GOOD homes are being taken care of now.
And just where are they going to intoduce these animals back into the wild when some of the animals were not even from this country. Just a shame!!!
 
Hmmmm

Was that the same Humane Society that adopted all the animals out withen 48 hours....some really high end stuff. and was this MCI's stuff, and were all his animals taken because of a city ordinance???
 
I don't know about the adopting out part, but high end stuff and city ordinances sound really familiar.
I still find it incredible what they did to these people.
 
MI Senate Bill 228

I recently became aware of Senate Bill 228 amending the Animal Industry Act (1988)

I found Section 31 to be relevant. Here is a link to the bill in txt format.

http://www.michiganlegislature.org/documents/2003-2004/billintroduced/senate/htm/2003-SIB-0228.htm

Currently the bill is in committee where it will hopefully be pigeon-holed. Its sponsors are Senators Sanborn (District 11), Hammerstrom (District 17), Birkholz (District 24), Jacobs (District 14), Goshka (District 32), Cropsey (District 33), and Sikkema (District 28). I'm on the south side of GR, and I'll be moving to ypsi for the fall, so none of my representatives are involved in supporting this bill. However I plan on sending letters to each of the senators supporting the bill to let them know exactly how I feel about it.

The Committee bill 228 was referred to was Natural Resources & Environmental Affairs, Chaired by Senator Birkholz, vice-chaired by Patterson, Van Woerkom, Brater, and Basham are also on the committee.

Please, watch this bill carefully and don't let it get out of committee. We can exercise our power as voters and let our senators know that this bill doesn't have the support of their constituents. Thanks for readin the long thread.

-Whitney Scott
 
I have read over the contents of this bill proposal and do not see why you would be so concerned about it as it applies mainly to quarantine proceedures and health certificates needed for species that may spread disease to wild or farmed populations. The intention here is to prevent mad cow disease and other things of that nature that have been current issues 15 miles from here in Canada. Evan
 
I agree

I have to agree with Evan here, have read the bill and dont see anything that could cause potential problems. We probably need to keep an I eye on it to be sure nothing is attached if it should move to the floor.
 
County by county, township by township

The information regarding hots is precarious at best here in Michigan. Is there a website that tells someone in Michigan whether or not there is a local ordanance addressing exotics?
 
Just look at how they do bussiness with domesticated animals...Simple resale and i bet you a lot of unwanted animals get slaughtered not as advertised....Heck they cold be shipped to china....This whole thing of "non profit organizations" is baloney as they simply divide the money with the city and get some from the innocent animal loving peoples as well...
 

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I have looked; have not been able to find any such site. Please post it if anyone knows of one.

Actually, this forum would be a great place for readers to compile what they know about local Michigan ordnances. If enough contribute, we can do it right here!

You need to consider: County Laws
Township Ordinances
City Ordinances

Here's a site which contains a lot of info, but it takes a little searching and navigating to find the info. that we are looking for.

http://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/michloc.html


I do not have the time to do all this research, but if a lot of us contributed,
it could be done quickly and easily. So, in order to get the ball rolling, here's what I know for sure:

CITIES of Ann Arbor, Lansing , Detroit all ban hots. No gray area here.

Clinton County prohibits "dangerous exotic animals which would cause a reasonable person to be fearful"...bla. Does not specifically say anything about reptiles, but it might be hard to argue that a cobra, for example, does not fall into this category.

One county down, 81 to go. Not to mention the cities and townships.

One last word: please don't call your local gov't agency and start asking questions like, "Am I allowed to have a diamondback rattlesnake?". The less such things are brought to their attention, the better, especially if there are no laws against hots in your area. Try to find out using the web, library, your lawyer, etc..

I really hope this will turn out to be a good resource for hot keeping Michiganders. Knowledge is Power!
 
Michigan Reptile Laws

Here's some info I have copied directly from the Michigan Reptile Show website. It talks about reptile laws for some communities in the Motor City area:

In Monroe country the law states that all exotic animals must be registered

with the county.

If you go by the letter of the law this would mean any animal not native

would need to be register .this would include all dogs ,cats, fish, birds,

reptiles, amphibians, spiders, hamsters, ferrets ect. all these are not

native animals unless they were born to the USA . But the animal control officer

seems to think this only means reptiles need to be registered.

A clear case of a law that need to be rewritten.



In Berkley MI the law says

you can have three dogs or cats in any combination . You may not have

fowl. you may have any other animal considered to be a pet .

If you read the law for what it is any animal considered to be a pet

could be anything horse, cow, elephant, python. but in the eyes

of one officer he thought this meant that reptiles were not allowed.

and that birds were allowed except chickens.

A clear case of someone misinterpreting the law .

(I am personally working on this one my self)

Clear laws

Some laws are very clear but still people break law.

As was the case of the canton man bitten by a venomous snake.

I looked up the law my self it says no venomous animals

no means no and venomous means venomous.

CONCLUSION

The laws are different from city to city and from state to state.

please check the laws where you live and if you don't like

the law do something about it. If no one speaks up nothing will

change and someone somewhere will have trouble. The media

only wants to talk about who broke the law.

Be a responsible pet owner and they won't have anything to talk

about. No your laws and your rights. in a perfect world the

law would be written without ignorance and misinformation

and all people would be responsible pet owners. face it in

most cases laws were written because someone pissed

someone else off.
 
Evan, do you have some links to the news stories you mentioned in the other forum? I would be interested in reading them; did not hear about the recent death. Thanks, Ritchie
 
If you read the part right at the end, it talks about "toxicological" stuff, and it says that any "exotic" animal imported into the state must be vet inspected (with papers), and housing etc, approved by the "director".

Now I agree that this bill is mainly intended to curb livestock diseases, but it could easily be used to hassle herp owners. But we all know that would never happen...
 
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