Amendments to the Lacey Act

[Aaron_S]

I just wanted to make a post about the changes to the Lacey act trying to get through in the house or senate or whatever it's called.

We should be writing senators or representatives as this bill would like to impose heavy restrictions on shipping and other parts of the hobby/industry. This includes shipping from one state to the other and thus eliminating a lot of pet stores.

This will have repercussions from the smallest hobbyist all the way to the biggest breeders.

Not only is this affecting private collections it will also affect larger institutions like zoos or aquariums on transporting or bringing in new specialty animals.

You can goto USArk's website for further details.

[chairman]

I've already contacted my Senators.

One of the issues of concern is that the change effectively illegalizes the movent of any reptile/amphibian/bird/fish/invertebrate across a state line unless a particular species/subspecies is exempted. As written, it is an immediate ban on sending animals across state lines until USFWS creates a list of animals that cannot survive anywhere in the wild in the US. Hint, there aren't any animals in the hobby that meet that requirement.

I knew this would stop the import of wild caught animals from countries of origin but I guess it didn't occur to me that it would harm import/export of captive bred animals with, say, Canada.

[Aaron_S]

Yeah I really dislike the broad language of the whole thing.