[JBraga78]

If you read in my above post, I am by no means promoting a 'look the other way' approach to this situation. I just don't believe that tons of legislation is the answer either. I often find that education is the key to solving a situation that requires attention, and I believe it is in this case as well.

I have no problem with the state requiring breeders and or keepers to register with the state in order to more easily track animals, but there has to be a line drawn somewhere. So, if you rule out Red Tails, you might as well rule out Carpet pythons, blood pythons, GTP's, Tree Boas, large asian colubrids, and right on down the list until you can't own a non native species without paying an additional fee every year. Then they'll go one step further saying you have to have vet records for every animal in your possesion. Then you might as well have them all microchipped, so the state can really track them.

Sooner or later, legislation will ruin the hobby. It's up to us to stop that from happening by stopping the irresponsible practices that have been going on for decades. Someone always has to do things the wrong way, and ruin it for everyone else, and that is exactly what happened in this industry.

Reptiles aren't the only non-native things flourishing in Florida either. Non native plants can be seen strangling out native vegitation. Different ants, bugs, and other insects have all started taking their toll out on our ecosystem. Worse than any of these things though, is just the regular development of wildlife filled land and pollution of our land, air, and water. Together these things will kill way more species then a few snakes.

At this point in our socio-cultural evolvement, there are bigger fish to fry first. So while I do agree with you that non native species will and can destroy native wildlife, I just don't think that this is the most important thing affecting our fauna. After all, for a few thousand bucks a developer could plow over a gopher tortoise burrow (Home to protected gopher tortoise and Indigo snake) here in central Florida. If we put a price tag on these species, then what's the difference if a few more go extinct due to our disregard.....

Justin Braga
If you didn't catch it, I was going for a little sarcasm in the last sentence. I don't want anyone yelling at me.