Congressional Bills making it Illegal to own a bearded dragon!!!

[beardielover]

'Legislative Alert!
UPDATED: 2/11/09


Everyone needs to be aware of two bills that have been introduced into Congress on 1/26/09 and 2/3/09.
H.R. 669 introduced into the House by Rep. Madeleine Bordallo [GU], and S.373 in the Senate introduced by Sen. Bill Nelson [FL].

S.373

I'll deal with the second one first since it is simpler. S.373 is a bill proposing the ammendment of Title 18 of the US code. This title concerns the importation and interstate transport of injurious wildlife. The text of the bill is short and is as follows:
Section 42(a)(1) of title 18, United States Code, is amended in the first sentence by inserting `; of the constrictor snake of the species Python genera' after `polymorpha'.

The text of this first paragraph of Title 18 can be read at Cornell's website here.
What this bill will do if passed is include the entire Python genus in the list of species banned from importation and interstate transport and commerce, labeling them all as injurious.
This means everything from Retics to Savu pythons, and yes this includes Balls. Importation will be stopped entirely, and all interstate shipping and transport of all pythons will end if this bill is passed.

S.373 has been referred to the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. See the borrom of the page for a link to the members of this committee. I urge you to contact them while it is still under their review.

H.R. 669

H.R. 669 is an even worse bill. I'll quote USARK on what this bill means to the hobby, because they said it very well:

"If passed as written this bill will BAN the import, purchase, sale, trade and breeding of many, many reptiles and amphibians... including Boa, Python and Eunectes. If this bill passes it will destroy the reptile community and industry overnight!"

Here are come links concerning the proposed legislation:

http://thomas.loc.gov/ - The Thomas search engine. Enter the search term H.R. 669 or S.373 and select bill number to read the full text of either bill. I cannot link directly to the text of the bills because search results expire within a few minutes to keep the results current.

http://www.house.gov/ - U.S. House of Representatives. Find your Representative here

http://www.senate.gov/ - U.S. Senate. Find your Senator here.

 

[renich]

Wow, I had not heard of this. That would be catastrophic. I'll have to read up on this. Thanks for the links BeardieLover.

 

[BeardedBob]

Not too sure how this would ever come to fruition. I have read so many things on so many topics and once they start actually putting a bill like this in and all of the activist groups get involved, it becomes so much of a mixup they stop the entire thing - no matter how right at the beginning.

How can you own a tiger but not a beardie?

 

[beardielover]

i hear ya, bearded bob. and i agree. but the animals rights people are supposedly supporting this effort. not too sure how much clout they have, but it is unnerving.