BC exotic pet law

jay212 · #1 (**permalink**) 03-21-2009, 08:47 AM

Yesterday the ministry of enviroment released its new proposed control list for exotic pets in BC . Though no one could argue that having a hippo , crocodile or cobra is probably not the smartest pet choice ,how much did we really need this law ? Between 1969 and 1997, 47 people were killed by horses , 4 people were killed by dogs and only 2 were killed by venomous snakes ,one of those snakes is indigenous to BC and a guy got bit while sitting on a log .

In every other province the controlled list is done by scientific (latin) and common names as most of the BC list is but the BC list has 3 areas that are so grey it is not even funny , Boa's or Pythons that can grow larger than 3 meters such as some boa constrictors . They didn't list what constrictors so now people are in a panic because they might have an illegal animal yet most people do not realize that there are quite a few different boa constrictors and that most boas do not exceed 3meters , nor could most people (including most fish and wildlife officials) tell that there is a difference between a central american , a suriname, a hogg island or a columbian boa ,just to name some of them, there are more.All these boas have different lengths .Boa constrictors have been a staple of the reptile pet industry for over 20 years and we have people that make their living from breeding these animals in BC . Great idea, take jobs and money away from people in a bad economy. I want to know where they are going to go to get the documented lengths on these animals as over 95% of what is posted in books and the internet is wrong or extreme cases.Its like saying people get over 7 feet because a few people did , the average of a human is less than 6 feet. The average length of boas is under 8 feet . (approx 2.5 meters), The same argument could be brought up for carpet pythons and a few other reptiles.
At this time there is probably over 1000 pet boas in the province of BC that will be directly affected by the ban .We hear about dog attacks all the time but even the aggressive species aren't controlled why does fish and wildlife want to take someones decent pet snakes away.

whitesn95 · #2 (**permalink**) 03-21-2009, 11:40 AM

Sadly, you can blame all the careless pet owners and the uneducated people who don't give a crap.

nik · #3 (**permalink**) 03-25-2009, 02:48 AM

i though if you had one of the species they considered to be threatning you needed to have a liscence for it.

LukaTisus · #4 (**permalink**) 03-27-2009, 08:13 AM

I personally think PIJAC's 2meter/3meter rule is the silliest load of excrement I've ever heard of.

What's more, and I'm sure this has been brought up.
British Columbia did this "In the interest of public safety". For one, they're basing measurements from nose to tail-tip on the animal, which in itself is invalid, considering measurement should be from nose to vent. Due to this, the law is argueable in Court from what I understand. Also, the animal's length has nothing to do with how dangerous it is....

The other thing, if they're so worried about safety of the public, why aren't horses, dogs and even domesticated cats on some sort of control list? The statistics of animal-related deaths over the years should be a good indication.

The grey areas? People from BC could go out, get a saltwater tank and fill it with all sorts of deadly sea-creatures and it'd be perfectly legal. Over 800 reptiles were banned on this silly thing..

I've been sending letters and doing all I could against this stupid thing and it still went through. What sucks is that I'm on the other side of the province and don't own a car, so it's not like I could drive the 12+ hours to every meeting...

The BCRC was supposed to be involved in choosing the animals on the list, as well. The Minister promised us we would be in that room when everything went down, and they went ahead and slapped together a makeshift list behind our backs with no heads-up or warning of the meeting even taking place, and puked up a law that a Highschooler could've done better producing.

and I'm gonna stop ranting now, because I could seriously go on all day about this.

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