RobbiesCornField
Bring it on.
http://articles.lancasteronline.com/local/4/351691
Unlike most states, anyone willing to shell out $50 to $100 can go to a reptile show or pet store in Pennsylvania and take home their own wide-eyed 6-inch American alligator hatchling to amaze friends.
Jesse Rothacker of Manheim sees the sad end result of many of these impulse purchases.
His Forgotten Friend Reptile Sanctuary averages about a call every week from someone who's lost interest in the reptile or is shocked that it's grown a foot a year and is now too large for the aquarium or bathtub.
"I want to get rid of it," Rothacker hears all the time.
He has four alligators now, ranging from 9 inches to 2 feet long.
The prospects of finding a home for them are not good since the croc sanctuary he used to use in Florida seems to no longer exist. Zoos don't need them and since they're a dime a dozen in the pet trade, they have no value to pet stores or other reptile hobbyists.
Those who don't call him may dump their gator outdoors in a local pond or river, where they will die a slow, agonizing death, possibly from starvation, but certainly by freezing come winter.
"It's like releasing a person in the Antarctic and saying, 'Go at it, have fun,' " says Rothacker.
It's animal cruelty, pure and simple.
"Sometimes, the best option is to put them down. They're not meant to be crammed in bathtubs," laments Rothacker.
Don't think it doesn't happen around here? One of Rothacker's current abandoned gators was found by a homeowner in Chester County after it had been stuffed between a front door and the screen door of the home.
Unwanted gators have been dropped off on the front steps of the Humane League of Lancaster. In 2003, authorities pulled a 3-foot alligator out of Harrisburg's Italian Lake.
Lancaster city has its own ordinance that bans the keeping of alligators and poisonous snakes in city limits.
In the face of this unrelenting reptilian misfortune, Rothacker several years ago began bending the ears of local legislators, urging them to pass a law to ban the sale and purchase of alligators in Pennsylvania.
He suggested the state not make possession illegal so serious crocodilian keepers could still keep theirs and go out of state to buy one and bring it back.
Also, an outright ban would create hundreds of overnight outlaws and perhaps result in a massive dumping of gators into the landscape.
Now, state Sen. Richard Alloway of Franklin County agrees with Rothacker and may introduce an alligator sale ban bill as early as this week.
The Republican lawmaker even uses exact language recommended by Rothacker.
You would think Rothacker would be pleased.
He's not. He's horrified.
That's because Alloway also is proposing to ban the sale and purchase of any poisonous snake, except timber rattlesnakes and copperheads that are native to Pennsylvania and are already regulated by the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission.
It's precisely what Rothacker had specifically warned legislators against and what his herpetology brethren feared would happen: overkill.
They worried that the general public's fear and disgust of creepy-crawly slithering things would make it easier for lawmakers to deprive anyone from keeping them as a pet, however small the danger might be.
Asked why he felt compelled to also keep people from trading in pit vipers, mambas and the like, Alloway says, "I just don't think we should be bringing non-native species into the state. I'm just uncomfortable with it.
"They can cause problems in our environment," continues Alloway, possibly referring to escaped pythons (not a poisonous snake) that are disrupting the ecosystem of Florida's Everglades.
"You hear about these things escaping and it's not good for the environment or harming someone," the chair of the Senate Game and Fisheries Committee says.
Actually, captive reptiles of all species cause about one death per year in the United States, says Andrew Wyatt, president of the U.S. Association of Reptile Keepers, based in Grandy, N.C.
And even the occasional fatal snake bite almost always involves the reptile's owner or family member, not the general public.
That's compared to about 25 to 35 people killed by dogs each year and 100 or so by horses and cattle. But we're not facing bills to ban dogs and bovines.
Not helping Wyatt's case, however, were two snake bite incidents in the last two weeks.
In one, a New Jersey man was hospitalized in critical condition (but is now recovering) after being bitten by a monacled cobra he had purchased in Pennsylvania the weekend before. He had been told by the seller that the cobra's venom sacs had been removed.
Wrong.
In Tennessee, a veteran snake handler died after being bitten by one of his copperheads. Possessing a poisonous snake in Tennessee is illegal.
Wyatt takes a dim view of the proposed sale and purchase ban on both alligators and exotic venomous snakes in Pennsylvania.
Rather than a ban, Wyatt suggests Pennsylvania follow his native North Carolina's lead and require best management practices of anyone who owns certain reptiles. That protects public health and safety, he says.
"Bans just get you into a bad place," Wyatt thinks. "I have a hard time calling a venomous snake or crocidilian a pet. But there are people who do so quite responsibly. Why make these otherwise solid citizens criminals because the American public has a certain phobia about these kinds of animals?"
Jack Hubley of Lititz, a local naturalist and television personality, like Wyatt, would rather see mandatory standards, perhaps even required education, for owning alligators and exotic venomous snakes, rather than a ban on sales and purchases.
Pennsylvania is a mecca for the reptile trade and forbidding sales would hit breeders and trade shows hard, he notes.
Rothacker says there are no safety or health problems with venomous snakes and no need for the harsh controls under the proposed bill.
"I've never had a call for venomous snakes. They're not abandoned in basements and tubs like alligators are. There are responsible people willing to take them in."
He is calling on other herpers to contact Alloway's office and appeal to the legislator to limit his bill to alligators.
If the senator insists on pursuing controls on other exotic pets, Rothacker hopes he will at least invite public feedback before introducing the bill.
"I am kind of horrified I had anything to do with this," he says.
Says Alloway: "I'm open to any type of negotiations if someone feels the regulations are too broad and to see if we can find common ground."
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