Bill HR 669

[My2heartboys]

This bill threatens not only just about every hobbiest here, but also just about every business represented here. Please pass this on and do what you can to make sure this bill is not passed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FPfL212CB8&feature=channel_page

Anne

[TimH07]

and the government thinks the war on drugs is a struggle, wait till you have to bootleg labradoodles.....

[Ninong]

HR 669 Non-native Wildlife Invasion Prevention Act

HR 669 is a terrible bill. Its aims are good but it would be completely impractical to implement the way it is designed. Unless, of course, they deliberately intend to exclude virtually all birds, fish, invertebrates and reptiles from coming into the U.S.

We might not be having this problem were it not for pythons overtaking the Everglades and lionfish roaming up and down the East Coast. Irresponsible hobbyists who released non-native livestock into the wild contributed to the backlash that we are seeing with this sort of a bill.

The law they are proposing is absurd. It would charge the Secretary of the Interior with the authority and responsibility to establish two lists: one a list of approved species and the other a list of unapproved species. If you want to import something that is on the approved list, go right ahead. If you want to import something that is on the unapproved list, forget about it.

If you want to import something that is on neither list, you would have to pay whatever it cost the Department of the Interior to investigate the species you want to import to see if it should be allowed.

Every animal must be correctly identified down to species to be considered for either list. If it can't be positively identified down to species, it remains in limbo and cannot be imported. Not only that, anyone "breeding" such an animal would be in violation of the law. The penalties would be the same as those in the Lacey Act for any violation of this act: importation, transport between states, breeding, transfer to another individual, etc. Try to stop the various invertebrates, including polychaetes, in your aquarium from breeding. I can see banning Aiptasia but how would you enforce that.

Most of the corals that we import cannot be identified down to species by the people who collect them or the distributors who import them. Half of the corals sold as Montipora capricornis are Montipora alright but they're not capricornis. A large percentage of the Acropora corals are sold under the wrong species name.

Would it prevent the importation of live rock, or even aquacultured live rock, from the Indo-Pacific because it would be impossible to correctly identify all of the thousands of possible hitchhikers down to species? I guess that would benefit the guys who sell Gulf of Mexico aquacultured live rock. That would almost certainly be considered native. But what would you do with it if you couldn't get any fish or corals for your tank?

[Ninong]

HR 669 Non-native Wildlife Invasion Prevention Act

Let's think about this for a minute. The Secretary of the Interior is an appointed cabinet post. Right now, under the Democrats, Ken Salazar is the Interior Secretary. I'm sure he's a very good man because I voted for President Obama and I think he's doing a fantastic job. But wait a minute. What if Interior Secretaries under a liberal Democrat are susceptible to influence from extreme groups like PETA? Whoa! That's not cool.

On the other hand, the Interior Department political appointees under the Republicans were all very closely tied to either the coal industry or the oil and gas industry. Gale Norton was probably the worst Interior Secretary in the history of the United States. Her number two man, Deputy Interior Secretary J. Steven Griles, pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice (he lied to the Senate) in the Jack Abramoff scandal.

Griles was sentenced to a $30,000 fine and 10 months imprisonment. He was a coal industry lobbyist when President Bush chose him to be the Deputy Interior Secretary. Gale Norton, Bush's Interior Secretary, now works for Royal Dutch Shell. Try to act surprised.

So, for our purposes, it may be that it doesn't make much difference whether the Interior Department is run by nice Democrats or corrupt Republicans, we could be screwed either way.

I don't think it's a good idea to give a political appointee the authority to make these decisions. Political appointees all have an agenda and that agenda, whether Republican or Democratic, may not be the same as our agenda. The Republicans were owned by the coal, oil and gas industries but the Democrats may be influenced by the environmental groups, some of which are a little too far out there, if you know what I mean. The Sierra Club is fine but those Greenpeace people can be really nutty sometimes. And PETA is just plain crazy all the time. They're too extreme.

Food for thought.



P.S. -- Trivia: When Gale Norton was Colorado's Attorney General, she fought to defend Colorado's law that discriminated against gays all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, where she lost -- it was overturned. A Denver gay newspaper got even by outing her husband as gay. She divorced him after he was outed. You can't tell me that she didn't know. She only divorced him after it became public.

More trivia: J. Steven Griles and Sue Ellen Wooldridge, an assistant attorney general in charge of the environment and natural resources in the Bush administration, bought a $1 million vacation home on Kiawah Island, SC with ConocoPhillips lobbyist Don R. Duncan in March 2006. How cozy -- an oil company lobbyist is literally shacking up with Bush's deputy interior secretary and his assistant attorney general in charge of the environment and natural resources.

Jack Abramhoff owned virtually the entire Bush administration. He even placed four or five of his top people in jobs in the Bush administration. Unfortunately some of them were convicted of criminal activity (accepting bribes to steer business to Jack's clients) and didn't serve very long but they did a good job for Jack while they were there. Abramoff not only owned the Bush administration, he also owned at least half a dozen Goppie members of the House and two or three Goppie senators, as well as dozens of staff members.

David Safavian was another former Abramoff employee who was convicted of accepting bribes while he was chief procurement officer for the White House. By the time they caught up with him, he was chief of staff for the GSA. He has been convicted twice. He was convicted and sentenced to 18 months but he appealed and won a new trial. At his new trial in December 2008, he was convicted again. Karl Rove's former secretary is another former Abramoff employee who was accepting bribes from Abramoff in exchange for favors.

[zhenya]

I can see banning Aiptasia but how would you enforce that.

Yeah, I'll be jail if this bill passes for breeding rose bubble tip anemones in my home....
Would there be any grandfather chapter in the law?

[TimH07]

Yeah, I'll be jail if this bill passes for breeding rose bubble tip anemones in my home....
Would there be any grandfather chapter in the law?

every reefer should go put a frag in the ocean, then they will all be native

:eek3:

[Ninong]

Snowflake coral (Carijoa riisei) is overtaking the Hawaiian coral reefs. Orange cup coral (Tubastraea coccinea) is growing like crazy on the offshore oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico and some has been spotted in the Flower Banks. I believe it's in the Florida Keys and Puerto Rico, too.

Caulerpa brachypus is overgrowing reefs in the Florida Keys because it's non-native and has no natural predators.

The lionfish (Pterois volitans) is firmly established in Florida and the Bahamas and during the summer months it wanders all the way up the East Coast to New York City.

There are now thousands of Burmese pythons in the Florida Everglades. This is a very serious problem. They got there because irresponsible hobbyists put them there. And that's the same way that lionfish got into Florida waters.

In spite of laws against owning piranhas in states like Louisiana (or any states where they could survive the winters), piranhas still show up in local waters. Another case of irresponsible hobbyists.

Maybe mandatory jail sentences of at least one year would help. And, if they're juveniles, stick them in the youth authority for a year. If the parents object, then the parents can do the time for them.

[Ninong]

Would there be any grandfather chapter in the law?

There was no grandfather clause in California's state law several years ago when they banned nine species of Caulerpa. Mere possession could result in a fine up to $10,000 and/or several months in the pokey. In practice, I don't believe any individual private hobbyist has ever been charged under this law. It is disgusting how it is being disregarded by many hobbyists and even online vendors. Some online vendors have notices on their websites that they will not ship those species to California but others pay no attention whatsoever to the law.

Several vendors were fined the maximum of $10,000 each a few years ago for repeated violations. I guess they were too stupid to get the message otherwise. They were all in Southern California.

[Ninong]

Some of you probably remember this photo from 2005. It's a picture of a dead 13-ft Burmese python in the Everglades that burst after it swallowed a 6-ft alligator whole.

[Ninong]

U.S. pet stores still sell thousands of baby Burmese pythons every year, probably more than half of them to 14-year-old boys. These snakes get big. Very big.

Of course, you can still buy baby nurse sharks, too. Nurse sharks have a maximum size of 13-feet. It's amazing how irresponsible many of these vendors really are. They really don't care about anything other than making a buck. They certainly don't care about how long the animal will last after they sell it. In fact, many of them are happy if the buyer comes back for a replacement time after time.

It's too bad that there are so many bad guys in the business to give the others a bad name.

P.S. -- I'm sure zhenya remembers this. Several years back I did a survey of online vendors to see how many of them were offering nurse sharks or black-tip reef sharks for sale. We found three or four that were offering those sharks. I'm not talking about bamboo sharks, I'm talking about sharks that get big, really big. We even found one vendor offering blue ring octopuses without any warning whatsoever.

[Ninong]

These irresponsible idiots are still selling nurse sharks!

Here ya go: Just Rare Fish

Nurse Sharks for Sale

Nurse Sharks are a getting more popular every day with many Aquarist. Being a Bottom Feeder they are easy to care for and like a meaty diet.

Nurse Sharks should be kept in a large tank preferably with a sandy bottom.

Notice they say absolutely nothing about the adult size of this fish. Nothing at all. They don't tell you that "a large tank" really means a minimum of 100,000 gallons.

We had a guy on here a few years ago who claimed to be an authority on marine aquariums. His largest aquarium was 75-gallons 72-gallons. Guess what he had in his 75-gal 72-gal tank? If you guessed a baby nurse shark, you win.

We nominated him as our very first member of the "Moron of the Month Club."

He had purchased the domain name aquariumfacts.com and was passing himself off as an authority on marine aquariums. The 72-gal bowfront tank with the nurse shark was pictured in his "beginner's" section as an example of what you could do if you knew what you were doing -- you too could keep a nurse shark in a 72-gal tank. He was really a moron because he hung around long enough to argue with us for several days before he gave up and went away. I did a search and here's that thread from back in 2001.

[Ninong]

Black-tip Reef Sharks for Sale

This guy will sell you a baby black-tip reef shark for only $950.00. (They used to be as cheap as $500 a few years ago.) These are purchased by grown men with the mentality of 14-year-old boys.

At least he warns people that they can reach 6-feet in length. No recommendation on minimum tank size because that might hurt sales. Minimum tank size should be at least 30,000 gallons. And no warning at all about this shark's need to keep swimming continuously to breathe.

[Ninong]

Would there be any grandfather chapter in the law?

I read the entire bill and I couldn't find anything about a grandfather clause. I assume there would have to be one for people who already own one of the animals that end up on the list of unapproved species. If your animal(s) end up on that prohibited list, you would probably not have to 'dispose' of them but you would not be allowed to "breed" them, transport them across state lines or transfer them to another party. Any species on the list of unapproved species automatically becomes a "nonmailable item." That means you can't even mail it intrastate.

It is clear that they intend to cover any and all non-native species:

(i) any such live, wild species or subspecies of mammal, bird, fish, reptile, amphibian, insect, mollusk, crustacean, arthropod, coelenterate, or other invertebrate, and

(ii) any viable egg, sperm, gamete, or other reproductive material or offspring thereof;

Following are the only species exempt from the law:

(D) does not include any cat (Felis catus), cattle or oxen (Bos taurus), chicken (Gallus gallus domesticus), dog (Canis lupus familiaris), donkey or ass (Equus asinus), domesticated members of the family Anatidae (geese), duck (domesticated Anas spp.), goat (Capra aegagrus hircus), goldfish (Carassius auratus auratus), horse (Equus caballus), llama (Lama glama), mule or hinny (Equus caballus x E. asinus), pig or hog (Sus scrofa domestica), domesticated varieties of rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus), or sheep (Ovis aries), or any other species or variety of species that is determined by the Secretary to be common and clearly domesticated.

[Ninong]

As some of you may already know, there is no live rock leaving Tonga right now. An outright ban was placed on the collection and shipment of live rock from Tonga back in August 2008 after some unscrupulous collectors were caught in broad daylight using crowbars to pry live rock off the reef at low tide. Usually live rock is collected from the rubble zones far from the reef.

That means no Tonga branch, no Kaelini, etc., until the Kingdom of Tonga decides how they want to go forward. They will have to pass new laws with severe penalties to prevent unscrupulous morons from wading out into the water at low tide and breaking live rock directly off the reefs.

[zhenya]

I read the entire bill and I couldn't find anything about a grandfather clause. I assume there would have to be one for people who already own one of the animals that end up on the list of unapproved species. If your animal(s) end up on that prohibited list, you would probably not have to 'dispose' of them but you would not be allowed to "breed" them, transport them across state lines or transfer them to another party. Any species on the list of unapproved species automatically becomes a "nonmailable item." That means you can't even mail it intrastate.

I'm guessing there won't be any grandfather clauses. Period.
Anyway, we were talking for years about this hobby eventually facing a shutdown. Remember, Ninong? That Caulerpa fiasco alone justifies some sort of actions (I should say reaction). And those pythons from Burma should've stayed in Burma, never in Everglades...

It's too bad that there are so many bad guys in the business to give the others a bad name.

And hobbyists, too... Don't forget about us, Ninong. Hobbyists are the ones that release animals (setting them free...) and should take part of the blame for politicians finally doing (or thinking of doing) something about this.

[Ninong]

I'm guessing there won't be any grandfather clauses. Period.

Gene, there will almost certainly be a grandfather clause because they are not about to tell people that they have to immediately euthanize whatever animals they have in their care that end up on the "list of unapproved species."

The grandfather clause will probably have restrictions, the first being the "no breeding" restriction. That would be similar to the restrictions that some local jurisdictions placed on owners of pit bulls after making that breed illegal in their jurisdiction. Anyone who owned a pit bull(s) would be allowed to keep them as long as they were neutered. However, they would not be allowed to acquire any more pit bulls.
That way there would be no pit bulls in that town after the current crop died off of natural causes. Those jurisdictions usually require that pit bulls must be leashed and muzzled whenever they are taken off the property. And the property must have very secure fencing. And all pit bulls must be micro-chipped for identification purposes so that the owners can be held financially responsible for any violations of the law.

If your pit bull gets out, you will be fined (assuming animal control picks it up) even if it didn't bite anything. Those laws will sound extreme to pit bull owners but they are a backlash against too many pit bulls getting out and mauling 2-yr-old children or destroying the neighbor's poodle. Irresponsible pit bull owners like Michael Vick caused this problem.

Getting back to HR 669, I'm sure it will have a grandfather clause. That much is a certainty. Besides the no-breeding restriction, there will be restrictions against selling your animal(s) to anyone else for breeding purposes. They might allow you to sell whatever you have to someone else but that person would not be allowed to breed them. The whole purpose of the law would be to make sure that when the current crop of unapproved species dies off, that's the end of it. How they would deal with corals that continue to grow indefinitely in captivity is beyond me. Unless the no-breeding restriction means that you are not allowed to frag any of your corals and place the frags in new tanks. That would amount to breeding -- asexual reproduction. And they would almost certainly prohibit the sale of frags by anyone to anyone because that amounts to breeding.

I doubt that the congresspersons who co-sponsored this bill realize just how many thousands of species we're talking about. Or maybe they do and just don't care. Maybe they're like Gov. Schwarzenegger's science advisor who advocates for a ban on all marine aquariums in California, both reef tanks and fish-only tanks. That came up during the arguments over the proposed ban on the entire Caulerpa genus. She's a marine biology Ph.D. who believes that whatever is in the ocean should stay in the ocean. She probably believes the same thing when it comes to African rift lakes, too. That's PETA's real position even if they sometimes try to deny it.

Anyway, we were talking for years about this hobby eventually facing a shutdown. Remember, Ninong? That Caulerpa fiasco alone justifies some sort of actions (I should say reaction). And those pythons from Burma should've stayed in Burma, never in Everglades...

That's why it infuriates me when California reefers get on the board and brag about ignoring their state's Caulerpa ban. There is a very good reason for that law. It's very, very necessary in California. It's a shame that these morons think they can't live without those nine species of Caulerpa.

And hobbyists, too... Don't forget about us, Ninong. Hobbyists are the ones that release animals (setting them free...) and should take part of the blame for politicians finally doing (or thinking of doing) something about this.

No, Gene, not you or I or probably 98% of the regular posters to this board or any of the other reef-keeping bulletin boards. The irresponsible ones either don't bother to ever participate in a reef-keeping bulletin board or they only visit occasionally to post BS. They're the ones with attitude. Besides the ones with the "so what?" attitude, there are the teenagers whose parents set them up without doing due diligence in advance. Or the parents who didn't object when their kid came home with a baby Burmese python because the parents were too stupid to find out what they were in for. Remember all the "disposable" dyed baby chicks and baby ducks they used to sell at Easter time? Some of them even sold baby bunny rabbits, too. The vendors were irresponsible and the parents who bought them were even more irresponsible.

I believe Burmese pythons are still the number one imported reptile in this country. I haven't bothered to look that up but I know that they were the number one the last time I read an article on that problem. The last article that I read -- probably three years ago -- said that 144,000 Burmese pythons had been imported into the U.S. in the previous decade. How many of those snakes do you think grew to their full 19-feet in some 14-year-old boy's bedroom? Not many. Especially after they got big enough to eat the family's other pets.

When I was a kid, you would see baby alligators for sale in almost all pet departments. What's a kid going to do with a baby alligator once it gets more than three feet long? Down here, release it in the nearest bayou, which is really not a problem because that's where it came from. You should never do that with any of your fish or invertebrates but releasing baby alligators back into their local environment is probably not going to do any harm. But what if some tourist from out-of-state picked up one of these for their kid and then the kid let it loose in the nearest park lagoon? All the ducks would start disappearing. I haven't seen baby alligators for sale down here in decades.

[DarthClownfish]

I grew up sharing a large pond with about 30 other houses. In the past a mansion used to be there, and they had a house with exotic pets. Some of the pets escaped, and to this day a hundred years after the animals escaped, there are alligator snapping turtles the size of a cars tire living in that pond in Connecticut.

I also lived in the south many years, where kudzu is killing off all the native fauna and flora.

Invasive species is a real problem, and something needs to be done. If not this bill, then what other suggestions are there?

[Nemo Keeper]

I'm sorry to say but this bill is ridiculous Darth. It's too much of an extreme of a bill. Just like all the laws they put on buying and selling firearms. I am/have been a gun collector for many years and the only people these laws affect are the law abiding citizens/responsible ones. They should start imosing stricter regulations to pet stores on whom they sell the pets to and maybe should have some sort of registration process like New Jersey has for dogs. IMO, this would work better than what they are imposing. Do they really think for a second that hobbyist will just stop selling/breeding these animals? It will all just go underground. My $0.2

[DarthClownfish]

I'm not saying this bill is not ridiculous. I am saying that invasive species is a problem, and if not this bill, then what?

[Nemo Keeper]

I agree with you Darth but this bill won't fix that problem because the sales will then go underground...people will keep bying them...then releasing them into the wild later on. There's always a way around the system!!! This bill will punish ALL of the hobbyist who are responsible!!! They need to crack down on pet stores that are selling these kinds of animals!!!