Bushfire
Well-Known Member
When oh when will people start to learn! When it comes to anything wildlife/conservation related its purely a political game, the only thing that matters to our decision makers are the votes. Look at the cane toad, the government KNEW it would fail but allowed it because of the political influences of the cane growers at the time. If they didn't they would have lost power.
More recently in NSW, cage sizes etc etc, it has nothing to do with animal welfare its more got to do with pleasing the voters. The animal welfare organisations are more organised, better prepared, have some political influence, and more 'general' public support compared to reptile keepers. We can have all the scientific papers in the world to support our cause but until we as reptile keepers have abit more political bite we are easy targets and we more often lose. But instead we are too busy fighting among ourselves over such little and insignificant things.
We wont get exotics just handled to us with them saying its too big of a problem you may as well have them legally. We will only get them when we demand it and have enough political sway. At the moment our numbers are too small, some where I read we have something like 1 in 300 homes have reptiles. We will firstly need to bring those numbers up even more (maybe cheaper reptiles will do this). If we use an APS poll done a little while ago 75% who answered said they would keep exotics if legal (despite peoples concerns about the potential effects). When you start adding the numbers, you are starting to get somewhere. Bypass the middle men (departments) and go straight to the decision makers. So in short stop wasting your time trying to sway departments with reasoning, logic arguments and pick up a book on the world of politics; you will get much further.
In all this our newly formed National Reptile Keepers Association has gone missing on this and many other issues.
More recently in NSW, cage sizes etc etc, it has nothing to do with animal welfare its more got to do with pleasing the voters. The animal welfare organisations are more organised, better prepared, have some political influence, and more 'general' public support compared to reptile keepers. We can have all the scientific papers in the world to support our cause but until we as reptile keepers have abit more political bite we are easy targets and we more often lose. But instead we are too busy fighting among ourselves over such little and insignificant things.
We wont get exotics just handled to us with them saying its too big of a problem you may as well have them legally. We will only get them when we demand it and have enough political sway. At the moment our numbers are too small, some where I read we have something like 1 in 300 homes have reptiles. We will firstly need to bring those numbers up even more (maybe cheaper reptiles will do this). If we use an APS poll done a little while ago 75% who answered said they would keep exotics if legal (despite peoples concerns about the potential effects). When you start adding the numbers, you are starting to get somewhere. Bypass the middle men (departments) and go straight to the decision makers. So in short stop wasting your time trying to sway departments with reasoning, logic arguments and pick up a book on the world of politics; you will get much further.
In all this our newly formed National Reptile Keepers Association has gone missing on this and many other issues.
