The United States Association of Reptile Keepers (USARK) believes the proposed rule fails on both the science and the cost-benefit analysis. USARK believes that the “science” that is being fielded to justify this action is highly controversial, and the action shows complete disregard for due process and economic impact. If enacted this rule would destroy thousands of businesses and place nearly one million US citizens in jeopardy of becoming felons under the Lacey Act.

OMB review is required of all major rules to ensure that the economic burden does not outweigh the stated benefits of the rule. However the Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy has reviewed the rule and stated unequivocally that the USFWS failed to conduct a comprehensive economic impact assessment, especially insofar as the rule would impact small businesses within the reptile industry. Furthermore, it is USARK’s belief that the purported benefits of the rule are based on controversial science and a failure to assess all available data.

We are, therefore, calling on the Office Of Management and Budget to do a thorough analysis of the proposed rule and, additionally, calling on the Congress to conduct adequate oversight to ensure due process to USARK and its members.

To summarize the history of this action: in 2007, the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) petitioned the FWS to add Burmese pythons to the Injurious Wildlife list. After the 2008 publication of a fundamentally flawed climate-matching study authored by invasion-biologists in the US Geological Survey (USGS), FWS published a Notice of Inquiry (NOI) to add snakes in the genera Python, Eunectes, and Boa to the Injurious Wildlife List. This was based, in large part, on sensational media coverage and unfounded claims that these animals are poised to expand across the southern third of the US. In 2009 the USGS produced another highly criticized and controversial internal report in the form of a Risk Assessment of nine constricting snakes (aka Constrictor Report). Based on this “unscientific” internal report, FWS issued a Proposed Rule to add these nine constrictors to the Lacey Act in 2010. In spite of an overwhelming number of critical comments from scientists, organizations and the public, as well as at least four contradicting scientific studies, FWS has now filed a Final Rule in 2011.

The data set on which the conclusions of the 2009 Constrictor Report are based has been demonstrated to be so mischaracterized as to suggest either incompetence or an intentional attempt at deception. Michael Cota, researcher at the Thailand National Natural History Museum, stated in his public comment to FWS, with specific reference to the USGS climate data set, “With a 60% error rate for just one country (Thailand), how many imaginary data sets were used for these reports?” The Constrictor Report is NOT a peer-reviewed scientific document. It is an internal report authored by strongly biased USGS biologists. In fact, a panel of 11 independent experts from the National Geographic Society, University of Florida, Texas A&M and others stated in a letter to the US Senate Environmental & Public Works Committee that this report was “not scientific”, and “not suitable as the basis for regulatory of legislative policy decisions”.

USARK detailed numerous mistakes, inaccuracies and exaggerations in the Constrictor Report in a 16 point Request for Correction with USGS under the Information Quality Act (IQA). This request was rejected out of hand. An appeal filed last summer is still pending.

USARK believes that FWS is attempting to make policy based on staff preference. It is clear that FWS decided on a policy direction and has worked to manufacture a case after the fact to support their decision. Tom Strickland, then Assistant Secretary of DOI, is quoted in a New York Times article indicating a bias in favor of the rule well in advance of the completion of the rule making process.

FWS has dramatically underestimated the impact this will have on thousands of small businesses and as many as one million American citizens. If enacted this rule making will create a new class of criminal out of law abiding citizens.

USARK believes the actions of FWS to be unwarranted and unjustified based on science and cost-benefit analysis. USARK President, Andrew Wyatt said, “I call on the US House Natural Resources Committee and White House OMB to give close scrutiny to what has been going on here. I believe FWS and USGS are in direct violation of the standards and due process required under the Administrative Procedures Act and Information Quality Act. An entire $1.4 billion cottage industry is at risk. This is about jobs and the economy, not the preference of bureaucrats at FWS.”

Read original article

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I haven’t made any updates to the site since the beginning of March.  This is due to being tied up with work.  …What time I have on the computer has been almost entirely work related.  Well, the HSUS recently did something that brought me out of hiding – as it were.  They started a letter/e-mail campaign regarding how large constrictors are dangerous, and should be listed as injurious.  To anyone familiar with the HSUS this comes as no surprise since they are out to systematically remove all animals from the pet industry, and have already made steps with that regard by successfully banning the sale of cats and dogs in pet stores in the state of California.

Read full article here:  In Response to the Recent HSUS Email Campaign

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The Tuesday hearing put some of the first hard numbers on the staggering death toll from a historic cold snap — nine of 10 pythons equipped with radio tracers in Everglades National Park died, according to one yet-to-be published study.

It also cranked up the heat on a simmering battle over a controversial federal proposal to ban the interstate sale and import of large constrictors. Breeders contend the measure would destroy a $1 billion industry and thousands of jobs.

Shawn Heflick, a conservation biologist from Palm Bay and science advisor to a trade group called the U.S. Association of Reptile Keepers, said a cold-weather toll he estimated at 70 to 80 percent proved that federal risk assessments suggesting the snake could spread to other states were overblown.

“This population of pythons cannot expand outside of Florida,” he said. “This is a Florida problem, not a federal problem.”

At least there was no dispute about the Florida part.

Frank Mazzotti, a University of Florida wildlife ecologist who led an assessment of cold effects on pythons in the Everglades, said enough survived to ensure the Burmese wasn’t going to disappear from the comfy, subtropical confines of South Florida — despite cold snaps and intensive eradication efforts.

Nine of the 10 radio-tagged snakes died, including all eight females, but field surveys for several weeks following the cold snap found higher survival rates — nearly 60 percent of 99 snakes spotted by Mazzotti’s team of researchers were alive.

With his study pending publication in an academic journal, Mazzotti — reached after the hearing — said he could not discuss the findings in detail, but said it was clear the cold had seriously knocked back a population of big snakes conservatively estimated in the thousands.

MANY DEAD

“What we can say is that a lot of pythons died and there are way less out there now,” he said.

Without expanded efforts to control them, he said, the snakes are likely to rebound in coming years. Only last week, his researchers documented a rare sighting showing that some of the survivors are well enough to engage in the propagation business.

On a tree island a mile from the Pahayokee boardwalk, Mike Rochford and two other team members discovered a 15-foot-plus female, one of the largest captured in the park, and three males entwined in a pulsing “mating ball.” The biological details are best left at, “What happens in Pahayokee, stays in Pahayokee.”

Beyond South Florida, however, the cold kill has given critics of a federal crackdown on the reptile breeding trade plenty of ammunition.

They argue it exposed flaws in a risk assessment by the U.S. Geological Survey suggesting that the Burmese python, and several others, could potentially spread into other southern and Southwestern states.

Heflick, an advocate for domestic breeders, warned that banning interstate sales was overkill that could worsen the problem. Owners of colorful varieties, some worth thousands of dollars, would suddenly have worthless snakes, he said.

“Alarmingly, many of the millions of now legal snakes could be released in retaliation or in anger and a sense of betrayal from the government,” he said.

HUNTERS URGED

Jorge P. Gutierrez Jr., a Miami attorney and airboater, urged the panel to open Everglades National Park to hunters, who he said could help control the snake.

Mazzotti and other scientists, as well as federal parks and wildlife managers, warned it is premature to use one cold snap to dismiss the threat of the Burmese and other constrictors that the U.S. Department of Interior is proposing to add to a federal blacklist of “injurious” species.

Phyllis Windle, a senior invasive species scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the country needs to overhaul its entire system for dealing with the python and other invasive species, which she called the “least recognized and most poorly addressed environmental threat of our time.”

Link to original article

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Committee Chairman Grijalva made opening remarks regarding the risks to Everglades National Park posed by invasive species. Members in attendance were Ranking Member Henry Brown (R-SC), Congressman Rob Bishop (R-UT) and Congresswoman Nepolitano (D-CA).

Expert Testimony was given by: Bert Frost, Ph.D., Associate Director, Natural Resources, Stewardship and Science, National Park Service; Frank J. Mazzotti, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Wildlife Ecology, Fort Lauderdale Research and Education Center, University of Florida, Davie, FL; Marcy Heacker, M.S., Division of Birds, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC; Daniel Thayer, Director, Department of Vegetation & Land Management, South Florida Water Management District, West Palm Beach, FL; Jorge P. Gutierrez, Jr., Civil Trial Attorney, Gonzalez and Garcia, Miami, FL; Shawn K. Heflick, M.S., Biologist USARK/ Science Officer CFHS, Palm Bay, FL; Daniel Simberloff, Ph.D., Gore Hunger Professor of Environmental Science, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN; Phyllis Windle, Ph.D., Senior Scientist, Invasive Species, Union of Concerned Scientists, Washington, DC; and Scott Hardin, Exotic Species Coordinator, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Tallahassee, FL.

Ranking Member Henry Brown (R-SC) made a lengthy statement assailing the notion that listing large constrictors on the Injurious Wildlife list of the Lacey Act would have any positive impact on the Everglades. “How is putting thousands of Americans out of work and destroying thousands of small businesses going to eradicate Burmese pythons in South Florida?” Brown said. Congressman Bishop commented that it was clear pythons were an invasive issue limited to south Florida and would never be a problem in his home state of Utah.

Dr. Mazzotti from the University of Florida testified that 9 out of 10 of the radio telemetered Burmese pythons being tracked by the National Park Service in Everglades National Park succumbed to the recent cold snap and died as a result. Scott Hardin of Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation commission testified that he believed at least 50% or more of the pythons in south Florida died in the cold. Shawn Heflick, a conservation biologist and science adviser to USARK, said a cold-weather toll he estimated at 70 to 80 percent proved that federal risk assessments suggesting the snake could spread to other states were overblown. “This population of pythons cannot expand outside of Florida,” he said. “This is a Florida problem, not a federal problem.” Both Hardin and Mazzotti agreed that this was an issue limited to south Florida and the Lacey act was not an effective tool to control invasive species. They both urged a more pragmatic and comprehensive approach that was inclusive of the reptile industry.

Click here to read Testimony by Shawn Heflick on behalf of USARK:
http://usark.org/uploads/Heflick%20Testimony.pdf

Click here to read Testimony of all witnesses (click individual names):
http://resourcescommittee.house.gov/index.php?option=com_jcalpro&Itemid=27&extmode=view&extid=340

The majority opinion amongst the witnesses seemed to be:

1. Pythons are a problem limited to several counties in south Florida.
2. As such a Lacey Act listing would not be warranted nor effective in addressing real problems.
3. A more comprehensive and pragmatic approach to dealing with potential invaders on a regional basis is necessary.
4. Collaboration between agencies, academics and the expertise of industry is key to finding real solutions.

USARK would like to thank the leadership and measured approach of Chairman Grijalva in conducting the hearing. We would also like to thank Ranking members Brown and Bishop for their astute comments and pointed questions revealing the true scope of the issues. Special thanks to Scott Hardin and Frank Mazzotti for bringing real perspective to what has been an over sensationalized regional problem. And a very special thanks to Shawn Heflick for his expertise and devotion to the truth on behalf of the Reptile Nation!

Link to Original Article

Related Posts

• Everglades python deaths fuel debate over snake-control plans
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