Concerned about the future of our hobby!

Hi everyone,

I am very concerned about the future of our hobby.

I don’t keep reptiles but I keep scorpions.

I have been aware of this threat (please see link below) for some time now but hadn’t heard anything for a while. So I had kind of forgotten about it. However it appears that this is still very much an issue.

Can anyone shed anymore light on this? Reptiles and amphibians are mentioned a lot but I assume it would also include scorpions and other arachnids.

Is this likely to be an all out ban? Or just some sort of amendment to something like the DWA act?

Very worried about this!

http://www.petbusinessworld.co.uk/news/feed/-escalating-risks--to-exotics-trade

I dont understand, what is the risk?

If it is about getting sting/biten, dont think ive heard of 1 single death where the person had such pets at home..

In sweden ive not even heard about anyone being stung, ive heard about 1 that got a dry sting of a LQ, but noting more so problems in the hobby should be kinda rare.

The risk is the possible ban on import of reptiles and amphibians in to the EU from the rest of the world.

Animal rights activists have been putting a lot of pressure on the government and local councils here in the UK about reptile shows and the hobby in general. They wan't a complete ban on the keeping of exotic pets but obviously this is probably unattainable. So, instead they have been going for more acheivable goals. A number of reptile shows have been stopped by the AR groups this year, they also got the BBC involved to 'expose the dark world of reptile shows' although, this actually ended up backfiring on them and reptile shows were shown in a pretty positive light. The AR guys came across as the people they really are, fanatical nutters.

Their major goal is the European Parliament though, which is apparently where the real threat is. They are masking themselves as scientific organisations and publishing their own material to back up false claims about exotic pets. Headlines such as 90% of all reptiles die in their first year of captivity, and reptile zoonoses are a massive threat to the public show the kind of lies they are spouting to reach their goal. They have also been backing the Invasive Alien Species act which could see a ban of the keeping of many common species of reptiles.

Time will tell with this but it is more than likely we will see some change in what reptiles we are able to keep and/or are available. I've never heard inverts being mentioned, but given that alot of our inverts are probably imported in by the same guys that import reptiles, if there was a ban or massive change on what reptiles can be brought in to the EU, the importers would either cease to exist or many would go out of business. That would obviously have an effect on what inverts we would see available. Or, inverts will be included in any bans etc. and less, or no species will be available anymore.

Chris Newman, the chairman of the FBH regularly posts updates of what is going on here, http://www.captivebredreptileforums.co.uk/fbh-federation-british-herpetologists/

Thanks for the reply and thankyou for that link too. There is a lot of reassuring stuff on that link.

So let me get something straight. If the ban were to go ahead, it would only be a ban on animals from outside Europe being imported into Europe. Therefore all animals that are native within Europe could still be legally imported throughout Europe. Hope that makes sense. In other words we would still be able to keep European scorpion species.

Is that right?

No problem.

If importing exotic pets into the EU was banned, then in theory any animals already in Europe could still be traded/moved around because of the open border policy. So breeders of species not native to Europe could still sell the offspring as normal. European species would obviously still be available.

One of the other things that is getting proposed though, is creating a black or white list of species allowed to be kept. A black list would include a list of species that would be prohibited to keep, a white list would be a list of species you were allowed to keep. Neither is great but obviously a black list would be preferred over white. Something like this could be implemented by the EU Parliament fairly soon under the Invasive Alien Species act which could cover the whole of Europe. The problem with this is that many commonly kept species like corn snakes, kings snakes etc. could possibly survive and breed in the wild in Southern Europe (there's also plenty of scorpion species that we keep that could potentially survive in the wild). If the act covered the whole of Europe, then species that would have no chance of surviving here in Northern Europe could still be prohibited. Rather stupid, aye! I think Belgium has now got a white list of mammal species allowed to kept, and is planning on one for reptiles.

It all sounds a bit unbeleivable, but all this is being seriously talked about right now in Europe. Hopefully a more moderate approach will be taken when decisions are made.

Thanks mate.