NO on HR669

Please join me in opposing HR 669. I am a college level biology teacher. Among other courses, I teach ecology and zoology. I understand the dangers of introduced species to our local ecosystems and discuss this topic at length in my classes. I would have thought, based on the title of this bill, that it would be something I would support. Then, I read the full text of the document.

At first it talks about stopping the importation of non-native species into the US. I would support restrictions (certainly not a ban) on importation of wild-caught non-native animals. The reason for that has everything to do with the ecosystem that the animals are coming from. Removal of organisms from their native habitat is detrimental to that habitat and should be avoided where possible. However, it is extremely unlikely that animals imported into the US are going to end up being set loose here. The bill is supposed to be about reducing introduced species in the US, I really don’t think that banning importation has anything to do with reducing the invasion of introduced species.

Reading further we get to the truly shocking part – banning any pet that is not a dog, cat, bunny, goldfish or farm animal. I understand that other species may be added to this list. However, the process proposed would be expensive, time consuming, and ultimately lacking. The pet industry in the United States is a large and thriving industry. There are so many people that make their living completely or in part from the pet trade; from small hobbyist breeders like me, to large-scale breeders, to the people that produce food, habitats, and supplies for these pets, to the small scale & large corporate pet stores that sell the pets, food, and supplies. If this bill passes, hundreds of thousands of people would lose all or part of their income. Not to mention how devastated would-be pet owners (many of them children) would be.

As with the ban on importations, banning pets does not really get at the supposed point of this bill: to prevent invasion of non-native species. By far, the vast majority of pets live out their lives as pets. Only rarely are they released – and then the result is almost always death for the pet as the climate in most of the US is just not suitable for the majority of species kept as pets. Of course, there are incidences where released animals have established populations here in the US, primarily in the warmest areas like southern Florida and Hawaii. However, this bill will do nothing to help the situation. What would help would be to join PIJAC and the many concerned individuals in the pet trade in a campaign to educate the general public about the dangers of releasing unwanted pets into the wild. The money that this bill would cost taxpayers combined with the devastating economic effect that it would have on people in the pet trade and the fact that it won’t even help the situation make this bill a LOSE-LOSE-LOSE situation. Please do everything that you can to oppose this bill.