Debating dangerous rats, snakes, and other exotic animals

Black Rat Snake

Black Rat Snake

In Boston, a woman got a full face transplant in 2011 after a ferocious attack by her employer’s 200-pound rampaging chimpanzee. She lost her nose, lips, eyelids, and hands, and later, doctors had to remove her eyes because of a disease transmitted by the chimp.

In February of this year, Florida officials declared war on invasive snakes, recruiting people for python patrols. A University of Florida herpetologist called the move, “ridiculous,” claiming “You can’t have Joe Schmo grabbing these snakes.” Kenneth Krysko also told a Reuters reporter that Florida’s move is too little, too late after Burmese python numbers mushroomed during decades when sales weren’t outlaws and wildlife agencies had few programs to deal with unwanted pets or snakes released in the wild.

In Australia, according to an Associated Press story, mammals are going extinct at an alarming rate due to two “critters with voracious appetites,” the feral cat, brought to Australia on ships to kill on-board rats, and red foxes, brought to the country for hunting.

Here in Maine, a Portland man recently settled his lawsuit against pet supply chain store Petco, after he was bit by a rat purchased at Petco’s South Portland store. He bought the rat to feed to his son’s pet boa constrictor. “He could have died,” said Dominic Profenno Jr’s attorney. “He spent a lot of time at Maine Medical Center and then New England Rehabilitation Hospital.” A 10-year-old California boy did die of rat-bite fever in February.

In Auburn a few years ago, firefighters arrived at a fire in a third-floor tenement house to find boa constrictors slivering all over the apartment. They saved some of them, but others died in the fire.

Legislature

Tomorrow (May 5), the legislature’s Inland Fisheries and Wildlife will host public hearings on three bills dealing with exotic animals. LD 746, sponsored by Rep. Beck of Waterville, establishes exemptions for most nonnative amphibians and reptiles from the law that requires a permit for the possession of wildlife in captivity and the importation of wildlife from outside the state. LD 833, sponsored by Rep. Longstaff of Waterville, directs the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife to amend its rules to add koi to the list of unrestricted fish that do not require importation or possession permits.

And then there is LD 1369, sponsored by Senator Paul Davis, at the request of DIF&W. It’s the long-overdue revision of the state’s laws governing exotic animals.

All three bills will be heard at 1 pm in Room 206 of the Cross Office Building next to the Capitol. If you come, please leave your exotic animals home! The bill is certain to draw a crowd of people who have these exotics, and given my history with them, I may need a disguise. Anytime I’ve written about this issue over the past two years, I’ve gotten severely attacked by these people.

History

Gargoyle GeckoWhile management of exotic animals in Maine is shared by the Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry and the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, most of the job rests with DIF&W which receives no public funding for it, so sportsmen are paying all the bills.

The permits are priced at just $23, which doesn’t come close to covering DIF&W’s costs. For example, the agency is supposed to examine the cages of the animals before permits are issued, and annually ever after. And the rules governing cages covers 14 pages!

Wardens are called out to check on exotic animals that are here in Maine without permits, and they have no training that would help them identify the animals or confiscate them if necessary. Many are dangerous. Other than firearms, they’ve got no equipment to deal with these animals.

Several DIF&W staff members spend a great deal of their time dealing with exotic animal issues and problems. Recognizing these problems, two years ago the legislature ordered up a task force to “consider the effect of the importation and possession of wildlife and the issues of possession and exhibition of wildlife in the State.”

Among the tasks assigned to this group were: developing recommendations for a list of restricted, unrestricted, and banned species; amendments to current permit structures and fees; and the establishment of appropriate penalties for noncompliance with requirements. Findings and recommendations were due back to the legislature by January 14, 2014. So they are a year late on this report and legislation. But better late than never.

Jim Connolly, DIF&W’s top professional in charge of both the Fisheries and the Wildlife Divisions, asked the best question at the first task force meeting: “What’s a reasonable process including informing people about health issues with each species?”

We’ll finally get to debate that question – and hopefully answer it – starting tomorrow.

I still remember another good question Connolly asked at a 2012 task force meeting: “Should the department be considering any request from anywhere in the world just because somebody wants to have something?” We’ll find out!

Entertaining insulting astonishing remarks

Alligator lizardIn February of 2014, I wrote a comprehensive outdoor news column about the exotic animal issues. And I got clobbered. Here’s the column I wrote after that responded to the attacks and ridicule.

“You are an idiot, George,” wrote one. “You are a freaking idiot,” parodied another. “You sir are an idiot,” wrote a third.

OK, we’ve established that I am an idiot.

“Open a book, dickhole,” suggested a woman who thought I needed to be educated. “It’s people like you that make this country unlivable,” continued the woman who lives in Ohio.

“This is the most ignorant article that I have ever read,” wrote another. “This guy is a total nutbag,” suggested someone else. I was also called a moron and ignorant and sickening. Comments came from all over the country and throughout Maine.

I thought working for sportsmen was a rough job, until I began writing about exotic animal problems and issues. Some of the owners of exotics sound downright dangerous to me – never mind their pets!

The responses to my previous post about exotic animals were astonishing and alarming.

“No one should have the right to take away my loved and well cared for pets because they don’t like them! I’m not petitioning for children to be outlawed because I don’t like them! These “exotic” animals ARE my children,” wrote one woman.

That comment reminded me of the single Mom in northern Maine with two children who paid $2,000 for a cat she thought would be a great pet for her kids. Game wardens researched the cat and discovered it to be dangerous. They refused the permit and helped the woman get a refund.

From Minnesota came this remark: “Non-venomous captive reptiles kill <1 person per year (this includes large constrictors including Burms, Retics, etc…) while dogs kill 35+ annually (mostly children and elderly), cows kill 80+ annually.”

Well, now I feel a lot better!

They even complained about the photos that accompanied my column. “They found the worst possible pic of a black rat snake,” wrote one guy. I am truly sorry, I just couldn’t find a photo of a smiling rat snake. Ok, now I’m sounding smarmy, falling to their level. Sorry!

I did appreciate thoughtful comments like this one: “Maine’s laws are complicated, but I don’t believe the solution is more laws and regulation. Many of the MHS membership would be more than willing to work with IF&W to educate them on identifying species and would work with them to maintain an unrestricted list that would be good for the hobby and not threaten Maine’s wildlife. Many of us are outdoorsmen ourselves and don’t want to see Maine’s native flora and fauna adversely affected by an invasive species.”

A few came to my defense against this onslaught, one woman writing, “SIMPLY PUT THEY ARE EXOTIC AND THEY DON’T BELONG IN MAINE! LEAVE THEM IN THEIR NATURAL INHABITAT!”

In response to the initial flood of angry remarks, I asked respondents these questions: “Have any of you been involved in or following the work of the task force, as I have? And given the cost of administering the law and your permits, do you think it is reasonable to expect you to pay those costs, instead of me? I would also like to know how many of you have ever been visited by a game warden who is supposed to check your exotic animal’s cage every year?”

Not surprisingly, only one person answered all of my questions. Here is what he wrote: “George, yes I have been involved with the task force, and with IFW at other times with the unrestricted list. I agree with you the system is complicated and needs simplifying. I have suggested and worked for switching to New Hampshire’s system many times. It would greatly reduce IFW’s workload on exotics reptiles and amphibians.

“As to the costs of the system I have paid in plenty both through my hunting fees (which I am fine with them going towards this) and through permits that they denied because they didn’t want to issue permits. All things considered they have issued very few permits over the years. They don’t like to so they don’t.

“I have NEVER been visited by IFW because none of my animals require permits. I would gladly pay more than $27 every two years if I could actually get the permits for the animals I also want. Enough to even cover the warden’s time.”

Another guy who has been involved in the process provided a lengthy response, most of which made sense, but then posted, right after it, this comment: “These animals CANNOT establish themselves here. That is why George’s claims are so ridiculous. One of the criteria IF&W has for allowing a species on the unrestricted list, is that its natural range does not match ours, for the very purpose of preventing invasive species. Unfortunately, this is an issue in warmer climates… but we’re talking about Maine.”

Could it be that this guy has not heard about climate change and global warming? While the management of exotics that require permits is a mess, I am especially alarmed by the 16 pages listing exotics that don’t require permits. I doubt that we know, for certain, that all of these would not be able to live outside their cages in Maine’s warming climate.

Red-eared sliders are a good example, an exotic animal that was allowed in Maine because we thought they were not a threat. “And then oops,” said Jim Connolly, DIF&W’s Director of Fisheries and Wildlife who is spending a lot of time on exotic animal issues, “they are now established in the wild in Maine. We don’t always understand the consequences and dangers. We don’t even track them because they’re on the allowed list.”

I won’t apologize for being outspoken about the importance of protecting Maine’s native fish and wildlife – or in demanding that the owners of exotic animals abide by the laws governing their pets and pay the full costs of the administration of those laws.

If that makes me an idiot, a dickhole, and a nutbag, so be it.

George Smith

About George Smith

George stepped down at the end of 2010 after 18 years as the executive director of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine to write full time. He writes a weekly editorial page column in the Kennebec Journal and Waterville Morning Sentinel, a weekly travel column in those same newspapers (with his wife Linda), monthly columns in The Maine Sportsman magazine, two outdoor news blogs (one on his website, georgesmithmaine.com, and one on the website of the Bangor Daily News), and special columns for many publications and newsletters. Islandport Press published a book of George's favorite columns, "A Life Lived Outdoors" in 2014. In 2014, George also won a Maine Press Association award for writing the state's bet sports blog. In 2016, Down East Books published George's book, Maine Sporting Camps, and Islandport Press published George and his wife Linda's travel book, Take It From ME, about their favorite Maine inns and restaurants.