TAHOKA, TX (DRN) – Tahoka city leaders want folks to be on the lookout for Rattlesnakes. The city has reports of people finding the snakes around their homes.
Leaders say since so much farm land is underwater, the snakes appear to be coming to town to get on dry land. They also encourage people to keep grass and weeds cut down.
CHESTER COUNTY, PA – An abandoned Alligator is getting a second chance at a local reptile sanctuary. The Forgotten Friend Reptile Sanctuary says this alligator was at someone’s front door — in Chester County. State Police are looking for whoever is responsible for this cruel act. The Alligator was found in between a front door and a screen door. The sanctuary hopes to eventually place “Hector” the mystery gator.
Jesse Rothacker, with the sanctuary says, “We usually send our gators down to retire in the sun at Croc Encounters (www.crocencounters.org) in Tampa. They just grow too big to place them locally. [We want] to remind people that alligators should never be pets because they always outgrow their welcome.
Over the summer Forgotten Friends Reptile Sanctuary will be visiting every library in York County and some others around the state as part of the “Make a Splash” summer reading program. They are promoting literacy while sharing many of their animals that “make a splash” including turtles, anacondas, alligators, and many more!
“Hector will probably have a chance to visit a few libraries himself, after he has some time to settle in here at Forgotten Friend,” Rothacker says.
The sanctuary will be making two stops Monday July 12th at local libraries for the “Make a Splash” reading program. Folks can head out to the Palmyra Public Library, 325 S Railroad Street Palmyra, PA, the sanctuary will be there at 10:30 am. The sanctuary will also visit the Annville Library, 216 E Main Street Annville, PA. The sanctuary will be there at 2pm.
SAN FRANCISCO — The idea of banning pet sales in San Francisco started simply enough, with a proposal to outlaw puppy and kitten mills.
But the proposed ban on puppy and kitten mills became a proposed ban on the sale of just about every animal that might end up in a shelter: gerbils, guinea pigs, birds, hamsters, turtles, snakes, rats. Sales of rabbits and chicks are already banned in the city.
The idea led to the San Francisco Commission of Animal Control & Welfare’s biggest, longest monthly meeting in recent memory, not to mention blogger fodder around the world.
The commission, overwhelmed with varying opinions, voted not to vote, tabling the debate until at least another month.
ORMOND BEACH — Authorities searching a grow house this morning found more than marijuana, they also stumbled upon dozens of snakes, a sheriff’s spokesman said.
Besides 13 marijuana plants, James Walsh, 51, also had 26 snakes, including venomous ones, and some up to 14 feet long, said sheriff’s spokesman Gary Davidson. Drug agents with East Volusia Narcotics Task Force and Ormond Beach police listed a water moccasin, a rattlesnake and three vipers, Davidson said.
The snakes, a monitor lizard and an opossum were removed by Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission officers.
Walsh was charged with cultivation of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia, Davidson said. Wildlife agents also cited Walsh with improper storage of a venomous reptile and possession of a venomous reptile without a permit. He is being held at the Volusia County Branch Jail.
BRISTOL — Officials from the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM) visited Jane Lane last week to assess whether a 7-foot-long snake wrapped in a tree was indigenous to the area.
According to the Bristol Police log, a resident called the station to report seeing the large snake in a yard on Jane Lane and thought it was possibly a python.
Bristol Police visited the area but thought they needed additional resources to determine what type of snake it was and called DEM to help. If not native the area, it would be removed.
But, the snake was left where it was, according to Kurt Blanchard, deputy chief of DEM’s environmental police.
“It didn’t need to be removed from the tree,” he said.
Officials identified the animal as either a milk or king snake — both are indigenous to the area and known for their striped skins. Mr. Blanchard said he wasn’t sure of the length of the Jane Lane snake, but he thought it was more than 5 feet long.
“Five-, 6-foot-long snakes are common to the area,” he said. “We see those all day long.”
Milk and king snakes are not harmful to humans, but they do eat rodents, birds, eggs and earthworms.
Sometimes I have to admit our City government does very interesting, perhaps silly things. We also do things that critics call silly but in fact are groundbreaking, such as our leadership in banning smoking in restaurants and bars — which, if you’ve been to any bars and restaurants in SF lately, does not seem to have hurt business at all. But banning pet stores from selling anything but fish — that’s silly.
Apparently, our Animal and Welfare Commission {the one that calls pets “companion animals,” which begs the question of whether a skink is a companion, and does that make the rats in your basement “tenement squatters” rather than pests?} is contemplating recommending the ban to the Board of Supervisors. This is the same Commission which once tried to give legal rights to pets when I was on the Board. I believe in humane care and compassion, but giving my ttwo cats the right to sue me because I changed their food from Fancy Feast {or “cat crack” as my vet once said} to Wellness? Please.
In any event, the author of the proposal, who disingenuously pleads that he is still in the “information-gathering phase,” said he is trying to stop people from buying pets and then turning them into the shelter because they can’t deal with them. And it’s not even all pets. It’s about hamsters, which are the number one residents of our City shelters, apparently.
I will be the first to admit that there are a lot of well-meaning and not so well-meaning folks out there buying hamsters, gerbils, and other animals who have no right doing so. They don’t understand what it takes to care for and keep an animal, even ones that seem low-maintenance compared to our typical cat and dog companions. But to ban the sales of pets in San Francisco is just ridiculous. The impulse to care for another creature is not going to be bound by whether you can buy it in the city of Richmond or the Richmond District. If little Bobby or Ashley wants a snake, and by god they are going to scream until they get one, mom and dad are going to drive somewhere to get it. And when Bobby and Ashley realize they have to feed live mice to the snake, it’s going to end up in the San Francisco shelter no matter where it originated.
This is not an anti-smoking ordinance, where health concerns eventually overrode objections by the free smoker societies. This is not an anti-gun ordinance {that is, if any exist after the Supreme Court has its way}. Pets are not a vice. Pets are not, for the most part, accidents waiting to happen. Pets are, well, pets. Part of our DNA is wound up in wanting to care for all creatures great and small. Call them pets, call them companions, the innate impulse is something that this initiative cannot and will not deny. Just ask the pro-ferret lobby in California.
By the way, why the fish exemption? Is it because, unlike a hamster or a snake, the usual disposal method — a time honored technique called the flush — is out of sight and, therefore, out of mind? And isn’t there just a little hypocrisy if a commission charged with the welfare of animals is considering an exemption for “food” animals like baby mice and crickets to feed the appetites of reptiles? And if they allow the sale of animals through Craigslist or the classifieds, are we going to see the establishment of pet store speakeasies to consummate the delivery of the live, but otherwise prohibited, goods?
The City has a huge budget deficit. And it’s spending time and money on something as ill-thought and trivial as this initiative. During a time of austerity, watching purported City officials wasting personnel and expelling carbon on a measure that has no chance of preventing the problem they seek to solve is just another nail in the coffin of public faith and trust in government.
SAN FRANCISCO—San Francisco officials are considering whether to ban the sale of pets, except fish, throughout the city.
Supporters of the ban say animal shelters are overrun by people who buy hamsters, parrots, snakes and other animals from pet stores on impulse, then regret the purchase. Under the proposal, San Francisco residents would have to go outside the city to purchase pets.
San Francisco’s animal control director Rebecca Katz says hamsters are the most euthanized pet in the city.
Pet store owners say the measure would put them out of business.
The ban is being considered Thursday evening by the city’s Commission of Animal Control and Welfare. It plans to hear testimony from those affected by the ban before voting.
If approved, it would still have to go before the Board of Supervisors for a vote.
