I keep finding these stories…
Another report that a pet dog has killed a child, further evidence supporting the fact that dogs are far more dangerous than pet reptiles. This time a toddler in Las Cruces, New Mexico was killed by the family dog.
The story is here:
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/05/09/new-mexico-toddler-fatally-mauled-by-family-dog/

It’s awfully ironic that on 18 May 2012 a little girl named Makayla Darnell was killed by a dog in Toledo, Ohio (read that story here):
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/05/18/3-day-old-girl-dies-after-dog-attack-inside-ohio-home/?test=latestnews
and less than three weeks later Ohio’s Governor Kasich signs SB310, the “Ohio Dangerous and Wild Animal Bill” which, oddly, does not cover dogs!
You Ohio reptile/exotic hobbyists might want to contact the Governor’s office and ask him why pet dogs are not banned by SB310, when clearly they are dangerous animals, and as we see, are responsible for far more human injuries and deaths than snakes or crocodilians.

Governor John Kasich
Riffe Center, 30th Floor
77 South High Street
Columbus, OH 43215-6117
Phone: (614) 466-3555

An email contact form is available here:
http://www.governor.ohio.gov/Contact/ContacttheGovernor.aspx

Another person has been tragically killed by a family pet. A dog killed a three-day-old baby in Ohio 17 May 2012. A dog, again, not a python or a boa or a monitor lizard. As politicians on all levels of government are clamoring to “save us” all from the dangers of exotic pets, two children in the United States have been killed by family pet dogs in three weeks’ time (a Nevada toddler was killed by his family’s dog 28 April 2012).

If you happen to live in a state or municipality where YOUR right to choose your pets is threatened by nanny-state legislation, ask your nanny-state legislators why they refuse to really defend public safety and ban dogs! The proof is right there – two children dead in less than a month. Imagine, just imagine, if two children were swallowed by pet pythons in a span of three weeks. I don’t need to describe the hysteria which would ensue.

Here’s the story from Ohio:
http://www.toledoblade.com/local/2012/05/18/Infant-dies-after-attack-from-pit-bull.html
And if you missed it, here’s the story from Nevada.
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2012/apr/28/first-birthday-ends-tragedy-when-family-dog-attack/

Of course, as I have clearly stated in earlier posts, I am not advocating that any dogs really be banned. The point is that attention to cases such as these needs to be brought to the politicians who are very eagerly passing laws (in the name of “safety”) limiting or eliminating YOUR right to keep exotic pets. Keeping pythons and boas does carry a certain amount of risk – and as we plainly see, keeping dogs does also. Just ask either of those two families. Tell your elected officials to leave you and I to decide for ourselves what kinds of pets we will keep, and leave us to accept the associated risks involved with our decisions.

And for Heaven’s sake, be responsible with your animals! An escaped python gets more negative press than a killer dog.

While I have your attention, HR511 is still lurking in Congress. This one bans reticulated pythons, boa constrictors, and green anacondas in the same way the USFWS declaration banned importation and interstate transport of Burmese and African rock pythons and yellow anacondas. The reasoning is that these snakes are potentially “invasive” and/or potentially “injurious”. You owe it to yourself and your fellow hobbyists to contact your representative and tell him or her that you oppose HR511. Find your representative here (it’s easy and you can email them if you are not motivated to telephone or write).
http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/

Congressman Thomas Rooney of Florida is primary sponsor of the bill. I believe that he’s probably a good guy with good intentions, but he is way off with HR511. Florida’s issues are not America's issues (almost all of HR511’s co-sponsors are also from Florida!)
States are very capable of handling invasive species issues as needed. This is not a federal issue and thus has no place in Congress. You can tell Congressman Rooney your opinion if you feel so inclined.
Here’s his contact information:
https://forms.house.gov/rooney/webforms/issue_subscribe.html

A one year old boy in Nevada was killed on Saturday, 28 April 2012, by his family’s pet dog, a Mastiff/Rhodesian mix. The dog had never shown aggression toward the baby, and had never bitten anyone before. No information is available on any charges being filed against the dog’s owners.
Here’s the story:
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2012/apr/28/first-birthday-ends-tragedy-when-family-dog-attack/

This sad story did not get much press coverage.
Now take the same story and replace “dog” with “python” and visualize the hysteria. You would have days of press coverage, lengthy news stories, op-eds and editorials accompanied by calls for “tough new legislation” and endless political posturing.

Case in point:
In 2009 a two-year-old Florida girl was killed by her family’s pet python (a Burmese) .
http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/07/01/us-usa-python-idUSTRE56067K20090701
To this day, HSUS continues to cite this tragedy as “proof” that snakes are not suitable as pets.
Further, the owners of the python were convicted (in 2011) of third degree murder, manslaughter and child neglect.

The fact is that there are politically correct pets, and politically incorrect pets. Man’s best friend has full “protected class” status, even when he grabs a toddler by the head and shakes him to death, as happened to the Nevada baby boy. Now my objective here is not to advocate for anti-dog laws. Quite the contrary. I don’t care for dogs much but I firmly believe in the right of the individual to lead his or her life as he or she sees fit: not as some meddling, self-righteous legislator see fit. But, just look at the facts that I present and hold them up next to the justification for all of these “exotic animal” regulations and prohibitions. It doesn’t add up! Throw some of this information at YOUR local, state or federal legislators when they try to chew away at YOUR rights to keep whatever captive animals you choose.

We’re going to look at information from the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) and their Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report regarding dogs.
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/

A published CDC report estimates that in 1994, there were 4.7 million people bitten by dogs in the United States. Almost 800,000 required medical treatment, and 333,700 required emergency room treatment. In 2001, 368,245 people went to emergency rooms for dog bite injuries. The CDC cites statistics from 1992 - 1994 estimating 334,000 dog attacks (requiring hospital treatment) annually. Assuming that these numbers continue to be fairly consistent, we have between 330 and 370 thousand dog attacks, severe enough to require emergency medical treatment, annually. Close to half of these (about 42%) involved children younger than age 14.
And these numbers do not include fatalities!
Read the report here:
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5226a1.htm

The fatalities are even more alarming. The study I cite examined data from 1979 – 1996. During this 20 year period, more than 300 people were documented being fatally attacked by dogs. That’s an average of 15 per year, an average of one approximately every four weeks. Available information indicates that this average is even higher for the years 1996 to present. Imagine the public outcry and legislative response if pet pythons and boas were directly responsible for a human death consistently every four weeks for twenty years. Wow.
You can read that report here:
http://www.cdc.gov/HomeandRecreationalSafety/images/dogbreeds-a.pdf

And more dog attack resources can be found here:
http://www.cdc.gov/HomeandRecreationalSafety/Dog-Bites/dogbite-pubs.html

I did a search on the CDC website using “python”, “boa constrictor” and then just “constrictor” as search terms. No reports are available on attacks or hospitalizations, just salmonella, which is why we all wash our hands after handling reptiles. Clearly it’s not a big problem.

So we must logically ask why no state or federal lawmakers, looking out for our best interests of course, are banning dogs! The facts plainly prove that dogs are a menace to public safety. Numbers don’t lie. You can be sure that if pythons or iguanas or hedgehogs or lemurs or something were causing this much trouble, politicians would be in a frenzy to impose new laws to save us all.

And what of the financial burden on society? The media frequently reports on the “cost” of obesity, smoking, or whatever the “scourge du jour” may be. What is the cost that dogs impose on American society and the health care system from all of these injuries, hospitalizations, and deaths? I don’t have a dollar amount, but going in for repairs from a good mauling can’t be cheap.

So, what’s the conclusion here? We all know that there is inherent risk in keeping animals. We can pick up pathogens or parasites, and we can be bitten, kicked, mauled, or possibly worse. It’s a risk we take, knowingly, when we work with animals of any kind. In fairness, no one kind of animal deserves to be vilified, and it’s fanciers prohibited from working with it, because it is not in the “protected class”. Particularly this is true when the facts prove that our beloved dogs have a proven record of dishing out a great deal of mischief and mayhem. The CDC stresses the importance of education to prevent problems with dogs. For exotics in general and snakes in particular, however, legislators go directly to bans and prohibitions. It’s dramatically inconsistent, and it’s discriminatory toward us non-politically correct animal keepers.

As exotic animal keepers, you have a responsibility to stand up to local, state and federal lawmakers as they chip away at our hobbies and businesses! Find out who they are (just search for them on line - its easy) and then call them, write them, email them. Feel free to use any information contained herein in correspondence.

Anthony Hensley, 37, of Villa Park, Illinois drowned after he was attacked in his kayak by a mute swan, Cygnus olor. I did some research on this animal and learned a few things. The mute swan is an introduced exotic species, universally considered to be an invasive species. A quick Internet search shows many state departments of natural resources expressing disdain for the negative impact of this exotic animal. It is destructive to the environment by consuming huge quantities of submerged aquatic vegetation, thus destroying critical fish and aquatic wildlife habitat. In addition, the highly aggressive and territorial mute swan out-competes native waterfowl and shore birds for habitat, actively destroys eggs and chicks, and attacks and kills adult birds. It is directly responsible for wiping out native nesting populations of endangered black skimmers and least terns in Maryland, and is responsible for reductions in other waterfowl populations. As we see from the attack and tragic drowning of the man in Illinois, it is highly aggressive toward people: clearly its large size and belligerent disposition make this a dangerous animal.

All of this is strikingly similar to the information used to justify the recent Lacey Act listing of the Burmese python as an "injurious" species. One would assume that mute swans, with a proven record of causing the same problems (actually worse), are similarly listed, but they are not. In fact, they are a protected species by the same USDI/USFWS who “banned” the Burmese python, African rock python, and yellow anaconda. The conclusions are inescapable and undisputable: a widely held fear of snakes, fueled by the media’s lust for sensationalism, along with the strong influence of animal rights interests, have resulted in one animal being persecuted by the federal government, while another “disagreeable” species receives protection and is “managed”. Orwell was correct in that “some animals are more equal than others.” And I had always interpreted Animal Farm as being symbolic.

Make no mistake about it, politicians currently see a “war on snakes” as a politically profitable enterprise, an opportunity to garner the adoration of fearful constituents and emotional animal rights advocates. Do not doubt that more efforts are underway on all levels of government to regulate or eliminate your right to keep reptiles, especially large and/or exotic species. HR511 is currently alive and well in Congress. Snake keepers, you absolutely must speak up to your representatives or you are going to lose more of your freedoms. Tell them you are against HR511. Politicians react well to the fear of losing popularity.
Contact your Congressman and voice opposition to HR511 as biased, unnecessary legislation.
Write or email, or both.

You can locate your Congressman here:
http://www.house.gov/representatives/

Mute swan references, if you are interested:
http://www.mdsg.umd.edu/issues/restoration/non-natives/workshop/mute_swan.html
http://www.issg.org/database/species/ecology.asp?si=973&fr=1&sts=sss
http://www.pserie.psu.edu/seagrant/ais/watershed/swan.htm
http://www.dnr.state.md.us/dnrnews/infocus/muteswanfacts.html
http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/invasives/terrestrialanimals/muteswan/index.html