Senator Bolick of Arizona has introduced Senate Bill 1603 that will allow for warrantless search of private property and seizure of your pet animals. Senate Bill 1204 (Senator Kavanagh and Representative Shah) was also introduced and is almost identical. Remember, warrants protect us from unreasonable governmental intrusion. As if that is not bad enough, the bills would make it so that, “The formal rules of evidence do not apply and reliable hearsay is admissible in the postseizure hearing.” Please read that last sentence again! “The formal rules of evidence do not apply and reliable hearsay i ..read more

Colorado HB24-1163 enters a new level of big government and big taxes. The bill will add a new tax of up to $8.50 (but actually up to $25) on EACH pet and it includes ALL animals, even invertebrates. The tax is paid every year. It also requires every pet to be registered with the State and assigned a “designated caregiver.” If you do not name a “designated caregiver,” the cost for each pet is $25 annually. To summarize how outrageous that is, if someone has 100 aquarium fish, they could be paying $850 annually to have aquariums. If you do not register a “designated caregiver” with the State th ..read more

Representative Hixon has introduced H4874 which is a bill that creates Chapter 17 under Title 50 of the SC Code. Reading the bill is quite alarming but please allow us to explain the intent of the bill. Briefly, the bill will allow the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources (SCDNR) to create a permit system for wildlife rehabilitators, educators, exhibitors, and researchers. If the bill passes, SCDNR will then begin its rulemaking process to write the actual regulation. The term “captive wildlife” is created and has a broad definition in the bill, which seems bad without reading and un ..read more

SB5148 and HB1157 have been introduced again in Washington. They are the same bill numbers as in 2023 because they were reintroduced and retained in their present status. It is exactly the same as last year. These bills ban programs with thousands of species including ALL “snakes and reptiles,” ferrets, sugar gliders, and more. These are companion bills, meaning the same bill text exists in the House and Senate. The bills prohibit any exhibition of animals that provide entertainment, which means even outreach and educational programs will be banned. For example, people are amazed (entertained ..read more

HB1033 seeks to expand the ban on green iguanas (Iguana iguana) to include all iguana species. This would mean that rock iguanas, spiny-tailed iguanas, rhinoceros iguanas, and all other species would be prohibited species. It does this by changing statute from reading “Green Iguana (Iguana iguana)” to just “Iguana.” The bill would also ban the sales of dog and cats in pet shops. HB1033 was introduced by Representative Sam Killebrew. Read the bill at https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2024/1033/BillText/Filed/PDF. The bill has been profiled and has not yet been assigned to a Committee. The F ..read more

The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries has proposed extensive regulation changes regarding herps, both native and non-native. We will include some highlights below but anyone who may be affected should review the proposal. Please understand how to read the document. Anything in plain text is current regulation. Strikethrough text is being removed. Underlined text is the new language. Some of the changes are merely wording of the current regulations. Some of it is just italicizing scientific names for species already regulated. This may seem like a lot to read but there is no w ..read more

Lacey Act amendments regarding injurious species are included in a report (read it at https://usark.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/23-reset-prevent-rebuild-report-with-lacey.pdf) from the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party. It is titled, Reset, Prevent, Build: A Strategy to Win America’s Economic Competition with the Chinese Communist Party. This is not exactly the title of a document where these Lacey Act amendments would be expected and the inclusion is not germane to the report’s purpose regarding ..read more

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) is conducting a review of the global amphibian trade. As part of this effort, CITES and The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) have developed a questionnaire to gather information on amphibians, including the following: the levels of international trade in amphibians (legal and illegal); captive breeding of amphibians; threat of diseases to and from amphibians in trade; and the national/regional (and/or local) management, enforcement and regulatory priorities of amphibians in i ..read more

Gary Bagnall, the founder and CEO of Zoo Med, has played an integral role in USARK for more than fourteen years and was most recently serving as USARK’s Chairman of the Board. After so much time and attention devoted to ensuring USARK could succeed, Gary has decided to resign from the Board and focus his energy on other projects. One of these projects includes his non-profit Museum of Aquarium and Pet History (www.moaph.org). Gary and Zoo Med will still fully support USARK going forward, including pro bono services and maintaining their status as our largest and most consistent donor. Gar ..read more

Tomorrow (8/17/23) the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) will post this document in the Federal Register (found on our website at https://usark.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/23-borneo-earless-ESA.pdf). FWS will be considering these species to be listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA): Bornean earless monitor lizard (Lanthanotus borneensis), blue tree monitor lizard (Varanus macraei), bleached sandhill skipper (Polites sabuleti sinemaculata), and pinyon jay (Gymnorhinus cyanocephalus).   When a nonnative species is listed under ESA, even domestically born and bred anima ..read more