Heads-up for WV Residents

And for those of you in VA I guess, since these laws tend to proliferate between the states.

Earlier this year WV passed the "Dangerous Wild Animal Act".  It created a Dangerous Wild Animal Board that is supposed to come up with a list of dangerous animals.  Once this list is finalized by the Board it goes to the legislature next year for a vote.

The Board met last month and created a list of species to include in the ban. It is huge and available at http://www.ronedmedia.com/wvaquarium/WV_reptile2014.html

The public comment period for the list started 7/2 and ends at the end of this month. USARK posted the official proposed rule/regulation listing dangerous wild animals for WV on their web page for easy access.
http://www.usark.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/WV-DWA-List-and-Comment.pdf

Not only do you need to send in a public comment, but this is an election year. The list of who voted for/against the law is available at http://legiscan.com/WV/bill/HB4393/2014. If your Senator and Delegate voted correctly, then thank them and please help get them re-elected. If they didn't, go help the challenger.

I've also submitted a LTE in my local paper to alert people. It should be printed in the next few days.

I talked to Michael a few days ago he said they're only considering WV residents comments at this time ?

I'm writing a letter to email, and going to try and get some pictures. Planning on doing an educational show soon with some of my animals. To get some pictures with other kids and random people with them.

Our legislature and advisory boards have a bad habit of only considering comments from residents.

Thanks for the info you sent.  I'll be working on an email this week.  It will probably not be read but but hopefully it is.  Good to have stuff like this prepared for the future anyways.

I'll send you guys a copy of the letter as well, one of you can submit it as a comment

Thanks Deeds!

There are suggested letters from USARK for both residents and non-residents at http://usark.org/2014-blog/west-virginia-dwa/

Deadline is 8/1 (this Friday) at noon, I'm going to submit my comments Thursday just to make sure they beat the deadline.