REXANO Concerned about Constitutionality of Exotic Animal Legislation and its Effect on our Children; New Free Web Resource Provides Tools to Fight it

Las Vegas, NV (PRWeb) February 17, 2007 -- Private owners of wild and exotic animals in the USA have been coming under ever increasing attacks from animal rights (AR) activists and the uninformed legislators to end the private ownership of exotics in the name of public safety.

"There are no hard facts and statistics to support the case for these bans, only so called incident reports compiled by the various AR group", says Andrew Wyatt, President of NC Association of Reptile Keepers www.NCARK.org.

According to Antitrust Division of Department of Justice, 'The Sherman Antitrust Act' says: "An unlawful monopoly exists when only one firm controls the market for a product or service, and it has obtained that market power, not because its product or service is superior to others, but by suppressing competition with anticompetitive conduct."
It also expresses national commitment to a free market economy in which competition free from private and governmental restraints leads to the best results for consumers.

West Virginia, Indiana, Missouri and Washington already have anti-exotic legislation introduced. Ohio and North Carolina will soon follow. In other states and localities the similar legislation already passed, but is it constitutional?

"Same scenario has been happening", says Zuzana Kukol, a Nevada tiger trainer and co-founder of "Responsible Exotic Animal Ownership", www.REXANO.org, a new free web resource designed to give tools and statistics based research material to private owners of exotics to fight unfair legislation. "AZA accredited zoos are always exempt from this legislation introduced in the name of public safety; however, looking at the fatalities caused by captive tigers in the USA since 1990, a person is almost 4 times more likely to be killed at an AZA zoo than at private facility." (see attachment)

On their website, AZA Felid Taxon Advisory Group (TAG) strongly opposes pet ownership of exotic felids .

"AZA is not a government agency; it is a private group accrediting zoos and aquariums that have met certain standards and have enough money to get accredited" says Scott Shoemaker of REXANO."

"The Animal Rights Movement has been busy trying to take their extreme philosophy that animals must be 'separated' ('Protected' is the new euphemism) from people by law.

"Without the AZA exemption all non-AZA institutions are driven out of business. An institution must already be established before they can apply for accreditation by the AZA... making it impossible for new institutions to start up because they lack the accreditation. In this environment there will never be another Jack Hanna, Jim Fowler or Steve Irwin. Fear trumps over freedom. Will America be coerced by inflammatory rhetoric from the AR Movement into over reacting to a non-existent threat by enacting overly intrusive animal bans? I hope not." adds Wyatt.

"I am wondering if legislators might be unwittingly creating a monopoly and assaulting the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, 'Equal protection of the law', by introducing and passing unfair bills while exempting private group AZA," Kukol ponders. "This is unAmerican. We want to warn our public, schools and parents; should these bills pass, it will be an end to most live educational school shows that are currently presented by private animal educators not accredited by AZA."

According to AZA website, they currently accredit about 200 institutions in the USA, 30 of which are aquariums and museums. That leaves only about 170 institutions in the whole USA to educate our children about the wildlife. Many of these zoos do not conduct offsite presentations, so unless you live near an AZA zoo, your kids will not experience a live animal educational presentation, unless action is taken to stop this trend now.

"Animals are personal property; and we oppose legislation that restricts the private ownership or use of animals, or that inhibits free trade of any animal provided it meets Ohio Department of Agriculture testing and import requirements" adds Polly Britton, secretary of Ohio Association of Animal Owners (www.OAAO.us).

"As long as animal welfare and public safety laws are followed, the private ownership of all animals should protected in the USA" says Shoemaker.

"Control the land and the animals, then you control the people." states Kim Bloomer a natural pet care educator, lecturer and host of the online radio show Animal Talk Naturally Http://www.AnimalTalkNaturally.com
    
"There is a hidden agenda with regard to all of these laws and it has nothing to do with public safety or concerns for good animal care. Rather, it is about eroding or removing American freedoms, the right to own as many animals as we can provide for."

Current focus of REXANO is to reverse the trend in over regulation, with the desire that in the near future to work on repealing excessive regulations and bans on private ownership of exotics.

###