The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is meeting today to discuss a proposed rule that will have impacts on the pet and aquatic trade in the state. The meeting is about non-native fish and wildlife and how to regulate trade in Florida to help solve the issue of invasive species. As it stands right now there are over 500 non-native, invasive species in Florida so the FWC has a big problem on its hands, but both the options being proposed today will have huge implications for the pet trade, and the Pet Advocacy Network is calling for people to sign their petition and OPPOSE the proposed rulings. The Pet Advocacy Network has released the following statement:
“Over the past year, the Pet Advocacy Network has been a part of Florida’s FWC Technical Assistance Group (TAG), meeting monthly to work with the agency to find a way to best address the question of how to keep Florida’s delicate ecosystem safe, while also making sure that the pet industry, zoos, and hobbyists are still able to bring in unique species. Unfortunately, rather than listening to the stakeholders and experts who have gathered each month to work to address this issue, the FWC Commissioners have decided to move forward with an ill-advised “whitelist” approach.”
“FWC staff will present two potential policy options to the FWC Commissioners on May 10 and 11th at which time the Commissioners will decide which one they want to move forward with and initiate the rule-making process. Not only are we opposed to this approach of dismissing the TAG, but both options staff will present would have severe and negative repercussions on the greater pet industry in Florida and nationwide.”
“Option one would impose a lengthy evaluation process for any new species that could be in trade and would work from a hastily compiled “whitelist” – a list that experts were given less than three weeks to put together. In Michigan, when experts were asked to put something similar together, they were given a year, and even then, the State recognized that it wasn’t enough and moved in a different direction. Having an extremely lengthy and costly process for identifying new species that would be added to the trade would:
- Effectively halt business growth for Florida-based businesses while their competition in neighboring states can be much more flexible to incorporate new species.
- Have a particularly negative impact on small businesses that depend on providing species variety as a draw to compete with big box stores.
“Option two is even worse, as it would restrict the importation of any unevaluated nonnative fish and wildlife species and would not authorize the importation of ANY unevaluated species into Florida that was not native to Florida until FWC determines whether the species poses an acceptable level of risk to Florida. At the time of this proposal, there was no information on how long the evaluation process would be nor what species are currently on the “evaluated list.” What we do know is that the “evaluated list” is incredibly small – so this option:
- Would immediately shut down the pet trade and devastate the industry in Florida while causing ripple effects across the entire country, affecting the entire trade.
- Has no clear path forward for species to be added to the evaluated list that allows species to be traded in Florida. With such a process, proposing a rule change of this magnitude would have immediate, negative effects on all aspects of the industry in Florida.
“On May 11th, the FWC Commissioners will be holding a meeting where they will discuss both options. This meeting is open to the public and will provide time for attendees to make comments. If you do business in the pet trade in Florida, you need to participate in this process today.”
The problem with Whitelists
Whitelists have also been adopted to control the importation of wildlife in Europe, and despite opposition from stakeholders (just like in this case,) the ruling went through. But if you take fish as just one example of wildlife in the pet trade, there are in excess of 35,000 species, with many new ones being described every year, as well as countless revisions and name changes. So instead of black-listing a much shorter list of say Lionfish, Pterois volitans, and Red-bellied piranha, Pygocentrus nattereri, even 100 fish species long, which would be easy to reference and adhere to, someone will have the impossible task of trying to create a huge, thousands of species long white list, which will inevitably miss off some species via mistakes, certainly miss off newly discovered species in the future, and instantly become out of date regarding scientific names.
So if they miss off say the Coral Beauty, Centropyge bispinosa, by pure error, that species will then by definition not be allowed to be traded in. And the same will go for every aquatic plant, and aquatic invertebrate, then multiply that across other pet sectors like reptiles, birds, and mammals, and in real terms, a white list becomes completely unmanageable. And that’s why the Pet Advocacy Network, on behalf of the Florida pet trade, wants you to air your views and oppose any potential pet trade/wildlife whitelists.
The FWC is meeting today and tomorrow, and PAN wants you to click on this link and sign their petition.
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