(intense, dramatic music)
- Hey, good morning, everybody, and welcome to the vlog.
I hope the start of your day is amazing.
As for me, I've got to talk to you guys
about something really serious.
I mean, this is like major, major serious,
and you know that we've been open here at The Reptarium
for a couple of years and it's been amazing.
I mean, the amount of success with people coming
and just for me, personally,
being able to be involved in something like this
and seeing so many people change their perspective
about reptiles as they've walked through the door,
literally tens of thousands of people have been
through this place, and a lot of them came in
with that kind of mentality that reptiles were scary
or whatever, and left loving reptiles,
not to mention tons of people that came in
and literally ultimately bought reptiles for the first time
as a pet.
And there's only a couple things
that could derail the success of this.
You know, listen, we've actually lived through the pandemic
for gosh sakes, and we've still been able to learn
how to survive and do pretty well.
Well, I tell you what,
something pretty massive is on the docket right now
that could literally put the jeopardy not only
of The Reptarium and put other reptile zoos in Michigan
and potentially around the country, down the road.
And so I've just got to talk to you about this
and it's definitely freaking me out.
(easy-going music)
- So what I have here is a copy
of the House Bill Number 6455,
introduced December 1st by a Representative Ellison.
Now this is going to the Committee of Agriculture
and it is actually a dangerous reptile bill act
that basically is going to change everything for Michigan
if this goes through.
Now I'm going to walk you guys through as we go here
of how the process actually works
and what this actually means, but for beginners,
this is the most damaging legislation
that Michigan has ever faced when it comes
to keeping reptiles.
And I tell you what guys,
we have a lot to talk about
when it comes to this potential legislation,
and this is the thing that scares me more than anything
when it comes to keeping reptiles, not only for the zoo,
but for you guys and for just really the future of reptiles,
is this type of legislation.
Take, for instance, one of the things
that would be outlawed would be the entire order
of crocodilia, right?
That means alligators, crocodiles, caiman,
everything like that.
So you wouldn't be able to keep alligators, and now, listen,
I've said this in the past.
I don't think that alligators are a pet animal
that most people should keep, most crocodilians aren't
for that matter, but a place like this,
like a reptile zoo like this,
certainly we're an educational base or someone runs
an educational type of program that they go to schools,
they should be able to have crocodiles or alligators
in order to educate.
If this law were to go into effect,
that would outlaw our ability
to keep such amazing animals like this.
Now before we get into, you know,
all the other things that are on this list
that will potentially be outlawed,
I do want to tell you where we're at
with the actual bill itself,
for those of you guys that don't know how this system works,
it is being introduced
into the Committee of Agriculture, right?
So basically what happens is it goes into that committee.
Probably seven people on the board,
something like that on that committee board.
They talk about it.
If they vote yes to it as is, and don't make any changes,
then it would actually go to the House for a vote, okay?
And if it passed the House for a vote,
then it would have to go to the State Senate for a vote
before it would be ratified into actual law.
So we're still early in the process,
and what you want to do is have the best ability
to stop these types of things in committee,
because once it gets out of committee,
then you're dealing with a whole host of Senators
and House's Representatives as opposed to seven people
on a committee.
So if we can convince those seven people on the committee
that this is a bad idea, that would be the best way to go.
Now, chances are pretty good
that the Congressman Ellison is not a bad guy,
he just probably has some special interests pushing him,
saying, "Hey, listen, we need to do this." Right?
And rather than looking at him as a villain,
I would say that he's uninformed
with this legislation the way it reads, it was ridiculous.
Now you know, listen, I'm not an anti-legislation guy.
I think that there's reasonable legislation,
but there are widespread legislation like this
that would really hurt people like us here at The Reptarium
and people are trying to do good from an educational
and conservational standpoint.
You guys know that I don't keep venomous snakes yet here
at The Reptarium, but it's kind of been a thing
that I've wanted to do in the future,
is to keep a bunch of cobras and rattlesnakes, again,
not to play with them and cowboy them,
but for people to actually see and learn about them, right?
Now, I don't know if that ever would happen,
but unfortunately, in this legislation,
not only would it outlaw all viperidae, all elapidae,
basically all venomous snakes.
I mean, all your cobras, all your rattlesnakes,
all your cottonmouths, gaboon vipers,
everything would be outlawed.
You wouldn't be able to get those,
so if I ever expanded into The Reptarium
and wanted to keep a venomous section,
I wouldn't be able to anymore, at all, period.
Even some of the mildly venomous snakes are on that list
to where they would no longer be able to be acquired
or kept, as well.
So it is unbelievably intrusive, this potential legislation.
Now I'm not saying that we should be able
to keep anything and everything that we want,
but when legislation is passed, it has to be reasonable,
and in my eyes, this legislation,
which I've read about 20 times,
is just overbearingly widespread to the point
where it would kill the future of keeping reptiles.
As a matter of fact, one of the things about this is
you are grandfather-claused in,
so we could actually keep the animals here at The Reptarium,
and I'm going to talk about how that would change
the way we kept them,
but you couldn't get any additional ones
and you would not allowed to breed them at all.
No breeding of those animals.
If you bred them, you would be in violation of the law,
which by the way, could land you up to 90 days in jail,
up to $5,000 fine per issue, as well as other things,
so that would be a major change in the future,
not only of The Reptarium but certainly BHB reptiles.
(dramatic music)
- And believe it or not, monitor lizards
like Elvis here, the water monitor, on that list as well.
And basically what that means is that, yes,
I'm grandfather-claused in with that, and I'm going to talk
about what that means,
but I couldn't get any additional ones
if this law passed, right?
So if I wanted to get an albino water monitor,
I couldn't do it.
If I wanted to breed Chicken Strip and Obasucu,
I couldn't do it, right?
And the grandfather clause just basically just means
if you have it before the law,
you can actually keep the animals, but it's not that easy.
It's not like you can just keep them.
You have to register them with animal control
and the county and the city, you have to pit tag them,
which means you're basically microchipping each
and every animal, and you have to keep a detailed record
of every animal, not to mention, you have to talk
about all of your caging, all of your plans.
Let's say if there was a natural disaster,
if something was hurt,
you have to have a $250,000 liability, which we have,
but for someone that's just keeping a water monitor
as a pet, wanted to chip it,
you know, go through all this process
and keep a liability of $250,000?
It'd be impossible, right?
So for the normal person,
they basically would have to probably get rid of all
of their animals that were on this list,
which again is all venomous snakes, all monitors,
all crocodilians, all mildly venomous snakes,
and a whole bunch of other things.
I mean, it is absolutely ridiculous
to be so overbearing on that.
It's impossible.
Basically what you would do is you would take away
our rights and our ability to keep these reptiles.
Now again, would The Reptarium survive? Yeah, we would.
But it would cost us tens of thousands of dollars
to actually stay in business,
not to mention the yearly permit fee for every single animal
in this place, and like I said, when we expand to 3.0, 4.0,
whatever the case is,
we wouldn't be able to get the majority of the animals
that we want to add on, right?
So this is really potentially not only going to affect
the private keeper that's keeping a bunch of animals
as pets, but it's certainly going
to even potentially really affect our future here
at The Reptarium.
(dramatic music)
- And in this legislation or proposed legislation,
I should say, you can't get around it, even in the verbiage
that says that you can't get gifted, donated,
any possible way.
You have to show proof that you had the animals that were
on this list prior to the law going into effect.
If you don't, you're in violation,
and if you're in violation,
I've already talked about the potential penalties,
which could be really bad.
So now the question is, what do we do about this?
(dramatic music)
- Recently, Florida was kind of faced with a similar thing
where they were going to outlaw iguanas, monitors, tegus,
and a bunch of stuff like that, and a lot of my friends
from you know, Tiki's Geckos, Underground Reptiles,
a bunch of people got together and they really pushed
to change the legislation to stop some legislation
and overturn other legislation by being
kind of a unified group.
Now, I realize that Michigan doesn't have the amount
of reptile keepers than, let's say, Florida does,
but we do have a lot of reptile keepers here in Michigan.
So what we need to do is number one, be reasonable, right?
We don't want to attack anybody,
but we want to call, write, email our representatives
in Michigan, in particular, the people on the committee.
I'm going to put a link in the description
if you're from Michigan.
If you're not from Michigan,
it's not going to help that much,
but you could still send a nice letter saying
you think it's not a good thing.
The more we get influence on that committee,
the more chances that dies in committee,
because the best way to beat legislation is in committee
before it actually goes to the House for a vote, right?
So we want to make sure we do that.
So we want to send emails, letters, phone calls,
just saying, "Hey, listen, we think this is a bad idea.
And we're, you know, we're willing to talk
about how we can create legislation, if we need legislation,
that is reasonable rather than unreasonable."
If that makes any sense.
The other thing you can do again,
link in description to that, also a link in the description
to USARK.
USARK is an advocacy group that protects the right
for all of America when it comes to keeping reptiles.
We need to support them. We need to join them.
We need to have them on our side.
I'm sure USARK is involved in a fight
with Michigan right now.
I have no doubt about it.
I'm going to reach out to the president of USARK,
who's a friend of mine and just talk to him
about what I can do to help things.
So it's not over guys, we're, you know,
it's not like it's the end,
but certainly this could change the future
if things like this go on, and now you may be thinking,
"Hey, that's a Michigan problem.
It's not my problem. Let Brian worry about it."
The fact is is that when laws pass in Michigan,
then they often are reflected in other states
and more and more laws start getting passed.
So don't think you're safe because you're not in Michigan.
Just like I didn't think I was safe
because of what was happening in Florida.
I was willing to do everything I do to help their fight.
We need to stand in together because again,
taking our rights away, think about this, man.
If this keeps going from state to state to state
and gets passed, 20 years from now,
there's not going to be any animal education
when it comes to reptiles because people aren't going
to be allowed to keep them, and it's a tragedy.
So again, links in the description,
do what you can, spread the word.
We need to beat this because, hey, listen,
I love this and I don't want this to change.
So again, guys links in the description,
to not only the bill, H.R.6455,
but also the people you can contact
to just kind of influence.
Remember be thoughtful, be kind.
Attacking people does not help in this situation,
but we have to protect not only the now,
but the future of reptiles and education and conservation.
So we need your help, so let's do the best we can do.
Also support USARK.
I hope that you guys will help out because listen,
I don't want The Reptarium to go anywhere in the future.
Plans are so big for us.
This would definitely stifle the expansions of the zoo,
and I don't want that to happen,
and I hope that you can help us out.
Can you do me a favor?
Right up here, you can subscribe to my podcast channel.
Also, we'll be talking about that, obviously.
Over here, you can subscribe to this vlog channel.
Turn your post notifications on,
have an absolutely wonderful day.
We can win this together and I promise,
I'll see you tomorrow.