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Re: PLEASE READ Humane Society Info


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Posted by Richard Fife on February 01, 2001 at 11:52:41:

In Reply to: PLEASE READ Humane Society Info posted by Prehistoric Pets Chino on January 30, 2001 at 16:02:09:

I can only speak concerning Federal law and not California law. Please see my web page at: http://personal.riverusers.com/~richardfife/page9.html for a link to the federal law and what we are trying to do about it.

I have a letter from Joseph R. Baca the Director of the Office of Field Programs, Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, which is a division of the Food and Drug Administration. In this letter he gives some clarification to the federal regulation.

In his letter he states that “The regulation does not preclude individuals who are not associated with a scientific institution from purchasing turtles for these stated purposes [scientific or educational]”. The letter also qualifies, examples of individual scientific or educational projects such as: Captive breeding research, growth and diet research, behavior research, conservation projects and working with species that require special permits or that are considered as endangered, threatened, or species of special concern.

The burden of proof would be in the hands of the courts to decide if an individual’s educational purpose did not meet the definition of the law and the regulation doesn’t include a definition for “scientific or educational”. In my opinion if a turtle, that is less than 4-inch were offered for sale for scientific or educational purposes, and a commercial dealer sold that animal in good faith he would be in compliance with the law. Non-commercial sales are excluded from the regulation (again this term is not defined in the regulation). I don’t believe that the sale of a turtle less than 4-inches to a juvenile, for any reason would comply with the intent of the regulation.

Dr. Baca's letter also states that “the displaying or exhibition of live turtles in a classroom scenario, does not provide adequate assurance that children will not come into physical contact with turtles, thereby increasing their risk of being infected with Salmonella. We, therefore, would not consider the displaying or exhibition of live turtles in a classroom to be a bona fide scientific, educational or exhibitional purpose”. This would suggest that a school teacher would have no more, or no less privilege to purchase a turtle, that is less than 4-inches than any individual. The question is for what purpose is the turtle being purchased.

The FDA has told me (unofficial personal communication) that at this time they will not consider any changes to the regulation until a non-antibiotic drug or preparation can be formulated that will eliminate Salmonella if added to the turtle’s water. This research is underway at this time in Louisiana. My proposal to amend the regulation to allow informed adults to purchase “pet” turtles will need a lot more input from 1,000’s of people before it will be considered. You help is needed.

Richard Fife



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