Gauteng members - pet hobby in danger

Inyanga, I cannot for the life of me see them impacting on the aquarium hobby. Certain things are verboten, nation-wide. That won't change. Nor will the way things are regulated re. the aquarium industry. I don't know iof you remember the very-poorly constructed TOPS Regs. Well that has never been implemented w.r.t. cycads for example - it just could not be implemented (pluds a few Constitutional issues).

Birds, herps, mammals, inverts: that is where the change will come. And I don't think that this has been well-thought out - they are under pressure from other Provinces to regulate the industry as these things are just too freely available. I have seen blue tongue skinks survibve oudoors in the W Cape foor over two years before it was recaptured - miles away from where it escaped. There were capabara's running around in the Noordhoek wetlands for yonks - until the local informal settlement hunted them out with their dogs. But these things happen and we have to be aware of them. As for people chucking them out now because of a witch-hunt - well that's why they shouldn't have had them in the first place! The responsible thing would be to hand them over.

Let's make informed and reasonable arguments for the continued persistence of the aquarium hobby. We are for the most part self-regulating and the taxa that concern them are already so well-entrenched in the culture of aquaria: swordtails, mollies, plecos etc. The avaerage Jonny doesn't go out and buy the really difficult to keep specials that we all want. Nope. Goldfish, apple snails etc. So let us show our case and let them see how many LFS they would have to regulate, the volume of trade, the number of aquarists etc - they do not have the resource allocation to do so.

This Draft is more like an expression of interest - its almost a wishlist of what they want to do. Yet the reality of it has not actually sunk in. If they ever do implement it, it will most certainly become unmanageable and will be abandoned.

 

I cannot get there on Friday. My wife is currently in Cape Town, so family and my son have to come first.

Pity, but I believe that the members representing the pet trade will be a formidable team. We are in good hands.

 

@Slagter Cheers for SAPTA.

I agree with you guys who are saying that it won't be implemented, won't be implementable, etc, but I don't agree that that makes it OK. In fact I think it's really terrible for there to be unimplemented laws "lying around" as it were, because it makes lawbreakers of all of us, and if someone has a grudge against someone else, lo and behold! A nice law to get them into trouble, even though nobody else actually takes any notice of it.

I think these things should be implemented on a national level, the lists that form part of the 2004 Act seem well-thought-through to me, why can't we just all go according to that? If it's allowed in the country we can keep it in Gauteng, if not, not.

 

SAPTA was made aware of this by Arno, not by me. I can not take any credit for that at all. I just voice my support for the concerns raised by the more knowledgable members of SAPTA.

 

@ PsyXe

As always, beautifully put.

@ BioLogic, agreed, up to a point, yet the herp, bird and arachnids are mostly not covered by this draft, only mammals, feeders, fish and venomous.

There are Constitutional and other legal issues in this legislation too, the previous draft violated the Criminal Procedures Act for instance, and there are likely to be violations of private ownership considerations in this one. (Any lawyers reading?)

As to whether an animal should be in the country or not, the WORST and most pervasive invasive fauna in the world are usually domestic animals.

For an invasive to establish in the wild, a breeding population has to be set up, this is why Florida has such an alleged problem, as they are a clearing house for exotics. A hurricane or whatever and a few hundred animals escape at a time. Not just one or two, worrying as a lone survivor may be. By the way, the situation in Florida may also be rather exaggerated in any case.

Once again, beware of your plants; these are the movers and shakers in the invasive world, yet not much regulation there?

We keep coming back to how this is not going to affect the aquarium trade, this will affect the legal PET trade in Gauteng, and there are very few retail businesses that stock only fish. If they go out, you don’t get to buy your fish, period.

I am intimately aware of the TOPS regulations involving cycads, and in my humble opinion these have set back cycad conservation a few decades at least, not to mention seriously affected the legal nursery industry, yet the muthi trade remains untouched?

Making criminals of soft targets such as people who, responsibly, own a pet is daft. QED.

 

OK let's clear a few things up here:

Once again, beware of your plants; these are the movers and shakers in the invasive world, yet not much regulation there?

We have the CARA (Act 43 of 1983) Regs (R.280 issued 30 March 2001) for this. This has been in effect for qite some time now so I don't know where you been all this time.

We keep coming back to how this is not going to affect the aquarium trade, this will affect the legal PET trade in Gauteng, and there are very few retail businesses that stock only fish. If they go out, you don’t get to buy your fish, period.


We have herds of stores down here that sell nothing but fish and aquarium goods. They in business. Still. I seriously don't see how they are going to be affected. If you are a store that has made your trade based on dubious creatures, well tough. That simple. Laws change. Life changes. That is how it goes. This is bigger than a person's financial gain from trade in critters that shouldn't be here in the first place. It's about protecting our biodiversity.

I am intimately aware of the TOPS regulations involving cycads, and in my humble opinion these have set back cycad conservation a few decades at least, not to mention seriously affected the legal nursery industry, yet the muthi trade remains untouched?

Muti trade did not go and remove the last 5 E. brevifoliolatus from habitat. Nor leave just one E. hirsutus in the wild. No that is because of unscrupulous greed idiots. The "me-me-me I must have" and "don't give a hoot about anything other than my life and what I have" type of imbeciles is exactly what brought the Gauteng pet trade to this point. Animal trading is rife in Gauteng and a large portion is in illegal animals, illegally acquired. It's no secret that most of the biggest wild animal traders are in Gauteng. Legislation is not the problem. People are the problem.

Enough said.

 

Biologic,
Yes you are right, the habbits and actions of people are the problem.
We do need to show how reasonably the pet trade can be best managed, inclusive of plant trade.
As Dirk stated we need to be united. Note, WC has legislation, GP wants to implement, as a natural cause, the other provinces will follow suit.
A national association, can eventually even get legilative powers, meaning, we can get to a position of regulating ourselves, we have done this in most cases in the aquatic industry, now let us get some legal power behind us...

 

"Legislation is not the problem. People are the problem." Truly summed up and very well said.

I just worry that over-legislating this will make the problem worse.

CARA and related legislation is un-enforced and un-enforceable, there are (confirmed) over 6000 non-native plant species in South Africa, all of them potentially invasive, yet one can bring in new species easily and legally. Where have I been all this time? Why, curating a botanical garden mate. Play the ball, not the man.

You live in a generally prosperous and well run province, Gauteng is rather different, although it is the economic heartland of SA. I believe specialist stores have a better likelihood of survival in Zilleland, not to mention Mom-and-Pop shops, which a lot of petshops are. As to animals that should not be here, please see my remarks on domestic animals, should we ban these too?

As to the Muthi trade, dude, have you ever actually visited a big market? Honestly?! TOPS species everywhere, habitats and populations annihilated to fuel the trade, tortoises chopped up with pangas while alive etc. etc. etc. Yet no-one knows or cares it seems. Let's rather go for softer targets, just like E-Toll exempts the taxi industry.

As to the cycads, well, biologically, many of them were en route to extinction anyway, what with pollinators already missing in habitat and so forth. If NatCon were to make it easier to propagate these plants, or better yet, have had seed production and re-introduction programs dating back decades, we wouldn’t be in this mess. Nah, seems easier to ban it and force people to get a permit to pollinate their own plants...

On the other hand, the illegal (and legal) trade in animals is a hell of a problem, but forcing something regulatable underground is stupid and self-defeating. My main concern is the welfare of the animals already in the country, whether or not "they should be here". Remember, that kind of argument could be extended, should you be "here", should I, (assuming we both come from a western backround that is)? Also, you are talking to a rational animal rights activist. They are not just "things", they should not be in the trade, oh yes indeed, but they are, so what now? Kill them all just doesn't cut it with me.

Truly sorry I got you hot under the collar man, you are clearly in Nature Conservation and passionate about it, I just don’t agree with nanny-stateism and worry about forbidden fruit syndrome. It’s also instinctive to me to challenge peoples assumptions and deeply held beliefs so as to set up a good dialogue, but its not meant to upset, however it is put.
(Although I may tease...)

We actually agree on the broader issues, but at the end of the day, this Bill is rubbish and needs lots more work before a "final" draft is issued. I also strongly dislike the secretive way this has been done.

Have a good one further.

 

Inyanga: my apologies for the inappropriate comment.

When I say "shouldn't have been here in the first place" I refer to critters that were not properly risk-assessed. Gauteng let things slide and went from a trickle to a burst flood-gate. They have themselves to blame. There has always been dodgy things going on there. I will never gorget how when I was was in conservation we queried the Gauteng policy of not proclaiming ALL Encephalartos as "Specially Protected" and in need of a permitting system. There policy was only those that are indigenous to South Africa will be on the list - the rest of Africa's taxa are their problem. And a short whiler later.......BOOM! The head of law enfiorcement was bust as part of an international smuggling ring - bringing cycads from the rest of Africa (wild-harvested) into Gauteng and then selling them overseas. I also recall that there were programmes in place pollinating wild plants etc. But dudes went and stole the adult plants - and these were plants like paucidentatus that were freely available in the trade!

Anyway back to the issue at hand. In the WC it was suggested yonks ago that there would be no further imports of Rift Valley cichlids - because Australian authorities wanted to ban them becuase they suddenly turned up in a sinkhole there - breeding! Suddenly there was worry-worry-super-scurry. And it was decided that this was not reasonable as so many of them were already well-entrenched in the aquatic industry and couldn't possibly survive our winters - or predators. Also the demand for them was very specialist and not like goldfish or guppies! The opposite has happened in Gauteng: whereas they thought that the specialized pet industry would stay in the hands of fanatics - it hasn't. The things have become mainstream and now the problem starts. Think about how the marmoset thing blew up - biting people, getting herpes, loads of unwanted pets. Replace marmoset with spider/cockroach/crocodile/etc.

Fish are not a real issue. As I said there is a Red List that may not be imported - if people are then they should bear the full brunt of the legal system. Irresponsible people trash it for everyone else. if you go to a store and they have things they shouldn't then you should report them, not support them.

This piece of legislation is a knee-jerk reaction to try and correct the mudpie they created. In all likelihood the very real threats (such as all those frikkin coackroach species that are sold as feeders!) will be regulated or banned. There is no harm in this.

 

@ BioLogic

No worries man, at the end of the day we play for the same team.

As Ive said, my huge issue is the animal welfare concerns, I agree this is a knee-jerk reaction and it will get all these innocent animals dumped, euthanised or starved to death because you cannot get feeder insects for love or money. All because the situation was not properly managed from the start.

And the knock on effects are likely to be felt for a very long time.

If we could just get this situation managed maturely, and let the fanatics get on with it legally...

 

So can i start a project selling durbanites

 

HAHA! Gorgeous, my wife would die....

 

Only for Monster Fish - Those things would eat most other fish

 

any updates,have the ppl started burning tyres yet?

 

Hi Guys,

I heard from Kim Rogers that the proposal at the meeting was definitely that everyone in Gauteng will need permits to fishes. Can someone give us some more information please.

Kind regards,

Dirk

 

The concerns of the pet trade were voiced at the meeting, and for now, no bill will be passed. The trade, and all others who wish to make comments on the proposed legislation have 14 days to voice opinions in email.

For now, we are ok.

 

All in all a positive outcome. In summary - our issues were raised & GDARD (Gauteng Department of Agricultural and Rural Development) has agreed to accept public comment again in the next 14 days. The people to email your concerns to are:

Ms. Abimbola Olowa, Legal Services, abimbola.olowa@gauteng.gov.co.za
Ms. Annetta Gansallo, NCB Project Secretariat, anetta.gansallo@gauteng.gov.co.za

There were a number of people at the meeting representing the reptile & aquatic hobby, including SAPTA (SA Pet Traders' Association). It was very encouraging to see how many people were interested enough to take the time to be there. We were well looked after and even given lunch by the department. Good to get some tax dollars back

Some of the arguments raised were:
- Public participation process wasn't followed, making the bill illegal.
- The current wording of the bill implies that if you buy a bottle of water, you would need a permit to carry the water as the water contains aquatic biota.
- SAPTA said they previously consulted with the department, agreed on 'some stuff' and believed their input would be taken into consideration, but this has not happened.
- If the bill is implemented in its current form it would threaten the entire pet industry resulting in a loss of income and jobs.
- Were the bill to be passed into law, many people would suddenly own animals illegally. What would those people have to do? What would happen to the animals?
- The bill makes it illegal to raise feeders to feed our animals

One of the people answering questions said that they aren't banning anything, just regulating. That caused a bit of a stir with people saying, erm... have you read what is in the bill?

The bill is still in pre-something or other phase ?? and has not yet gone to their lawyers, which means they can still accept public comment. So, the next step is to provide written submissions to the above addresses raising your concerns.

 

Dear Sean and Jenn,

Thanks for the feedback and thanks for attending the meeting. I think all of us should actually thank you for attending the meeting. As Gauteng appears to be the first provincial Nat Con department which is following this route, it is very important for all SA aquarists to follow this, as these types of regulations will in all likelihood be proposed in other provinces soon. Whatever you manage to achieve there will determine what happens elsewhere.

So I am glad to hear that the bill is in the proposal stages and that changes can be proposed. All I can say is that I would like to urge everyone in Gauteng to get a well-structured counterproposal on paper and then that you submit this by the deadline. Should we discuss this on APSA now in order to reach consensus?

All I can say is that 14 days is a very short period of time, don't let us let this slip and don't wait for someone else to respond. Who is going to respond on behalf of Gauteng Aquarists and who will respond on behalf of the Pet Traders Association?

Kind regards,

Dirk

 

Thank you so much to everyone who was there, each voice and hand made a difference. I think they were quite surprised at the level and number of objections, and the MEC (big boss) in particular seemed not to have been aware of the lack of consultation. With any luck some people are going to be in trouble on Monday!

Now, the way forward from here. As Jenn has said, we have 2 weeks to make representations at the e-mail addresses she provided. Will someone co-ordinate an official response from APSA or perhaps one from the fish side and one from the plants? Dirk, I assume you're on the moderators' boards, maybe that would be the best place to craft an official proposal?

For the rest of us, IMO the more they get in their inboxes the better, but with the following caveat: BE RESPECTFUL. No calling people idiots, NO RACISM please! We don't want to antagonise anyone, we want them to take us seriously. Use spell-check, edit your mails! In my opinion basically what we want is for tropical aquarium fish to be put on the "pet species list" or unrestricted list. This isn't unrealistic, birds are already there. Give reasons, particularly that the importation of those species considered to be potentially invasive is already not allowed, and that import is subject to permits.

There are other issues not related to our forum that you may also want to comment on, such as several species of small mammals (such as sugar gliders, add your own here) that should be added to the pet list, along with feeder insects (mealworms and crickets) and marine fish and inverts. If those changes are made then the bill will in my opinion be acceptable. 14 days from today, get writing!

Then, after 14 days, another meeting will take place. We will keep you informed of what we find out about this. If you find out something, let us know.

 

someone please explain to me how any of our fish will live in joburgs water systems...there are no fish, not even catfish/crabs living in any of the rivers near where i live. randburg