Snake in the grass
I had the most interesting conversation on my Rural Route Radio program last week with Phil Goss, a snake farmer from Indiana. Yes, a snake farmer from Indiana. Phil says he is really not a snake farmer. He calls himself more of a snake “hobbyist” but he is currently president of the United States Association of Reptile Keepers.
Did you know that 5 percent of the U.S. households now have a reptile as a pet? I did not know that but find it very interesting.
I am just wondering if there is a movement for folks to keep snakes “free range” like the trend being forced upon other animal species? Well, that fact is actually what brought us together. Phil is fighting not only state laws but some county ordinances that are trying to dictate how much space a snake should have in its cage. Phil walked me through what is happening right now in Washoe County, Nevada, where the county is trying to dictate that individuals who own reptiles provide more cage space than what is required at the zoo.
This looks exactly like every other animal handling challenge we face; it is never really about providing more space or a better life. It is all about raising obstacles so that we can no longer own animals.
As a person who has spent virtually every day of my life working with some critter, I don’t understand for the life of me why anyone would want to raise snakes. I appreciate snakes and I understand the value of snakes in the ecosystem. Other than our 5-year tenure on the Rosebud Reservation where I eliminated every rattlesnake I encountered, I don’t bother snakes and snakes don’t bother me.
With that said, I give more power to the people who want to raise snakes and meet the growing consumer demand. Not only do these folks raise reptiles but Phil told me he purchases frozen mice to feed the snakes. That means someone else is raising the mice to sell to the reptile owners. You see it is called growing the “economy.”
The snake issue reminds me of the very first time, early in our campaign 20 years ago, when I spoke to the international fur convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Several close friends of mine warned me that I should be careful hanging with those fringe groups because I could lose credibility.
That sentiment forced me to look up the dictionary definition of “fringe”: the outer, marginal, or extreme part of an area, group, or sphere of activity.
OK, in a country with a population of 323 million people, would not all animal owners be considered “fringe”? And certainly farmers would be in that classification holding up our stellar 1.2 percent of the country’s population.
The real issue to me is when we hear about the state of Illinois banning elephants in the circus or the state of New Jersey trying to ban to use of all animals for entertainment purposes and we shrug it off as not being our challenge. It is our challenge.
When one animal owner, anywhere in the country, is told he cannot do something with his boa constrictor, it puts a limit on what I can do with my horse, cattle or pigs.
We have an all-out push occurring right now throughout the land by these animal rights groups to end the human ownership of animals and they are willing to do it county-by-county, if necessary. I do fully recognize that I am once again identifying another challenge that we must engage in here today. I also know your day was already full of things to deal with but if we don’t step up, we will be next.
I think what I really want is to simply bring awareness to just how extreme the challenges in front of us truly are. If you do nothing but tell at least one other person and create some level of awareness, that is better than simply brushing it off.
We must recognize that animal rights groups work like a snake in the grass, slithering around and preying on the unsuspecting. However, if you know the snake is there and what he is really up to, we can be proactive and fend off a strike. We can also warn all of our friends and protect them as well. As our wise neighbor lady told us about dealing with snakes when we moved to the reservation, “Keep your eyes open and always carry a hoe!”
Editor’s note: Trent Loos is a sixth generation United States farmer, host of the daily radio show, Loos Tales, and founder of Faces of Agriculture, a non-profit organization putting the human element back into the production of food. Get more information at www.LoosTales.com or email Trent at [email protected].
