Who will this legislation affect?

• USDA licensed breeders, dealers, exhibitors, research labs, transporters and carriers—more than 50 facilities in all in NC alone

• The staff and veterinarians of each site

• Interns and students currently involved in study at NC facilities

• The public being educated by these exhibits, including in schools, civic organizations and clubs, community groups, hospitals and rehab centers, career fairs and community events

• The travel and tourism industry
  

• The people affected by the outcome of the research done at facilities in NC

• North Carolina Feline Conservation Federation Members

• The Duke University Primate Center

• Animal rehabilitation centers like the Piedmont Wildlife Center and the Carolina Raptor Center

• Community Colleges and Universities that have animal care programs, zoology and biology majors, vet tech and veterinarian training that currently have animal facility staff on their advisory boards or internships at various facilities

• Individuals licensed under NC Fish and Wildlife Resource’s Commission permits to rehabilitate wildlife

• Wild Feline Husbandry Course Graduates

• The New Guinea Singing Dog Conservation Group, with a collection of dozens of animals placed across several facilities in NC

• The Owston’s Palm Civet Breeding and Conservation Programme in VietNam, who has an MOU with an NC facility to engage in ex situ breeding of small carnivores

• The American Zoo and Aquarium Association’s Small Carnivore Taxon Advisory Group, who supports the Owston’s program

• The Czech Zoo Consortium, scheduled to train curators and keepers at a private NC facility, and to exchange bloodlines of animals within the year

• The National Cancer Institute’s Lab of Genomic Diversity, gathering information at an NC facility

• Private animal sanctuaries who do not affect commerce and are therefore not required to be USDA licensed

• The IUCN/SSC Mustelid, Viverrid and Procyonid Specialist Group, working with information provided by an NC facility

• Pet owners of exotic animals including snakes, ferrets, hedgehogs, chinchillas, guinea pigs, imported fish, raptors, imported birds, lizards and iguanas, insects and arachnids, sugar gliders, exotic cats, coatimundi, kinkajous, ringtails, wolves and wallabies.

• In situ and international breeding programs cooperating with and garnering support from NC facilities

• Thousands of volunteers who work with and support these causes

• The hundreds, possibly thousands of animals living currently in zoos, sanctuaries and homes across NC

What will the economic impact be on the state of North Carolina if a ban is successfully passed?

Many people in this state will lose their livelihoods, and animal rights activists gain a crucial foothold in our state's legislature to pass further laws restricting agriculture and commerce. In terms of immediate economic impact, not counting lost revenue from the travel and tourism industry when popular local zoos and attractions are closed, the conservative estimate from a study excerpted from the Federal Register is over 400 million dollars a year in lost revenue. Click here to see the facts and figures.

The HSUS is one of the participants on this legislative advisory committee. Like many other animal rights groups, HSUS pours huge sums of money into referendum and legislative campaigns to stop any use of animals. "Along with other heavy hitters like the Fund for Animals and Farm Sanctuary," notes activistcash.com, "HSUS scored a big victory in Florida in 2002 when a ballot initiative passed that gave constitutional rights to pregnant pigs."

Among other things, the new rights for Florida pigs banned farmers from using "gestation crates." The crates are necessary to humanely keep sows healthy during pregnancy and to prevent them from accidentally rolling over and crushing their newborn piglets. The new law did nothing to improve the welfare of pigs, but did make pig farming economically unsustainable. The Fund for Animals and Farm Sanctuary accomplished exactly what they wanted. Today there are virtually no pig farms in Florida. What would the economic impact be to North Carolina if the same legislation was passed in this state? Hog farming in North Carolina represents a more than one billion dollar industry.

Why does more legislation need to be passed when there are already existing laws that protect public safety and animal welfare?

It doesn't. This is not rational regulation that answers a real need, but a bill written by an extremist animal rights group from California (API) that also advocates feeding a vegetarian diet to your pets and opposes nearly all human contact with animals. We already have effective laws on the books about captive wildlife, and licensed facilities are overseen by a USDA inspector. The NCAZS fully supports rational regulation on captive wildlife that ensures public safety and animal welfare, but does not agree that animal rights activists from California should be allowed to push their vegan agenda into this state.

Here are some examples from some of the relevant laws that are already on the books in our state to regulate captive wildlife and animals that pose a danger to the public.

Captive Wildlife Safety Act
City and County Wildlife Laws
North Carolina Animal Welfare Act
North Carolina Animal Import Regulations
North Carolina Dangerous Dog Laws
North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission Regulations
North Carolina Regulations on Captivity Memo
North Carolina Statutes Chapter 113 Subchapter 4 (Wildlife)

Who will benefit if restrictive legislation is passed?

The members of a select private club (the AZA) who have a waiver will be the only zoo and sanctuary in NC. They will have "dibs’ on all the displaced pets, sanctuary and zoo animals, and then will be the focus of all donations and promotions thereafter. It is a point of real concern to the independent zoo and wildlife professionals of this state that the institution that stands to benefit most from a ban is chairing the 1032 study bill committee and has two representatives seated, along with four animal rights groups including a California extremist group from out of state.

What is the AZA?

The American Zoological Association is a group of zoos and aquariums nationwide that agree to abide by certain guidelines and meet certain standards. Not all zoos in this state agree with those particular guidelines or standards. Though most of them are generally good, many independent zoo and wildlife professionals feel that some of their standards and practices are not the best ones either for animal welfare, species survival or public education. Others feel that they are unreasonably high for some species and unreasonably low for others. In addition those standards are set up so that no zoo can become an AZA member until it has been open for several years. If legislation is successfully passed banning all zoos except for AZA accredited ones, there will never be another zoo in the state of North Carolina. The Asheboro Zoo may benefit, but North Carolina citizens will not.

The AZA is certainly not bad or evil. It accomplishes many good things. But it is a private club, and not all zoos want to belong to this particular club or agree with how it is run. A ban that exempts only members of this club would establish a government granted coercive monopoly in the zoo and wildlife industry in our state. A good comparison would be forcing all the smaller mom and pop grocery stores to join WalMart and pay them dues in order to have the right to stay open. WalMart may be a good store with good products, but we don't all want (or need) to belong to WalMart.

Specifically, we don't think it would be a good idea for the director of WalMart to chair a committee that helps decide whether to pass a law that bans all stores in North Carolina that are not owned by WalMart. Unfortunately that is exactly what is happening in our legislature right now.

What standards are zoos held to?

The USDA inspects and regulates captive exotic mammals held in this state, including all of the zoos, and sets forth standards for safe and humane housing as a condition of licensing.

What laws already apply to exotic animal owners?

• Local township, city and county ordinances and regulations

• NC State Fish and Wildlife Regulations on rehabilitation, capture, captivity, import and containment

• NC State Veterinarian’s Regulations on importing species

• Federal Government Regulations on any animals used in commerce in any way, including exhibition, education and research—USDA licensing required

• Interstate Transport prohibited in many cases, including Captive Wildlife Safety Act

• Lacey Act violations apply if interstate commerce is involved.

Why not just require everyone to have a USDA license?

Commercial activity is required to qualify for a USDA license of any kind. Private collection owners, sanctuary facilities and owners of previously unregulated species do not qualify for such a license solely based on their con-commercial status. The NCAZS supports regulation for private keepers to the same standards of public safety and animal welfare that the USDA enforces for commercial entities.

New federal legislation restricts interstate commerce of some animals. How will that apply here?

This legislation restricts the movement of some animals across state lines for the purpose of a sale or donation.

Are private owners really that critical to conservation work?

Zoos have limited space for housing animals. That means they have to choose which animals are to be included in captive breeding programs. Since they also have an obligation to bring in visitors, the majority of spaces go not to the most critically endangered animals, or the animals most likely to be able to be re-introduced, or even to the animals most important for maintaining a healthy in situ ecosystem, they go to the species that draw crowds. Private owners are not always operating under those same obligations. They are key in the effort to save many of the species otherwise being ignored.

Zoos are not always the best place to breed animals, even endangered species, because of space limitations and the need for keeping animals on public display in situations that may not be optimal for breeding. Sanctuaries and other private facilities that are not open to the public can and do fill this necessary species survival niche, as the Feline Conservation Federation and the AZA's own Felid Taxon Advisory Group testifies.

The following documents may be downloaded for a better understanding of how critical the contributions of the private sector are to the conservation of endangered species, both in zoos and in the wild.

The Lion SSP report
Letter from the Felid Taxon Advisory Group
Letter from the Feline Conservation Federation

Who opposes this legislation?

Pretty much everyone who is not an animal rights activist or currently being decieved by them. This is not an animal welfare bill, nor does it rationally address public safety concerns. We strongly support sane and rational regulation that ensures public safety and enforces animal welfare. We do not support an unreasonably restrictive ban that will shut down legitimate and properly licensed/inspected businesses in our state, including zoos, nature centers, sanctuaries, rescue groups and wildlife rehabilitators.

Here are some letters from various individuals ranging from doctors and veterinarians to zookeepers opposing a ban on keeping and breeding exotic animals.

Noah's Landing
Conservator's Center
Cape Fear Serpentarium
Association of Reptile and Amphibian Veterinarians
Professor Whitfield Gibbons, Professor of Ecology, University of Georgia
Dr. Betsy Carlton
Feline Conservation Federation
Dr. Brian Grieg Fry, Deptuty Director, Australian Venom Research Unit

Who is promoting this legislation?

Animal rights extremists from California wrote this bill in its entirety, and they have been pushing it from state to state using taxpayer dollars and the financial contributions of people who think that their money is actually being used to help animals. It's important that the public know who these groups are and what their agenda is. Here is a copy of a report by the Capital Research Center on PETA.

One of the goals of the California animal rights group that is claiming credit for authoring this bill (API) appears to be to end farming and meat eating in North Carolina. API's high-profile, Sacramento-based lawyer Nicole Paquette was invited to sit on our state's legislative advisory committee by Lorraine Smith, who is Curator of Mammals at the Asheboro Zoo. API is openly anti-zoo, and like all groups that promote animal rights rather than animal welfare, its ultimate goal is to see all zoos shut down.

What is the difference between animal welfare and animal rights?

It's not the same thing at all. The independent zoo and wildlife professionals of North Carolina are very much in favor of animal welfare, including regulations that ensure good standards of housing, husbandry and veterinary care for all captive animals.

Animal welfare groups seek to ensure the humane treatment of animals. Animal rights groups seek equal rights for animals with humans to prevent people from using or owning animals in any way. Animal rights groups want to close down our state's zoos and sanctuaries, ending our ability to rescue, rehabilitate, breed for conservation and species survival, exhibit or educate the public with these animals. Click here to read more, including a link to the American Veterinary Medical Association's position.

The position of the extreme animal right is that it is always better for animals to be killed or to be left alone to suffer and die "naturally" rather than to be kept in captivity, even by zoo and wildlife professionals who are helping the animals and educating the public. Even when animals are being rescued or rehabilitated and cared for to very high professional and veterinary standards, animal rights extremists will still charge that the animal is being abused or "enslaved" because it is in captivity. That is the difference between a legitimate concern for animal welfare and the quasi-religious agenda of "animal rights". That, and their willingness to break the law and to harm both people and animals in their single-minded pursuit of their goals.

"The people who are doing the most to promote animal welfare today are the very ones that the animal rights movement wants to put out of business. So watchdogs of this issue like those at Animalscam.com are correct in recommending that if you want to support the humane treatment of animals, support your local animal shelter, your local humane society (not the animal-rights-oriented Humane Society of the United States), or your local zoological park. Because animal welfare groups deserve your help. Animal rights extremists do not."
- CFACT (Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow)
http://www.cfact.org/site/view_article.asp?idCategory=21&idarticle=464

For more informative quotes from the people who are bringing us this bill, see http://www.animalrights.net/quotes.html

What can I do right now to stop California animal rights activists from taking away our rights in North Carolina?

Click here for a form that will tell you how to contact your Senator or Representative so you can tell them what you think of California animal rights activists sneaking into our legislature in North Carolina to shut down our neighborhood zoos and wildlife sanctuaries.