Here’s my second post of the morning and it’s an important issue for us all, globally.
The choosing of U.S. Global Exotics was no coincidence, of that I am quite sure. There are far more owners of “common” pets than of exotics. We who do not own exotics need to pay close attention and support the exotic owners because we’re ALL on the PETA hit list and some very bad case law could be made if we aren’t helping out. It doesn’t matter what the nature or species of the animal is; whether it’s pet, exotic, wildlife (usually owned by governments), or (actually, especially) livestock, we need to hang together as owners or we will hang separately and our animals will be killed by the activists.
USGE was a US corporation in Texas, owned by Aussies (that’s pretty far to the west of us on the other side of a big pond) and now the raid is being used to support PETA’s renewed call to ban exotic pets in the UK (and that’s pretty far east of us on the other side of another big pond). The activist reach is from east to west and north to south, covering the entire globe now. There will be animal owners from other countries and cultures facing the same issues and we need to set aside our initial reactions to how animals are tended or used in other cultures and be ready to welcome them all to the animal owners fold.
If you’re an animal owner who has managed to be oblivious to all this, you are not alone. It’s OK to join in the efforts against the animal rights activists now even if you’ve been deluded into supporting them for decades or have merely been trying to stay below the radar, effectively in hiding. They have slick PR and we’ll forgive you readily. Where humans are involved, errors get made. I won’t be chunking rocks from this glass house on that point!
The fight or flee/hide instinct is strong but sometimes we find we can no longer hide, the places to flee to have become limited, and that a higher profile may provide better protection.
(The tech gods have attacked my second laptop in under a month. Forgive me if I don't get a post up tomorrow as I have to play techie before I spend much more time on-line :)