Contacts for bad shop concerns

[s]

Ok, so there seem to be a few reports of shops keeping animals in bad conditions, so i thought i would post some names of people to contact who can help. Please don 't contact the RSPCA - these people i am going to post will be of much more help i promis...

REPTA - contact Eddie Munt or chaz thompson

or Gordon glasson or chris newman

i wouldn't want to post their personal contact details on an open forum please PM me and i will put you in touch with them through my contacts.

<can we make this sticky?>

[t-bo]

Have they said that they will contact shops and act on behalf of people with complaints? fair play if they are... its a shame repta dont have a website going.

[s]

i don't really want to advertise them as a service, these are people that do a lot of work for the hobby with REPTA and FBH and the likes, but i know they are willing to help where they can.

[PendleHog]

I'm fairly sure Eddie has followed up people's complaints with visits to the offending shops in the past.
Didn't realise REPTA didn't have a website actually, does anyone know if
there's a reason for this?

[s]

i think they all take it very seriously it wouldn't supprise me if he visited the shops in question.

[thorrshamri]

This topic interests me a lot.

French animal groups were never involved when such situations were described in French reptile shops.They are much more passive,as are the authorities.

Laws do exist to protect captive animals in my country,and shopkeepers must have at least a person within their staff with an official agreement-what we call "capacity".

Nevertheless,French forums are filled with cases describing poor or absurd keeping conditions in shops.I saw with my own eyes a Teratoscincus horridly wounded kept with a Physignatus,snakes kept in plastic boxes with rotting shit in the box,an Uromastyx kept in an arboreal and very damp setting,and so forth.Cases talking about corpses of reptiles left in vivs in some shops are not rare.

In the same way,I give 2 examples dealing with the biggest reptile shop in Paris,La Ferme Tropicale:
-a 17 yrs old boy without capacity was permitted by shop assistants to buy a young wild-caught Varanus salvator
-a 14 yrs old kid bought in the same place a very rare subspecies,without any basic knowlege about it,an Uroplatus sikorae sameiti.He was told to feed this 15 cm lizard with 5 adult locusts a day ,and to purchase a ceramic lamp heater -which,if I wouldn't have been here,would certainly have killed the little guy,this species soon perishes above 80°F.(But business and money rule above animal welfare and scientific common sense,isn't it?).

I was also involved when a private hobbyist was suspected of animal traffic (large boidae,monitors,crocodilians and similar beasts),he sent dead animals to buyers or in a very poor condition,or took the money and never sent nothing back.The authorities were warned,but the guy is still quietly running his business.

In France,for the latter cases about the professionals,authorities are reluctant to act against people who "create jobs and participate in TV shows",everyone knows you can get forbidden fauna in some of these shops if you have the money for it,some forbidden animals are even displayed on the shops websites!The Paris shop I talked about began selling tarantulas and venomous snakes in a totally illegal manner.These guys have their "defenders/followers",so that you can scarcely say something against them on the net,if you say too much of the truth on French forums befriended with them,your messages are erased or you are banned from the forum.

This may sound crazy to you English people,but such is our reality.This is what I'm trying to fight.With my own forum team,we have developped an ethic code to avoid these practices,we were fed up seeing show-offs displaying Annex I or French Guyana fauna on websites,we did not agree reading "good professionals" for the aforementionned shops,and so on.If you could give help to us,to help the mentalities in my country evolve,this should be great.

[amanda75]

Originally Posted by thorrshamri

With my own forum team,we have developped an ethic code to avoid these practices

OK - I've found your ethical code and signed your petition. If anyone on here wants a quick (and probably messy) translation I'd be happy to give it a go unless you have time on your hands!!

In Britain petitions don't seem to do much good - but the French have a reputation here for being somewhat more militant than we are - better at people-power, strikes, marches etc..... are we justified in this? Do petitions work there??

[thorrshamri]

Would caretakers of this forum agree if I translate my translation into English and post the link to my translation here?
Again,what occurs in France may seem quite different from the situation in Britain.So maybe all of you will wonder why we claim for such change or another.
As for petitions,consumer associations do have power,they are feared,but our DSV (Vet authorities which control non-domestic fauna ) are often overworked,cruelly lack skills and lore about reptiles,they also lack money to send people to the right places-more often,they will split hairs with private keepers,i've heard a guy in a capacity comission telling that Bombina orientalis was as dangerous as Phyllobates terribilis -so things are slowly moving,pet trade have powerful lobbies,but I'm afraid me and my team can be stubborn and pugnacious when animal welfare is at stake.The hobbyist community is divided between pro and anti for a shop or another,those exclusively dealing with morphs,others who trade illegal venimous or protected species...
Just an example :here,green tree boas (Corallus sp.) are strictly forbidden.A guy posted pics of his Corallus on a forum,some people applauded,some others pointed out it was illegal,as it belongs to the French Guyana protected fauna.The guy laughed at my nose,he said "it's forbidden so it's cool",and no caretaker of the forum annoyed him.That's the way the hobby goes in France.

[PendleHog]

I'm sorry to hear about all the problems you're having with the "reptile scene" over there
I would like to say we are much more fortunate in the UK but I suppose these things happen everywhere to a certain degree.

Good luck on trying to improve the reptile community in France - I think its t-bo you would have to ask about putting your translated link on the site.