Before you all get on the bandwagon telling me to enjoy my time in jail, get what I deserve, exotics suck, bla bla bla.....stop and put yourself in my shoes.
I've just been dobbed in by a mentally ill ex-neighbor for possessing a corn snake. Cops came round and it's basically up to NPWS now. I have a licence and keep two carpets on this. When I was given the corn I didn't know what it was (ignorance on my part) by this bloke working in a neighboring warehouse who didn't want it and was about to release it into the garden or kill it. ***? Everything deserves to live, he was real cute and experience with the carpets told me it should be easy to keep. Yes I was dumb to get something off licence but all I was really concerned about was preserving it's life, not how I was going to handle things afterwards. It wasn't until I did some research and found out what it was and that it was illegal that my dilemma began. Can't release it because of the impact on the environment and can't kill it due to morals. Don't know anyone else who wants it and can't sell on the open market. Don't want to take to zoo for fear of punishment so I just kept him. Over the years I have really grown to love him and the illegality forgotten. As far as snakes go they are funny, beatiful and interesting and quite different to the pythons in their character and ways.
I'm not a criminal, just a very soon father-to-be who loves animals and believes everything deserves the right to life, however damned by outmoded, didactic and blinkered government policy it may be. I read there was an amnesty a few years ago and that some people get given case-by-case licences to keep pest species. My snakes don't interact with each other to prevent any disease transfer like mites and are locked up under pad-lock and key, escape proof enclosures.
Does anyone know from experience what the real punishment might be? Advice on what to address in court would also be appreciated. Serious, mature answers only please people. I would hate for them to kill him or to lose my licence for the other snakes. They are my dearly loved pets - not a commodity.
I've just been dobbed in by a mentally ill ex-neighbor for possessing a corn snake. Cops came round and it's basically up to NPWS now. I have a licence and keep two carpets on this. When I was given the corn I didn't know what it was (ignorance on my part) by this bloke working in a neighboring warehouse who didn't want it and was about to release it into the garden or kill it. ***? Everything deserves to live, he was real cute and experience with the carpets told me it should be easy to keep. Yes I was dumb to get something off licence but all I was really concerned about was preserving it's life, not how I was going to handle things afterwards. It wasn't until I did some research and found out what it was and that it was illegal that my dilemma began. Can't release it because of the impact on the environment and can't kill it due to morals. Don't know anyone else who wants it and can't sell on the open market. Don't want to take to zoo for fear of punishment so I just kept him. Over the years I have really grown to love him and the illegality forgotten. As far as snakes go they are funny, beatiful and interesting and quite different to the pythons in their character and ways.
I'm not a criminal, just a very soon father-to-be who loves animals and believes everything deserves the right to life, however damned by outmoded, didactic and blinkered government policy it may be. I read there was an amnesty a few years ago and that some people get given case-by-case licences to keep pest species. My snakes don't interact with each other to prevent any disease transfer like mites and are locked up under pad-lock and key, escape proof enclosures.
Does anyone know from experience what the real punishment might be? Advice on what to address in court would also be appreciated. Serious, mature answers only please people. I would hate for them to kill him or to lose my licence for the other snakes. They are my dearly loved pets - not a commodity.