Australian Wildlife Laws

A reply from Mr Owen Proudfoot

The following article contains an article written by Owen that he kindly sent me earlier in 2005. I believe it sets the record straight in some areas and gives encouragement to herpetology in Australia.

Dear Cyberlizard,

Among others, my main concern with your article is that the boundaries between three different/ un-mergeable topics presented to the reader are blurry.

The topics are:

1. Keeping native Australian species within Australia

2. Importing 'exotic' (non-native) species into Australia

3. Exporting native Australian species to a different country

I'll address separately:

1. Keeping native Australian species within Australia

The thrust of your conclusion doesn't seem to match that of your introduction The conclusion appears focused on keeping native animals within Australia (for pets or study), and not 'import/ export' ("It seems to me that herpetologists in Australia have much to offer the world in terms of their knowledge of their own incredible species, but they are unfairly restricted".)

The permit-system that you suggest to 'remedy' this, is in fact the system that has been law here for about 10 years re native reptiles kept as pets or for study (not import or export). There was an over-haul here in Victoria and some other states around 2002, an informative link to visit is

http://www.dse.vic.gov.au/dse/nrenpa.nsf/childdocs/-B1BECDD7C74958EE4A2567D7000250FE?open

Go to the 'Private Wildlife Licence Application' PDF.

Notably, in Melbourne (Victoria) you can now keep a lot of native species without any permit at all, including (because I know you're a herp' lover) 5 species of frog (including a tree frog), 3 species of skink all of which grow about a foot long, marbled geckos, which as you'll know stay very small, and 2 species of fresh-water turtle.

Here's the list from the 2002 Victorian legislation of all native vertebrates (excluding fish) that require no permit to keep. There's some non-natives listed in this legislation-schedule too, ie. some birds and deer of course the list is not complete in this respect though, see below.

Schedule 5 of the Wildlife Regulations 2002

Schedule 5 (Part B) - Reptiles

Schedule 5 (Part A) - Mammals

Mammals (all non-native)

Schedule 5 (Part B) - Birds

Birds (mostly native)

Schedule 8 of the Wildlife Regulations 2002

While the above includes all native vertebrates (excluding fish) that can be kept in Melbourne Victoria Australia as at April 2005 without any permit, it is not all-inclusive re non-native animals. Pet mice, rats and guinea pigs (but strictly no hamsters!) for example require no permit, as is the case for the myriad of 'traditional farm' animals (horses/ donkeys/ cows/ sheep/ goats/ pigs/ chooks/ ducks/ geese etc), as long as they're kept on a farm.

So that is the current situation re Australian native animals that require no permit at all. Re reptiles and amphibians that require no permit to keep, we are still vigilant about monitoring and regulating the source of supply though. This is mainly to discourage plunder-for-profit from the wild, but also to 'ensure' (to the limited extent that is possible) that sellers of even unregulated species are informed re the specific husbandry needs of those species.

Back to the 'permit' system, here's a list of Australian natives that you can keep in Melbourne, Australia, with a 'basic' permit. You don't have to be a scientist or anything to get a basic permit. You can't have been convicted of prior wild-life offenses though. Fair enough.

Schedule 3 of the Wildlife Regulations 2002

Birds

Reptiles

Amphibians

Mammals

So lots of native species can be legally kept as pets, they just have to be legally acquired. Years ago, the laws were overly restrictive re Australians keeping Australian animals as pets, but now I think they're pretty reasonable.

Back to the other main topics covered in your article, the import of exotic species into Australia, and the export of Australian animals to other countries.

2. Importing 'exotic' (non-native) species into Australia

The context in which you draw a comparison between having a ban on the import of certain slow breeding exotics yet allowing the import of cats and dogs ("In fact a better case could be made for banning the import of cats and dogs, which can sire huge numbers of descendants in a few years") misses the important fundamental point that feral and stray cats and dogs are rampant here already.

Because of this, we allow immigrating families or individuals to bring these pets with them, secure in the knowledge that these animals will not spark any new problem. They may contribute to an existing one, but only on a minute scale, due to already established ferals competing with them. The fact is that even if such families/ individuals were not allowed to bring their cat or dog to Australia, they would get one once they were here. Thus it makes complete sense to allow them to 'bring their own'; the benefit (to the owner and pet) outweighs the risk to the environment. Of course allowing legal importation of cats and dogs also enables us to monitor it, and ensure that appropriate quarantine measures are utilised, minimising the potential risk of damage via disease, to our already fragile ecosystem.

Considering species that are not found in the wild in Australia except in zoos, such as non-native reptiles and amphibians I don't think the breeding rate of these potential imports is the be all and end all of risk assessment. To harness your example, we have many native gecko species here, some restricted to only small areas, that may lay only a single egg per year. An escaped population of non-native geckos (say, a tank of eight) could quite conceivably threaten such native populations of geckos, particularly if they also competed for prime shelter from predators, food etc.

Oddly, your article acknowledges the devastation (now worse than ever 4 years on) caused by cane-toads in Australia, yet seems to advocate that the rules be changed to allow the experimental import of new herp' species, on a trial-and-error type basis. I found this passage particularly telling:

"Green Iguanas may lay a large clutch of eggs, but they do not breed as readily in captivity - for a start, how many people do you know who keep more than one of these giants?"

It seems to suggest that the potential environmental risks if some green iguanas escaped in the 'wrong' place in Australia (i.e. a place with good natural breeding conditions), could easily include extinction of native monitor and dragon species via a larger clutch size and out-competition. In the same breath though, you seem to suggest that because this seems a fairly remote possibility given the available facts, Australia should "chance it", and allow the importation of green iguanas as pets. Given that we have such a diverse array of native reptiles and amphibians of all kinds here in Australia, many of which can be legally acquired and kept as pets, there is simply no good reason for us to allow the import of any non-native herps. "We want to bring our family pet with us" is not a good reason; the benefit in this context, does not out-weigh the potential environmental risk.

3. Exports of native animals from Australia

The only reasons I would advocate Australia allowing export of natives for the pet-trade are

A. to conserve threatened species

B. to discourage illegal and in-humane smuggling

My main concern with countries introducing their native species into the international pet trade is that they are essentially opening every country in the world that is naive enough to accept them, up to potential environmental devastation by that species. This concept is not mentioned in your article. If Australia introduced all of it's lizards onto the international pet market tomorrow, for example, I contend it would only be a matter of time before some off-shore exotic species of lizard was rendered 'endangered' in its natural environment, by a more competitive Australian species. Just look at cricket: we're survivors here in Oz, but gees, we win a lot of away matches too ;-)

OK I've raved on for far too long already, again please don't take offence at any of this, it's just my humble thoughts isn't free speech/ global communication a great thing! I think our different views on import/ export of reptiles may be because of our countries of origin. In the UK, you don't really have native reptiles, so imports are welcome, fun, and non-threatening to the (coooold!) environment in any way. In Australia we have a great many native reptiles, some currently vulnerable to extinction via habitat destruction, and predation and resource competition by non-native species. So we are not keen to "import new species and see what happens", just because people want to bring their pets with them when they move here.

I hope you have found some of this informative, and that I have not offended you in any way.

Yours sincerely, Owen Proudfoot, Melbourne Australia

Some closing comments by Cyberlizard

I was quite impressed by Owen's communication and am very grateful to him in particular for bringing the revised Victoria laws to my attention, which I had not heard about. This seems to me to be a good way of getting a balance between animal keeping by responsible individuals and the quite reasonable requirements of conservation.

Owen's point about the UK is fair inasmuch as most escaped imported reptiles would not survive long in the climate of the British Isles. However there are notable exceptions such as the Red-Eared Slider, although so far this North American species appears to have proved unable to breed in our country. However we are very aware of the danger from non-native species in general, which is why escaped coypu were rounded up some years ago. Ironically it was animal liberation terrorists who released the non-native mink from fur farms into the wild, not the farmers themselves or mink keepers. And of course the grey squirrel, which is originally a native of North America, has now all but displaced the native European red squirrel in Britain, a move which is all the more regrettable as the greys do cause a fair amount of damage to trees. One might say that this is poetic justice on the British for trying to export their wildlife as part of the Empire, but it is still a great pity.

I think Owen and I probably disagree more about the degree of a matter rather than the principle itself. I agree that species which have a demonstrable potential to cause havoc in an alien system should be firmly controlled and if necessary restricted to zoos rather than allowed uncontrolled access to anyone to keep. Hence I suggested a licensing system on the previous page. Green iguanas, which Owen cites above, do have a potential to settle in suitable climates, although I suspect that as they require high humidity, most of Australia (although not areas such as Darwin) would be too dry for them. For that reason I think perhaps I may have given a wrong impression, namely that they could easily outcompete local species: in practice I think they would find it much harder to settle in Oz than they have done in Florida, where the climate is much more akin to their place of origin.

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