Spring SEWERFest 2022 Brings Awareness to Legal Threats to the Future of Herptile Keeping and Breeding

Thousands of species of amphibians, reptiles, and arthropods filled tables across the banquet hall that gave shelter from April showers to the herpetology enthusiasts of SEWERFest, Wisconsin’s largest reptile convention that was hatched in 2001. However, a metaphorical elephant threatened the room with the reminder that the occupants’ way of life was in danger.

“A lot of animals won’t be able to cross state lines anymore,” said event founder Shane Ager, 42, who estimates that he’s been keeping reptiles for 30 years. “When we’re looking for diversity, we’re looking for better blood lines.”

Ager started organizing the Southeast Wisconsin Exotic Reptile Festival in 2001 with the mission to showcase a wide variety of captive bred animals kept by reputable, quality breeders from areas ranging from the Midwest down to Texas.

When Ager was nine years old, his passion for herpetology was ignited after a neighbor down the street from his home offered to show him the new lizard he had purchased.

“I can still imagine being at his house and seeing the little green lizard he had,” said Ager. “He had some little anole lizards, the kind that you see run around Florida.”

Once he took an interest in keeping exotic animals, his mother supported him and fostered his developing hobby by allowing him to get an iguana. By the time Ager was studying biology at the University of Wisconsin- Parkside, he had acquired “20-some” reptiles.

“In college I started working at the local pet store,” said Ager. “And then, I’ve just never left the pet industry.”

During his time not planning regional conventions, Ager sells products to pet stores as a territory sales manager at Zoo Med Labs, Inc. But Ager could soon be limited in how many of the thousands of species populate his biannual conventions with a new amendment proposed for the Lacey Act.

The Lacey Act was originally passed in 1900 and banned the illegal sourcing, possession, transportation, and selling of certain flora and fauna. It was also created to stop non-native species of animals from being introduced into the United States’ ecosystems. In 2008, it was amended to include a ban on illegally sourced timber and paper. In 2012, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service announced a ban on importing and transporting four species of constricting snakes that had been negatively impacting the Everglades. March 9, 2021, Sen. Marco Rubio, introduced a bill to amend the Lacey Act with the aim to “enhance protections against the importation and transport between States, of injurious species, and for other purposes.”

“We want to try something a little bit different, well maybe it doesn’t exist in our state,” said Ager. “So, where are we going to be able to get it?”

Ager explained that hobbyists would be limited to only the animals available in their respective states with the way that the Act is written. He equated the scenario to a law telling a prospective Dachshund owner that they wouldn’t be able to go across state lines to get a new dog.

“When Racine is this close to Chicago, and I wouldn’t be able to do that… a dog person would look at that and go, ‘That’s crazy,’” said Ager. “With the reptiles it should be the same way.”

Ager also explained that he was more concerned about what is going to be allowed to be transported across state lines rather than what can be brought into the country. He estimated that about 20 species existed in that banquet hall alone that the politicians who introduced this bill do not know of and wouldn’t cover.

Ager offered one of the species of geckos he keeps as an example. Their genus is commonly known as chameleon geckos. However, Ager firmly believes that one of the three species that he keeps wouldn’t make the whitelist outlined in the recently proposed amendment to the Lacey Act, since the species is the lesser of the three in the genus. According to Ager, the species comes from one little island that has already stopped exporting them.

“They’re sustained in the hobby by our captive breeding,” said Ager. “It would really limit what I could do with [breeding them].”

Other stakeholders in the future of herptile conventions include vendors, and the attendees. Ager worries that the Act will also limit the number of vendors and the availability of what animals could be present at the shows.

One of the vendors at the 2022 SEWERFest was Wes Kraszewski, 36, who owns Wes’ Plecos, a fish breeding operation that had extended to herptiles. He began working with amphibians after he’d visited a herptile show with his family. Kraszewski recounts that his son had been enchanted with the frogs being sold by a vendor, so he obliged and bought some of them for him.

“The next thing you know, it went crazy,” said Kraszewski. “You’ve got to eventually harvest the eggs, and you get all excited because you might get a new breed.”

Kraszewski likened harvesting eggs to the feeling one might get on Christmas Day. He currently works with 35 different species of dart frogs, some of which lose the toxicity they’d have in the wild due to a lack of specific toxin-lending foods in the region the frogs originate from.

Kraszewski speculated that if the proposed amendment to the Lacey Act passed, he’d probably lose a lot of business because he, like Ager, wouldn’t be able to ship animals across state lines.

Festival attendees are also not immune to the repercussions of the Lacey Act. One, Zachary Miller, 30, worries that passing the new amendment would lead to a slippery slope of his reptiles being taken away one day without him being able to do anything about it.

Miller is a member of the United States Association of Reptile Keepers, a large proponent for safe husbandry protocols and quality care for reptiles.  He grew up next to a field in Washington County where his parents would send him out to play in the native prairie lands that was home to tons of snakes, frogs and turtles. He was never afraid of them, and vividly remembers being bitten by many garter snakes as a child. Nowadays he takes every precaution to not get bitten by his own.

“I have been catching reptiles my entire life,” said Miller. “I think I have pictures of myself with snakes in my hand while I was still in diapers, so it’s just been a life-long interest.”

Miller left the 2022 SEWERFest with a black and white- patched baby Kenyan sand boa with the hope that he’ll be able to continue to enjoy keeping his pets.

Facilitating the joy that attendees like Miller experience and the income boost that vendor like Kraszewski earn are just a couple of positive impacts these conventions have on the lives of herptile enthusiasts. For many of them, these animals aren’t just pets they are a passion worth fighting for.