Today we met w/ State Attorney RE: FWC Constitutionality We have been working on this since March 2005 when we first learned that the FWC’s authority over captive, non native wildlife, did not come from the FL constitution (as they claim) but rather came from the statutes. The reason that is important is that the FWC has managed to avoid a ban on the private possession (and pimping) of tiger and lion cubs by saying the citizens of the state have no right to petition the legislature for a ban. On March 18, 2005 I spoke with Curt Kiser (former State Senator) by phone and these were the pertinent details from that conversation: 1. Curt was the first person to draft legislation for ANY regulation of exotic animals in the state of Florida and was involved in the process that elevated FWC from being a state agency called the Game and Freshwater Fish Commission to having constitutional authority under their new name of the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC). 2. He says that they have had Constitutional authority over the native animals since long before that, but that even today their power over non native species (the ones I am concerned about) is not constitutionally given, but is rather legislatively given. 372.921 and 372.922 seem to bear that out in that the Florida Statutes state that for a person to own or exhibit and exotic animal they must meet the standards set by FWC. That gives FWC the authority to determine who may or may not own or display them and how that should be done and seems to leave in their hands the ability to define which animals fall into which classes (I, II or III). 3. Because the FWC has the power to do what I want (re class all exotic cats to Class I and require commercial zoning for acceptance of applications to exhibit) he suggested that I meet with David Meehan, one of the FWC Commissioners who lives nearby. The meeting should be at Big Cat Rescue so he can see the enormity of the problem first hand and so that he can see that I am not just some rabid, crazy cat lady. 4. Curt suggested that I use his name to effect this meeting and that I could do the same with the FWC’s general council for the past 20 years, Jim Artista. He suggested that I let them know that I am trying to work within their framework first because they are protective of their constitutional power, and even more so of the perception of that being all-encompassing, and may be willing to work out something that suits my requests so that they are not in the position of having that ability to be in charge taken away from them by the legislators. Curt said he would call Jim and let him know that I would be calling soon. 5. He warned me that David Meehan is an avid hunter (as are all of the FWC Commissioners) and they don’t want to assist any proposal that could be a foot in the door for us bunny hugging types to stop them from hunting. To tell them that the reason this legislation is important is because canned hunts are the only place that unwanted lions, cougars and tigers can go is likely to fall on deaf ears even if they wouldn’t personally participate in shooting an animal in a transport cage. He said another reason that it would be hard to over turn any of FWC’s constitutional authority would be because of the powerful groups, such as NRA, who want the rules of hunting to be controlled by those of like mind and not the majority of the population who could influence changes with their voting power. I've been writing my story since I was able to write, but when the media goes to share it, they only choose the parts that fit their idea of what will generate views. If I'm going to share my story, it should be the whole story. The titles are the dates things happened. If you have any interest in who I really am please start at the beginning of this playlist: http://savethecats.org/ I know there will be people who take things out of context and try to use them to validate their own misconception, but you hav