Twelve-year-old opposes legislation to keep pythons out of Idaho

COEUR d'ALENE - Perhaps it traces to its biblical roots, where Satan appears in its form to sabotage mankind's Garden of Eden.

Read further, said 12-year-old Jon Chrysler, who refers to another passage declaring the reptile's wisdom, more subtle than any beast which the Lord God made.

"These snakes are not deadly," he said. "These snakes are not what they're made out to be."

Innocent though most may be, they're forever being persecuted, he said, and the federal government is continuing the attack with proposed legislation, S-373, the python bill that wouldn't let the big snakes come in or cross state lines.

Unfair, unjust and unnecessary, Jon said, which is why the savvy seventh-grader is fighting the proposal with education and effort.

"If people were more educated," he said, "they would be very less scared."

So Jon is leading the charge.

On Monday, Jon and his mother, Tif, have an appointment to speak on the legislation with Sen. Mike Crapo's office, and on Tuesday they're heading over to Sen. Jim Risch's office. They're still trying to nail down a time to sit down with Congressman Walt Minnick.

"It's not really going to affect me but I'm more worried about all the responsible pet owners that are going to be punished," he said. "This opens the door for many reptiles to be banned."

The proposal would prohibit the importation and interstate transportation of the Burmese python and eight other large constrictor snakes that "threaten sensitive ecosystems by listing the species as injurious wildlife," according to the Senate's Web page.

That wording is a federal proposal on an issue that seems to be targeted for Florida, where pet owners are turning their snakes loose in the everglades, Jon said, pointing out that scientific data hasn't been presented to back the legislation's claims that the snakes are dangerous.

If one out of 25 American households owns a snake, how many times do you see them on the news for an attack, he asked, especially compared to how many times dog attacks make headlines?

"Let's be honest here, snakes are innocent," he said. "There's no other way to put it."

Target the pet owners by making them chip their pythons like dogs, target just the state, but don't target everyone, he said.

"It's a passion of his," said Tif, who homeschools both of her sons.

That passion started as a research project Jon had to do last year on snakes, completed with an 18-slide PowerPoint presentation, to convince Tif he was ready to be a responsible snake owner.

He passed that, and now has a baby corn snake, Xzavier, but his research continues. This weekend he'll be handing out fliers at local pet shops, and then there's the meetings with the legislators early next week, and he's worried pet shops could bump prices on other items to compensate for lost revenue should the law pass.

"If a program could teach people about not releasing their snakes that would solve everything," he said.

Better than persecuting them.