Needs links to official USDA information

[Scythemantis]

I have been tearing my hair out trying to find what should be easily accessible information - all I want is an official list of the banned/restricted invertebrates for Florida, specifically where I can show someone that hissing cockroaches are restricted to males only (last I checked).

I've seen this information before, but I just wasted an hour of my life searching everything I could think of on google to try and find it again. Every possible combination of words like legality, regulation, cockroaches, exotics, pets, invasive...ARRRGGH! HOW THE HELL CAN SUCH VITAL INFORMATION BE SO DIFFICULT TO FIND? USDA's websites are no help whatsoever!

 

[Matt K]

...and they are aware that thier own website is completely vague and not user friendly, too. However, the USDA regulations are subject to change any given month and open to the interpetation of the local field agents- so what you can read on the web would not be of much practical use anyway.

To get the info you want, you would have to call a field agent in florida and ask them over the phone.

 

[What]

I have been tearing my hair out trying to find what should be easily accessible information - all I want is an official list of the banned/restricted invertebrates for Florida, specifically where I can show someone that hissing cockroaches are restricted to males only (last I checked).

For the restricted invertebrates in Florida, contact the FL DFG. As far as I know they are the ones that have imposed a ban on certain things, not the USDA.

As for the actual USDA website... It isnt much use, best way to go is to email their "Senior Entomologist" and ask him about it, then you can not only quote him as giving you the information, but also to get the direct quotes as to the statutes/laws related to it.

 

[Scythemantis]

Well, it turns out that private individuals can't have any sex of hissing cockroach.

These aren't agricultural OR household pests anywhere in the world, tropical climate or no. Ridiculous. How many people and how much research would it take to get such an idiotic rule reconsidered?

I can't find any sort of contact email for Florida's fish & game people.

 

[Matt K]

I have that information somewhere in a big stack of postit notes.... Sometime soon I should gather all my printed or written info and post a thread with all of it for everyone to "have at it".....I have been gathering bits and pieces over several years....
By the way- as far as I know you cant send any bug to Florida, so I dont and would not recommend it just to err on the side of caution.

 

[MorbidPh8]

It wouldn't be a problem if FL wasn't such a utopia for anything exotic... That sucks you can't have hissers... But then again I bet a regular person would freak if they saw one in there house.

 

[Scythemantis]

Lots of things can become invasive in FL, yes, but I don't believe for a second that hissers could. They're legal in other tropical climates and have yet to become a nuisance even when they've turned up in the wild.

I do think it's high time people get together on these sorts of things. There are some animals that probably have no hope of their status changing and some that have been banned for legitimate reasons, but a very strong argument can be made for things like hissers, mantids and millipedes that have been in the hobby all along without causing the least bit of harm.