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Microchips for Dangerous Animals? 185

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the jobs-i-don't-want dept.
lucabrasi999 writes "CNN is reporting that Japan is moving towards requiring all owners of potentially dangerous animals (such as crocodiles and pythons) to have microchips installed in case the animal gets loose. Apparently there has been a wave of 'wild' animals that have been escaping their captivity. Did you know that it is actually possible to take your pet snake for a 'walk'?"
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Microchips for Dangerous Animals? More

Microchips for Dangerous Animals?

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  • PETA? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by CyricZ ( 887944 ) on Saturday October 15, 2005 @10:33PM (#13800382)
    Has a group such as PETA made any comment with regards to this practice?

    • Re:PETA? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by bcat24 ( 914105 )
      PETA seems to support microchipping. See, for example, this page [helpinganimals.com] and also this one [peta.org].

    • Re:PETA? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Ucklak ( 755284 ) on Saturday October 15, 2005 @10:50PM (#13800480)
      Who cares what PeTA thinks anyway. They're not the de-facto animal rights saviours although the media might want you to think otherwise which is what they want - exposure. They're more like terrorists and an organized crime ring. The fact that they hire known felons and arsonists to destroy businesses should be a clue that they're not on the up and up.
      The ASPCA is the organization that actually cares about the well being of animals.
      http://www.aspca.org/site/PageServer [aspca.org]

      • Re:PETA? (Score:2, Insightful)

        by lysergic.acid ( 845423 )

        Actually, that attitude is closer to what mainstream media wants you to think. Anyone who's ever worked with PETA or talked to PETA members would know that the organization is primarily about disseminating information and raising awareness about animal rights. It's funny how easily people buy into the astroturfing and FUD spread by corporate entities that dislike PETA but never take the time to even visit the PETA website or pick up a flier and read about actual campaigns.

        Contrary to popular beliefs, 99.9%

        • Funny, I've personally seen PETA members out doing stupid things that could be done rationally and without making all vegetarians look like lunatics. This is the first time I've ever heard anyone says that PETA's not a bunch of crazies. Maybe it's just the local few that you hang out with...

          http://www.peta.org/ [peta.org] provides about all of the illustration I need.
    • I doubt very much there exists a PETA in Japan. When I went there in 2001 there was a "pet store" that lions in cages that were a little larger then the creature itself, and all sorts of other atrocities. When we asked our guide what we could do, the answer was nothing (the guide didn't take us to this place).
    • Walking my pet boa constictor:

      "Hello!"
      -"Eeek, thats a big snake!"
      "Its ok, he doesn't bite"
      -"he is wrapping himself around me"
      "he likes you!"
      -"he is crushing me!"
      "just a friendly hug!"

      Aaaah memories.

      PETA and animal cruelty - and scientific exploitation of animals. A tough one. I personally see much of todays 'science' [mainly drug companies] as a money making factories not akin to home acid factories. So I do not condone the use of animals in experiments. However, what if we needed to use 10,000 live healthy

    • Yes, do PETA [mtd.com] know whether or not these microchips affect the taste?

    • Who cares what PETA thinks. What I want to know is if I can remotely disable my dog using OnStar.
       

  • You Are Here (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Doc Ruby ( 173196 ) on Saturday October 15, 2005 @10:34PM (#13800388) Homepage Journal
    People are the most dangerous animals.
    • That's why we are at the top of the food chain. It's nice not to have to worry about a snake eating your young while you're out foraging for food isn't it?

      Personally, I like being at the top of the food chain.
    • There have been some attempts to chip people, but there is a pretty strong public dislike of it. There's a pretty strong business motivation for it, though -- lots of money at stake (look at e-voting, for instance). Putting chips in other things is a good way to get people used to the idea.

      There have already been moves [com.com] in this direction, towards tagging prisoners in Mexico (the Mexican AG is tagged to help people get used to the idea), towards tagging schoolchildren in part of Japan, and so forth.

      On the w
      • Erica, a friend of mine, got herself chipped. I think because sometimes she's a kook. And partially because it made her (and me) laugh. This way when someone steals her, someone else can find her, run a wand over her arm, and return her to home.

        If you ever saw Trekkies 2, she's the one with the Borg cat.
      • I agree with you, but I take it a bit further. I'm pessimistic that "save the children" campaigns in the US will get lazy parents to tag "children" who grow up to monitored adults, much like "ritalin kids" have become a "prozac nation". And I see every object tagged, whether by RFID or a cheaper, tinier, ubiquitous medium. It's a nightmare, and it's already upon us - literally, when we wear tagged clothing around.

        What I want to see is continued empowerment of individuals to read tags independently. Every ph

  • HOW OUTRAGEOUS! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by fireboy1919 ( 257783 ) <rustypNO@SPAMfreeshell.org> on Saturday October 15, 2005 @10:35PM (#13800392) Homepage Journal
    Next thing you know, they'll be branding cattle, and tattooing ferrets!

    And the regulations will only get worse!

    Its only a matter of time before you have to have a license to keep exotic predators!

    Oh wait...that's the way it is now. I guess society wants to keep track of its animals.

    Carry on then.

  • Old news (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Celsius 233 ( 913263 )
    The article has been up for three and a half days.

    Anyways, why don't they just not let people take these animals into public? Is it really a good idea to take your croc for a wlk? Or better yet, why not ban the possession of them outright?

    • You're right, this is old news. So much has happened in the field of animal microchip implants in the last 3 and 1/2 days.

    • Re:Old news (Score:5, Insightful)

      by aussie_a ( 778472 ) on Saturday October 15, 2005 @10:55PM (#13800504) Journal
      The article has been up for three and a half days.

      That's what happens when you visit a news aggregation site. Either stop complaining or leave. Having news be "old" is a problem inherent with slashdot, get over it already.
      • I've seen a bunch of people doing the same whining today. They complain that it's old news, but interesting enough for them to comment on. If they thought it was interesting enough to comment, they could have submitted the story three days ago.

        In case they hadn't noticed, it's kind of hard for a Slashdot article to link to future stories.

  • What's a "potentially dangerous" animal? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by CyricZ ( 887944 ) on Saturday October 15, 2005 @10:36PM (#13800397)
    What exactly is a "potentially dangerous" animal? Most animals are potentially dangerous. Many dogs can easily harm humans. Will all dogs need to be embedded with such a device? Even cats can bite and scratch. Will they require tracking devices? Even timid bunny rabbits can give a good bite if provoked enough. Again, will they need such devices?

    • "Even timid bunny rabbits can give a good bite if provoked enough."

      oblig monty python killer rabbit:
      "I'm warning you!"
      "What's he do? Nibble your bum?"
      "He's got huge, sharp... er... He can leap about. Look at the bones!"
    • Most animals are potentially dangerous.

      True. IIRC many pets in Australia now get an implanted chip. Vets use a handheld reader to get an ID number. It is mainly for identification and to track treatment over time.

    • What exactly is a "potentially dangerous" animal? ... Even timid bunny rabbits can give a good bite if provoked enough. Again, will they need such devices?

      Um, no, they aren't going to require chips in bunnies. Do you really think it likely they would classify a rabbit as a "potentially dangerous" animal?

      Yes, eventually some law will be interpreted in some such stupid way, but your question is absurd. Just because something cannot be (or at least, hasn't been) objectively defined does not mean it does not ex
    • 'What exactly is a "potentially dangerous" animal? Most animals are potentially dangerous.'

      I don't know about Japan, but in the US the towns that implement pet restrictions explicitly spell out the species and breeds and sizes that are considered dangerous enough to warrant restrictive measures. It's not just left at "potentially dangerous". Incidents of people getting mauled can cause previously unrestricted animals to get added to the restricted list.
    • Another poster pointed out that this is required for all animals (or at least dogs and cats) in Australia. That'd be fine with me. My dog has one. I would fully support requiring it for all licensed animals (and, of course, all animals require a license). To be able to easily identify the owner of a dog that has been abused (ostensibly by its owner) would be a great thing. It would then also be possible to identify the facilitators of other crimes (like the owners of vicious pit-bulls who either don't socia
    • Even timid bunny rabbits can give a good bite if provoked enough
      i wouldn't say they need to be explicitly provoked

      i know i've had a friends bunny try to bite me (i was moving at the time and it didn't actually manage to bite but i certainly felt some part of its mouth on the tendon behind my ankle) when i was just standing in the garden with me. (it seemed to smell my feet and think they were another male competing with it or something it was always far more aggressive arround males than arround females)

      aft
    • "What exactly is a "potentially dangerous" animal?"

      The 'potentially dangerous' sentence wasn't clearly phrased. They're talking about exotic animals that are potentially dangerous, not exotic animals that are being chipped because they are potentially dangerous.

      I imagine the point behind this is that if your pet python goes away and scares the hit out of a bunch of people, they know who's responsible and can fine him. In any event, I'm not sure why you'd even ask this question. There's a big difference b

    • Bunnies! (Score:2, Funny)

      by bohemian72 ( 898284 )
      I've got a theory! It might be Bunnies!

      Bunnies are just cute like everyone supposes!
      They've got those hoppy legs and twitchy little noses.
      And what's with all the carrots?
      What do bunnies need such good eyesight for anyway?
      Bunnies! Bunnies!
      It's must be Bunnies!
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Insightful? How. Anything can cause damage one way or another.

      But a poisonous snake bite from a person will easily kill them. A bite from a bunny rabbit, or even a dangerous dog won't. Dangerous dogs have a higher chance, but not as high as poisonous snakes.

      Alligators can easily grow large enough to over power a person, most bunnies can't, even though they can annoy you slightly.

      I think a dangerous animal is one that will, most of the time, overpower the human or kill the human easily.

      Even large dogs can be
    • Dogs have been bred to be sociable with humans. A german shephard dog is about the same size as a wolf but a wolves behave differently to dogs. A wolf would naturally hide a safe distance from any humans and try and stay out of their way. If a wolf is domesticated from birth, by constant interaction with humans to the point of hardly leaving it with it's mother, then it will still tend to turn agressive at about 5 years old, I guess that's the age they start making serious pack-leadership challenges. Wolves
    • From the hitcher episode of the Boosh - "he's got a rapist crab, a mackarel that exposes himself, a baboon that walks into lifts and presses all the floors, a swan that keys cars..."
    • Most animals are potentially dangerous

      Well, because you can't draw a clear line between night and day, doesn't mean there's no distinction. Sometimes you just have to draw a line and accept that animals slightly on either side aren't very different from each other.

      There was a case a few block from me of a 29 year old man, living with his parents across from an elementary school, who kept venemous snakes. He was exercising an Egyptian Cobra in his yard when he lost it. There was a huge ruckus, but even
  • wave of 'wild' animals that have been escaping their captivity

    Proof of evolution? Or the pet owners de-evolving . . .

  • What a good idea... oh, wait... (Score:5, Funny)

    by failrate ( 583914 ) on Saturday October 15, 2005 @10:39PM (#13800413) Homepage
    I read that as MOD chips for pets. I was so excited, but now...
    • I would be afraid to have a mod chip for my cat because, with my luck it would bring out his more feral qualities. This could be a problem, considering that he's part bobcat...

      He's my evil fuzzy ball of claws and teeth as it is. I don't need him actually breaking out of the house to try and take down my neighbor's (rather large) dog. He already tries to charge at her through the deck door as it is.
  • Ha! Is the Japanese government willing to install, oversee, and monitor all of this? And track down offenders and illegally un-micro-chipped animals? Make an official classification of "that which is dangerous" and "that which isn't?" I guess this is for public safety, but it reeks of bureaucracy. I'm not so sure they can just force owners of snakes and crocodiles to buy microchips with their own money, especially when they're probably unwilling in the first place.
    • You've never been to Japan, have you? They're so overburdened with bueracracy that the ruling party and the opposition party were competing during the last election on which one would make the most reforms to the government.

      They also have much stricter laws about just about anything. It would not suprise me if, in fact, they did everything you mention.
    • I think you are seriously underestimating the ability of a beauracracy to make life unpleasant for pepole. Hell, that's practically the _only_ thing beauracracies ever do. Believe me, if Japan's civil beauracracy wants people to be hassled, vast amounts of hassling will occur.
  • I'm sure this would have stopped the chaos that happened in Jurassic Park. All right then -- I'm off to write an e-mail to those British scientists who want to introduce lions and elephants into North America and buy stock in RFID chip makers!
  • Did you know that it is actually possible to take your pet snake for a 'walk'?
    I always have difficulty fastening the collar on my pet fer-de-lance.....
  • Did you know that it is actually possible to take your pet snake for a 'walk'?
    Argh, snake! [badgerbadgerbadger.com]

  • ambulation (Score:1, Flamebait)

    by lawpoop ( 604919 )
    "Did you know that it is actually possible to take your pet snake for a 'walk'?"

    And did you know that you can also go for a 'stroll'?
  • What's the fuss? This practice has been required [shoal.net.au] by law for anyone obtaining pets such as cats and dogs in Australia for years now. Both of my cats have them, and it's just a tiny implant with owner information, and the only trouble with them so far that I've heard of is that some have been known to slip out of place in the body of the animal and make it difficult to get the information out of them.
  • Yes, we should put microchips in dangerous animals in order to keep track of them. But how about those remarkably stupid beasts, or people? Shouldn't we also put a microchip in George W. Bush in case he gets loose?
  • If the animal gets loose, how much good will it really do to be able to track down the owner based the tag embedded in him?

  • Assassin dolphins (Score:4, Funny)

    by gustgr ( 695173 ) <gustgr@gma[ ]com ['il.' in gap]> on Saturday October 15, 2005 @11:00PM (#13800528)
    Does "Dangerous Animals" include US Navy dolphins with toxic dart guns?
  • Many people are given the option of putting rfid tags in pets nowadays when they have the pets first vet visit. Our cats and dogs all have them and you wouldnt even know they were there, and none of them seems to be having problems with it. Personally i think its a good idea. If you can figure out how to enforce it then you have a great system to keep owners of large animals in control.
  • Err... *rubs eyes again*. Sorry. Been a long day. :)

  • Dangerous animals???? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by hellfire ( 86129 ) <deviladv.gmail@com> on Saturday October 15, 2005 @11:07PM (#13800558) Homepage
    Yanno, I've always had a problem with people saying animals like pythons are dangerous. Well let's see, considering more people die annually from dog attacks than pythons [anapsid.org], we should be microchipping all pets. Okay, those figures are for the United States, but pythons are no more common as pets in Japan in the US. Hey, mice can carry diseases, despite the fact that most white mice owners don't let their mice near trash piles, but let's microchip them just in case! This is a non-problem.

    I also have a problem with opening the door to using the tracking of pets to track people. This smacks of over-reaction and the singling out of one class of pet owner either as a weird form of discrimination, or simply fear of what most people don't understand.

    Go out and start tagging mosquitos since they carry west nile and malaria, they are far more dangerous world wide to humans than pythons.
    • As a mosquito owner, I find that suggestion absurd.

      My Mosquito, Spanky, never escaped from our backyard until the tragic day that he was hit by a car. (Sobbing) Oh god, Spanky! Oh god!

    • Yanno, I've always had a problem with people saying animals like pythons are dangerous. Well let's see, considering more people die annually from dog attacks than pythons, we should be microchipping all pets.

      While I don't particularly disagree with you, I hope you relaize that those statistics prove nothing about how dangerous the various animals mentioned actually are. If those figures included how many were actually present in the us and were stated in "1 human death per 25,000 horses" or something si
  • Did you know that it is actually possible to take your pet snake for a 'walk'?
    I like to walk my boa constrictor up and down a golden valley everyday.

  • Everglades (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    If this law was implemented in the U.S. we wouldn't have pythons exploding in the everglades:
    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051005/ap_on_fe_st/ga tor_python [yahoo.com]
  • Apparently the poster of this topic is fascinated by the fight between python & alligator as seen in a previous slashdot posting. [slashdot.org] :)
  • Did you know that it is actually possible to take your pet snake for a 'walk'?"

    Ah, yes ... Yes I did.

  • Will it keep them from eating ENDANGERED animals?

  • Forget that whole un-manned military vehicle idea. All you gotta do is implant some geese with some modified radio controlled microchips and you got your own mother-flocking air force.
  • So do they have a detector van from the 'Ministry of Housinge' going around looking for unchipped (and oresumably inlicenced) pets (named Eric)?

  • Scary (Score:2)

    by Kohath ( 38547 )
    You think they're dangerous now? Wait until they're augmented with microchips. Fangs and computing power. Shudder.
  • 'They cut the power.'
    'What do you mean "THEY cut the power"? How could they cut the power, man? They're animals!?'
  • Now you can turn them off at will with your TV-B-Gone. You can turn of 90% of dangerous animals within 17 seconds

  • They'll never be able to chip MY pet (Score:3, Interesting)

    by WormholeFiend ( 674934 ) on Sunday October 16, 2005 @12:22AM (#13800813)
    My bird-eating tarantula [wikipedia.org] sheds her skin regularly.

  • Thank God! End this madness! (Score:3, Funny)

    by RexRhino ( 769423 ) on Sunday October 16, 2005 @12:24AM (#13800818)
    Every day I walk the streets, I have to be on my guard, not knowing when a komono dragon is going to bite off my leg, or an enraged ape is going to storm out of an alley and attack me, or an electric eel is going to zap me the next time I step in a puddle. I live in fear! FEAR I TELL YOU!! What is that buzzing sound? I hear it is too cold in Canada for Africanized honey bees, but YOU CAN NEVER BE TOO CAREFUL, DAMN IT!

    It restores my faith in government that there is no threat too obscure, too irrelevant, or too laughable not to legislate and spend gobs of money on!

    Seeing as the number of people killed by non-indigenous species every year has got to be, what, like 8 people?
  • "Steve Ballmer would never go for it. Approach him with a microchip gun and he'd throw a chair at you. And then bury you. In chairs. He's done it before and he'll do it again."

    Oscar Wilde

  • Old news (Score:3, Informative)

    by seifried ( 12921 ) on Sunday October 16, 2005 @01:17AM (#13801106) Homepage

    My cat is chipped, I had a choice: she can wear a collar with a tag (which I have to keep on her, make sure is on, etc, etc.), she can get a tattoo (which takes about an hour) or she could get chipped (takes about 2 minutes, she didn't seem to mind, neither did my parent's cats when they were done). Why is it such a stretch to require chipping for exotic pets? I know locally the entire chipping process with registration costs about $100 (one time cost).

    Booooooring.

  • the post mentions "crocodiles" and "pythons" as dangerous pets - granted, we all know that crocodiles and alligators are different, but nonetheless, I couldn't help being reminded of this tasty tidbit [abc.net.au] of recent news - nice photo too.....

  • dangerous.... blah! (Score:4, Informative)

    by Cruciform ( 42896 ) on Sunday October 16, 2005 @02:13AM (#13801419) Homepage
    I'm a reptile owner with boas, pythons, a few corn snakes, and a texas rat snake. The boa constrictors will eventually get to be fairly large, about 7 feet for the male and 8 to 10 for the female. The pythons, Royals (also known as Ball Pythons) and Spotteds will be hard pressed to grow past 5 feet.

    The boas are the only ones I would consider to be a potential threat to other pets in the house, and that point is still years off. They are by far my most docile snakes, and only exhibit a feeding response when presented with rats. The smell of my cats or dog elicits no reaction from them whatsoever.

    Ball Pythons are probably one of the fussiest snakes when it comes to feeding and they are of no danger to pets or people. They're very timid and there have been incidents of Balls being maimed or killed by live mice that were dropped into the enclosure when the snake wasn't hungry.

    My town considers any snake over two feet long "bad", yet would take no action when our previous landlords pit bull came after my family five times. I find this somewhat ironic. Dogs are considerably more dangerous to people than any small or mid-size snake.

    Large snakes such as burmese pythons, reticulated pythons, african rock pythons, and anacondas should never be handled solo, and bringing them out into the public is just plain nuts.

    Burms typically have a docile temperament, but you don't want to be carrying a 10 foot long snake that gets a whiff of guinea pig off someone that walks by. The others listed there are known for their bad tempers, and the Rock python has been confirmed to have actually killed and eaten at least one person in its native habitat. Despite pictures of other snakes that are purported to have killed and eaten humans, neither I nor any of my friends in the herp community have found any documentary evidence to reinforce this. To the contrary, several of the pictures that make the e-mail rounds have turned out to be phonies.

    Very very rarely, a large snake will kill it's owner. This is usually a mistaken feeding response. Like a monitor lizard, a snake that has taken the scent of prey has a one track mind. So if you're in the way of the food, or moving when the prey isn't it's a good way to get hit. The snake will then strike, hold and constrict. They don't crush bone, but actually tighten around the torso with each exhalation of breath until the victim asphyxiates. If the victim happens to be a person, the snake won't realize its error until too late.

    On the other hand, these animals don't constrict as a matter of defense. Their strike is a fine deterrent. The strike of an adult burm or Rock has been described as feeling like being struck by a 12lb hammer.

    That's why I'm content with my relatively small snakes :)
    When I'm walking the dog at night, sometimes my female boa comes along for a ride on my arm, but they never see the street during the day.

    I've been considering buying an Avid chip system to tag my snakes. But this is for personal security rather than legislated responsibility. When you get into the rarer color morphs [ballpython.ca] it can get quite expensive, and whole collections have been stolen.

    Anyway, I'm all for chipping pets, "dangerous" or not, but I really hate how the label gets stuck on some animals because of irrational fears. (Freaking out if you find a croc in your front hallway is not irrational. Feel free to scream and piss yourself. Me, I'll grab a camera and keep my distance.)
    • My town considers any snake over two feet long "bad", yet would take no action when our previous landlords pit bull came after my family five times

      The problem is in your neighborhood aggressive animals don't tend to disappear. You can't be the only person who's had problems with this animal.
  • Give me a break. They call python "dangerous" and don't even mention C.
  • He was quoted by one TV station as saying he was surprised the snake disappeared because it wasn't that kind of snake.

    Guys always say that. It's a lame excuse.
  • All kidding aside, once you get all your animals chipped, its easier to accept criminals having them, then have your child carry a chip.. then embed it..

    There may be no sinister intent here, but it does breed acceptance.

    And of course you can take your snake for a walk.. Or rather a 'slither'. Never owned a big snake have ya?

  • Dog (Score:2)

    by SQLz ( 564901 )
    I actually have one in my dog with information on how to contact my wife and I through the breeder we bought her through. dog catchers apparently have the gear to read them.

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