The photos that aren't of an archery target are of the archery lizard. This water skink was keeping an eye on things from under the club house.

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Gotcha Day goodies for Jerry.

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Tempting as it is to give that tail a boop/stroke I must resist, because that is the one and only way to annoy this lizard. Something touching his tail when he's inside his hollow log is the only thing that ever makes him hiss. Even getting some water on his tail while I'm watering the plants down that end of his enclosure will result in him audibly complaining.

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8 days ago I got one of these automated renewal notifications, and immediately followed the link to renew my licence. This would now be a multi-step process. I filled in the same basic details in a web form, but now that just results in an email acknowledging receipt, and promising two more emails. One to verify my "signature" by sending me a link to click on, and the other containing a link to a payment portal to pay the application fee.

I have, of course, still not received either of those emails. What I have received instead is an automated threatening letter, telling me that my licence has now expired, incorrectly claiming that I haven't submitted a renewal application, and threatening me with fines and forfeiture of my animal if I don't submit an application in the next two weeks. That would be punitive action a total of 3 weeks after the first reminder email, 1 week less than the 4 weeks that Wildlife Licencing now give themselves to process applications.

#LizardPosting

Jerry's upcoming Gotcha Day is also revealing the absolute shitshow that is the current state of pet licencing in New South Wales.

5 years ago, in order to be able to buy Jerry, I obtained a Companion Native Animal Keeper licence. These are the lowest level of native animal pet licence, allowing you to keep one individual animal from a list of common and easy to keep species. Back then all you had to do was fill in a web form with basic details (your name, address and the species you want to keep), make a credit card payment, and within a day you'd get your licence by email.

However a little while back, with the laudable aim of preventing illegal animal trafficking, the NSW government decided that all applications to obtain or renew any category of native animal keeper licence were going to be rigorously assessed. This enormously increased the workload on the Wildlife Licencing team, who were of course not given the resources they would need to deal with this because that's not how government works.

The Wildlife Licencing email address now autoreplies to all emails noting that "We aim to process licence applications or renewals within 28 days. General enquiry response time is currently around 10 working days.", i.e. what used to take 1 day now takes, if you're lucky, 1 month, and I've heard of people waiting 2, 3 or more times that long for simple renewals.

Meanwhile other automated systems at Wildlife Licencing are continuing as if nothing has changed, for example reminders to renew licences are sent out a mere 7 days before the licence expires.

#LizardPosting