Do We Have Any Snake Experts? » Forum Post by MGiff

Sorry if it came across too strong, but I'm tired of the attitude where "if it's something foreign/scary then kill it no question"...

Can't you call in some wildlife service to relocate them? It was their place first...

Re danger to kids: Your own you'd have to look after yourself (warnings, teching them the right behaviour if they see a snake, first aid for bites etc), other people's kids - well, that's really up to their own parents.

I find it more remarkable that it's OK to discharge firearms in a "high pop neighbourhood" (you shot the snake right?).Before this degenerates into a gun debate (I don't want it to) I don't live in the US and I do own guns.

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Unfortunately I live in an area that, if I tried to call someone, I would be laughed at. (hence, having to post a pic here to identify) It's also NOT ok to discharge a firearm here in the city, I was a little paranoid about that but the few times it has been done with snakes the police were ok with it. I generally don't shoot snakes, I do like the way they keep the mice and mole pop down, but as I said before I thought it was a copperhead. I agree wholeheartedly with the "their place first" idealogy, I lived in Alaska where bears were always in the city but, they were there first and we learned to live with them. But, just like spraying spiders and red wasps, I will kill a poisonous snake simply because the children (not all parents are responsible enough to teach them) and my kitties will see it and try to play with it. Maybe since you live in Australia you don't know how people are here-if a kid wandered onto my property and was bitten by a snake I would be sued and I would probably have to pay them.
Anyway, enough said, I didn't think of lawsuits and all that when it happened, my husband and I looked it over (I got it out of the house safely) and determined it was a copperhead (my country living father did too) so it was shot for safety reasons. I guess if it happened again I would do the same, unless I determined it to be nonpoisonous.

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Jafo

Join Date 03/2001

+1846

Check the country you live in....if it ain't Oz then it's not one of the 10 deadliest.....even a Cobra doesn't make the cut...

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Unfortunately I live in an area that, if I tried to call someone, I would be laughed at. (hence, having to post a pic here to identify)

Hmmm... that's a worry

We have various services, some run by national parks & wildlife, others are dedicated volunteer groups who you can call - even if you've injured an animal on the road.

I understand that you're not actively going out and murdering wildlife

. I guess the sitch is different when the pets bring live animals into the house! (I missed that in your previous writing).

And yes, we're reasonably lucky as far as public liability & law suits go - but it's getting worse by the month.

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Chris TH, I can see that I would like your country. I worked for a Police Department here and we would get calls from people that had hit animals on the road that were still alive along with help with wildlife calls and there was absolutely no one to call about it. Even the government agencies had no one that we could call for help. And no, I don't pack my backpack on the weekends and go varmint huntin..

Jafo, that was mean! I know this country, the snakes here can kill pets and children! Rattlesnakes don't often kill adults (most here don't know that but I learned it when I was assigned, as a medic, to a field artillery unit) but water moccasins and copperheads do! Just cause Australia has the 10 most deadliest doesn't mean we don't have some deadly ones.
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Jafo

Join Date 03/2001

+1846

Wasn't "mean" at all...was just a comment of fact.

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I managed to see one of Bill Haast's snake milking shows back in the 70's when I was a wee lad. He milked a wide variety of cobras, rattlesnakes, vipers etc. He played with them and had them follow his hand before extracting the venom.

The only one he took seriously was a krait. He handled it's box gingerly and seemed very nervous. He flipped it onto the table and it instantly shot off the table towards the crowd. The only thing seperating the table from the crowd was a velvet rope. He managed to grab the tip of the snakes tail and yank it back onto the table and immediatly pinned it down with his crook. He proceeded to milk and that was the end of the snake show. It turns out that krait bites kill 50% of the time even when anti-venom is used.

I have since learned that when an experienced expert is really nervous that is a good time to back away, way far away.

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Jafo

Join Date 03/2001

+1846

Taipans are large, fast, highly venomous snakes with large fangs and large amounts of venom. Prior to the introduction of antivenom (in 1955) and modern medical care, more than 90% of taipan envenomations were fatal. Two distinct species are described in Australia the coastal taipan and the western or inland taipan, or fierce snake.

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Jafo

Join Date 03/2001

+1846

Here's a nice little description.....a bite From a Sydney Funnel Web spider....[deadliest 8 legged thingie]...

Remind me not to get bitten...

Symptoms and signs of envenomation include:

Numbness around the mouth and spasms of the tongue

Nausea and vomiting, abdominal pain, acute gastric dilatation

Profuse sweating, salivation, lacrimation, piloerection

Local and generalized muscle fasciculation and spasm, commencing in facial tongue or intercostal muscles, and including trismus, which may necessitate paralysing the patient with muscle relaxants in order to manage the airway

Dyspnoea

Confusion, irrationality, coma which may persist in the presence of normalized ventilation, oxygenation and blood pressure, and may be related to raised intracranial pressure

Hypertension, vasoconstriction, tachycardia and cardiac arryhthmias ? related to release and subsequent depletion of neurotransmitter

Widely dilated pupils, which may be fixed

Acute non-cardiogenic pulmonary oedema

Later, the severely envenomed patient may develop progressive hypotension and apnoea. These features may relate to depletion of neurotransmitter.

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Jafo

Join Date 03/2001

+1846

Leaving Lepidoptery....

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Jafo

Join Date 03/2001

+1846

Info on the Taipan....

Oxyuranus microlepidotus (Inland Taipan) is far and away the most toxic land snake in the world, with a lethal dose estimated to be fifty times that of the Indian cobra Naja naja. The venom has a potent neurotoxic mechanism that causes a significant loss of synaptic vesicles and other neuropathology's similar to that elicited by taipoxin from O. scutellatus. However, a specific neurological factor has not been isolated which can be held responsible for the acute potency of this venom. In addition, unlike the venom from scutellatus or the common tiger snake Notechis scutatus, this specie, like the eastern brown snake Pseudonaja textilis, has a procoagulant property that does not require the presence of the cofactors calcium, factor V or phospholipid in order to activate normal prothrombin or the decarboxylated form in a concentration-dependent manner.

Venom toxicity is 0.0l mgs per kg....average venom yeild 44.2 mgs....that adds up to 4420 kgs of dead people per snake....

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Leaving Lepidoptery....

Butterflies?

Assume you mean Herpetology ?

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Jafo

Join Date 03/2001

+1846

Chris....

"Leaving Lepidoptery, please don't play with the displays, little boy...."

The Black Widow. [a relative of the Red Back]

Vincent Price....from Alice Cooper's 'Welcome to my Nightmare'

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Ewwww, I change my mind about Australia! It has it's good and bad and it's bad is really bad!
"Leaving Lepidoptery, please don't play with the displays, little boy...."
I didn't know that was Vincent Price! That is the greatest Alice Cooper album ever, except the "Cold Ethel"(sp?) song of course.....It's just downright gross.

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OK, OK, I give up ! The Aussies win that one.

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I've heard that Funnel Web Spiders like houses and construction sites. That would be enough for me to say I would consider not moving there.

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Jafo, I hate to be a pedant but...

SYLLABICATION: lep·i·dop·ter·y
VARIANT FORMS: also lep·i·dop·ter·ol·o·gy (-t-rl-j)
NOUN: The branch of entomology that deals with lepidopterans.

1) lepidopteran. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.
...An insect belonging to the large order Lepidoptera, which includes the butterflies and moths, characterized by four membranous wings covered with small scales.

I'm amazed Alice Cooper would be so mis-informed

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kona0197

Join Date 02/2003

+86

Aussies don't have the deadliest scorpion though.... hehe

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jafo, try as you might, i'm still more afraid of anything comming from africa then i am of anything austrialian.

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Jafo

Join Date 03/2001

+1846

Chris....I paraphrased Mister Cooper....he [Price] was talking about the insect section...when 'leaving Lepidoptery' was mentioned....then he moves on to the Arachnids....so he wasn't wrong at all.....and I was merely being amusing....no intention of accuracy or pedantry....

DC...As for 'deadly animals'....check them out some time.....none of the variations come much like a 'second'...

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I paraphrased Mister Cooper

No worries, I thought you meant you were leaving the 'snakes' discussion... I was accusing myself of being the pedant

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