Villianizing Snakes

My dad called me this morning- a little bit miffed- to tell me that he saw a show on animal planet where snakes as pets had killed their owners. He was fine with them before, but now he's a little freaked about them and saying I should get rid of them before they get too big. I tried to explain to him how docile my snakes are and that I am a responsible pet owner, and anyways ball pythons don't get that big... but he's still worried. So now I'm mad at Animal Planet... :mad:

It's not just Animal Planet. Seems any time the subject of snakes as pets comes up in the media, it's never in a positive light. Responsible owners have been marginalized by the media because caring for an animal for 20 years that never causes any problem isn't sexy enough to waste air time on. It's far sexier to talk about the relatively rare cases where something goes wrong.

Of course, I'm always amazed at people who blame the snake. A snake can only be what a snake is... When things go wrong I look for fault in the owner, not the animal, but, I seem to be in the minority on that, and, I'm not in the media.

I'll tell you what ticks me off to no end is when a large species makes the news for killing or hurting someone, and they show stock file footage of a ball python. The first time I saw that I thought it was funny...I now see the danger in it.

Then again, we hurt our own cause sometimes with the stuff we post on youtube, but don't get me started on feeding videos....

Tell your dad that less than 20 people have been killed by pythons in the last THIRTY years, while about 20 people PER YEAR are killed by the family dog. Ask him when he will get rid of his dog, before it attacks and kills him. Then you can tell him the shows are 90% made up for ratings, just like most TV shows. They show Bigfoot programs on the History channel for FSM's sake. Believing TV shows is akin to believing the tabloids in the grocery store.

1000's of people die a year in car crashes. Ask him when he is going to sell his car.

I saw a statistic where more people die from drowning in a bathtub then from being shot by guns every year too. Good points Slim. As they say, never let the truth get in the way of a good story.

My parents were worried about my bearded dragons when the saw the one about the monitors eating the guy...

I do remember seeing that one and it was 100% misleading. They made it seem the monitors killed the guy but it is clear he died of natural or self induced causes, not from his pets. They never did mention that though, just the evil and vicious monitors that may taken a bite out of him after he died. What else were the monitors supposed to do when they haven't been fed in days because he lived alone?! That was the episode that woke me up to how anti-animal Animal Planet really is...

...I miss the Steve Irwin days :(

I too miss the Steve Irwin, Meerkat Manor, and big cats taking down prey the way nature intended days.

It's not just snakes...its 'exotic' animals in general these days...

Heck, I still get hackled for owning rats. Apparently they're still the plague on legs to some... :\


Last year a baby got all of his fingers except for his thumbs chewed off by a baby ferret supposedly. Now many people are classifying ferrets as a dangerous animal due to this single incident... (first ferret incident in years)
Long story short, the baby was left out in the middle of the night with a free roaming ferret while the parents were "sleeping". Good job parents. Good job keeping your animal and baby secure. (guess they can't hear a crying baby either??)

Like all of the nasty animal stories we hear, it IS THE FAULT OF HUMANS that animals suffer and get blamed.

And cats and dogs are underestimated too much. My friend has a cat who is down right vicious. That cat will snap just like that and turn totally wild. He will (and has) go for your jugular if you're not alert.

Most of those shows are propaganda and fear mongering to help support all the anti snake legislation.