People Killing snakes

[wolfy-hound]

Truth is that some people eat snake meat. Unless you're vegan,(or at least vegetarian) you're a bit of a hypocrite if you're protesting people killing snakes for meat but enjoy a burger or a chicken leg.

I don't mind people killing snakes for meat and skins. I do mind wholesale slaughter of any species when it begins to decimate the populations. I VERY MUCH mind inhumane treatment of any animal, which includes the sewing shut of the mouths of snakes, putting them in freezers, kicking or stomping them...

If they filmed people hunting snakes in a sustainable way, dispatching the animals quickly, then I would have little objection. But when they are glorifying tormenting animals the way the "rattlesnake republic" type shows are depicting, I do have objections. I've sent in emails to Animal Planet, Discovery Channel and my cable channel provider, in addition to the governors of the states that have these "events".

By the way, it's not trolling to state a differing opinion. I'm sure that rat lovers would object when certain people say "Just kill them, they're just rats", but that doesn't mean the person is trolling to say kill the rodents you want to use as food for your snake either.

[captainjack0000]

I saw somewhere in this thread somebody mention that some species become over populated. IMO there isn't much truth to that. What we have is too much human expansion. That is, the the animals were there first, at least before European's arrived. If you live in Florida, you should expect gators, and if you live in Texas you should expect snakes. The snake didn't ask for the housing development to encroach into its territory, so why should it be killed of relocated? Even in the midwest where the deer are over populated, what really happened is that every natural pretador of the deer was exterminated by humans, so their populations boomed, so we had play the role of the wolf/bear/etc and kill them to keep them in check. Look at yellowstone and wolf-elk relationships.

If you kill something, eat it, use it, and you become part of the ecosystem, otherwise you're a vagabond. I do not know of any single non-human animal in nature that just goes around looking at other animals. You either eat or be eaten.

Animal Planet - Suprisingly inHumane

[wolfy-hound]

No matter what the cause, some animal species DO become overpopulated. It's plain fact that at times certain species can have a population explosion and overgraze, over-predate, or over-crowd their territory.

Alligators have had a huge population explosion in the last 25 years, and they're everywhere. Is this the same population levels as before Columbus landed? We haven't a clue. No one was counting alligators then. Are there gators in places that are now unsafe for the humans? Yes. So gators are hunted and/or removed.

I haven't seen any population studies that say rattlesnakes are "overpopulated" in any place. In fact, every study I've seen says the populations are DOWN, not up. That doesn't mean the population couldn't be up, pushing extras into human areas, or that the snakes are not thriving because there's more snakes than prey item in the territory. Any species can overbreed, whether it's due to human actions or just nature's cycles.

Deer are a great example. They have cycles in the wild, breeding super well on a lush year, then overgrazing and overbrowsing so that some of the deer suffer and end up becoming unhealthy and dying/being killed more easily. That's when the cycle is in the downturn and there will be fewer deer, leading to less competition and healthier fatter deer, which produce more fawns, leading to a "boom" year... leading to the same cycle spot as before. This will happen with wolves in the area, with humans in the area, with nothing in the area. Nature has it's own ways of balancing populations. Not that humans haven't affected the natural balance, often in bad ways... but it's silly to say that there's nothing but a perfect balance without the human influence either.

[captainjack0000]

Well yes, there are natural variations. A great example, if my memory serves me correctly, is the 9 to11 year cycles found in Canada with the snowshoe hare and the lynx. Hare population goes up, lynx population goes up, for a while, and then after hares are killed and eaten, their population falls and the lynx's population falls too, lagging behind the hare, only to repeat itself.

I don't think there is perfect balance without humans. More and more research from archaeologists and the like are showing that humans have been manipulating their environment for thousands of years pretty much everywhere. Read the work of William Denevan, Charles Mann, and others for more detail. So to suggest that balance occurs without humans is wrong because there isn't anywhere without human influence. You cannot not have humans. Balance is a misnomer anyway when you start getting into adaptive cycles and panarchy. Resilient might be a better word choice.

My point was merely I find it sad and comical in a way that people live in certain areas of the country and then get upset when 'wilderness' encroaches into their yard. One episode of Billy the Exterminator comes to mind where a woman was upset in Lousiana when an armadillo was digging in her flower garden. What did you expect moving to the countryside?

There are problems at times with human-wildlife interactions. A rogue bear wonders into a remote fishing village or a gator finds his way into a playground. But when you dredge the swamp to build up the land to put your house on a canal that goes directly into the everglades, you're going to get gators.

When you distill this down to its core, IMO, it becomes a question of values, that is, people value human safety over the 'rights' of the gator (or other 'nusiance' animal) (anyone ever see video of the elk in Estes park, CO?) I put them in quotes because I don't know of a better term. The gator does what gators do and humans define what is a nusiance. I am not going to argue values because it gets really hard to argue right vs wrong, especially on the internet.

[snake lab]

I saw somewhere in this thread somebody mention that some species become over populated. IMO there isn't much truth to that. What we have is too much human expansion. That is, the the animals were there first, at least before European's arrived. If you live in Florida, you should expect gators, and if you live in Texas you should expect snakes. The snake didn't ask for the housing development to encroach into its territory, so why should it be killed of relocated? Even in the midwest where the deer are over populated, what really happened is that every natural pretador of the deer was exterminated by humans, so their populations boomed, so we had play the role of the wolf/bear/etc and kill them to keep them in check. Look at yellowstone and wolf-elk relationships.

If you kill something, eat it, use it, and you become part of the ecosystem, otherwise you're a vagabond. I do not know of any single non-human animal in nature that just goes around looking at other animals. You either eat or be eaten.



Animal Planet - Suprisingly inHumane

That would be me that stated that earlier in the thread. Your splitting hairs. Whether you call it over population or human growth the end result is wildlife needs to be kept in check. And native rattlesnakes in places like texas are one of those species that need to be kept in check. The tracts of land that i have leases on are in areas where the deer need to be kept in check. This is why i work closely with the vdgif bioligists and the dmap program to dispatch my qoutas. We practice qdma ( quality deer management) on these tracts. I am givin a certain number of dmap tags every year to cull the herds. This is important for a number of reasons. 1 as human growth expands the natural food sources for the animals get smaller therefore you have issues as starvation, poor health etc that leads to disease. Have you ever seen what cwd does to deer? Cwd aka chronic waste disease is horrible. No cure. Its effects are neuroligical shut down, blindness, closing of the esophugus, and thats what happens before death so its slow and very painful and very contagious. The only remedy is mass dispatching of entire herds in a big area. Proper management practices of wildlife help stack the odds against these types of health issues in wildlife it needs to be done. It just is what it is. If we let the wildlife over populate and dont keep them in check it is worse for the wildlife. Now thats just with deer. The same issues hold true with any species of wildlife where they are abundant. The gators in the south are under a similar managment sytem. The wild hogs in the south and texas are so bad that it is nearly impossible to get them under control. So yes overpopulation is an issue

[wolfy-hound]

"Wild hogs" aren't really wildlife too, they're introduced feral hogs mostly. Other than javalina, which are in Texas... so technically they should be eliminated, they do millions in damage, are dangerous but I don't see federal bans on pigs going through anytime soon.

I heard/saw about deer this past year in Texas being decimated by the drought, and the Wildlife management were practically begging people to go ahead and take their allotted number of deer during the seasons, to take some of the strain off on the population.

[snake lab]

Well true. Hogs were introduced species from the settlers the became ferel. The hogs were under control for a period of time until they started making a huge comeback at the turn of the century. The fact that the numbers make it impossible to manage makes them a huge problem. Im not saying they are indiginous wildlife but wildlife none the less. The fact that human growth is responsible for endangering species, extinction of speceies and over population issues with species is one we have to look at for what it is. Its something i have been greatly involved with through my state with deer, coyotes and now hogs. The biggest invasive species so far we have had to deal with is the snakehead infestation. That is a direct result of people releasing a species able to thrive in our conditions and reproduce at staggering speed. And i dont doubt for a second that the sbakehead problem from md to florida is a driving force behind the glades python argument even though we as the reptile community the python problem isnt a direct result of releasing rathe of gurricane andrew. Regardless im sure the sbakehead issue has driving force for hsus agenda.

[Cameron Lamb Exotics]

Deer are over populated because of there natural predatores have been killed off. Wild hogs were introduced. Snakes are in your backyard because you came to theres.
All of these "problems" You can call it are because of human expansion. So no snakes are not becoming over populated. A reasonal number of animals can be killed each year. That includes but is not limited to bear, rattlesnakes, and alligators. Rattlesnake round ups are not a reasonable number. Alligators were not killed in a reasonable number neither were buffalos. But because of human expansion we killed them off then let them expand again to bring there numbers up. After that no one focused and realized what the carrying capacity is which is why there numbers exploded for example alligators. Which if you dont know what that is, is the population of an animal that can be substained in one area. Most deer populations are the result of the same situation, they were killed off then humans noticed the lack of deer, let them regain a population or introduced them elsewhere and the numbers exploded.

Hogs are not supposed to be here. So they can be killed off, actually most people will pay you to kill them. But once again the cause of this is human expansion. People brought them here and they are breeding machines.

Anyway rattlesnakes populations are not exploding, that is a lie to continue to kill them. They have natural predators to kill them off, humans kill thousands of them off a year eitherway with or without the round up hicks destroying them.
Ive lost hope in animal planet a long time ago when they took off nature documentaries and only put on dog and cat shows. Now all they do is exploit animals to try to make a profit.

[captainjack0000]

Its effects are neuroligical shut down, blindness, closing of the esophugus, and thats what happens before death so its slow and very painful and very contagious. The only remedy is mass dispatching of entire herds in a big area.

I am not too familiar with CWD, but its an infection of one kind or another.

So because these animals die from CWD, we're better off shooting them? I don't get how our encorachment into their habitat influences CWD. I guess stressing the animal increases risk of disease, so why not stop stressing the animal?

As human growth expands the natural food sources for the animals get smaller therefore you have issues as starvation, poor health etc that leads to disease...

If we let the wildlife over populate and dont keep them in check it is worse for the wildlife. Now thats just with deer. The same issues hold true with any species of wildlife where they are abundant.

So we humans encroach into an animals range, and strip it of food and cover, so it gets deathly ill and our solution is to shoot the animal? Seems like we would have been better off shooting it before it had a chance to get sick. Or why not change our ways so as to prevent the animals from losing natural food sources and habitat?

What happened to the natural pretadors of deer in Texas? I know in the midwest, humans killed them off, either via gun or by converting forest into hyperfertilized corn field.

When I was in college, the same rhetoric was being used. The deer are over populated, the gators are over populated, etc etc. The solution, kill them. Lots of fish and game people still believe it because that was what they were taught. Hell, I was taught that forests have a climax stage of succession. But it seems like a farily new paradigm is emerging that doesn't agree with these ideas. The overpopulation of a species is probably at the making of our own hands. Our notion that any species is overpopulated might be flawed. Would we have said the passanger pigeon was overpopulated?

I guess my point is still it becomes a question of values. We don't want to see starving deer so we cull the herd, no matter how natural CWD might be. We don't want gators in our yard, so we shoot them or move them. It is humans who always prevail because of the systems we've instituted. We displace animals and people who don't own land. We value our private property over animals. It's the same reason we kill moles. I only want the good nature in my yard, you know butterflies, flowers, and birds.

I'm not saying you personally think this, but many people do. Again, the lady from Billy the Exterminator - and she was angry about a harmless armadillo.

[RobNJ]

and she was angry about a harmless armadillo.

The American armadillo can be very destructive, is of no concern as far as population decline, and is a known carrier of leprosy...not the best example of a harmless animal.