Man dies days after pet snake wraps around neck in Lehigh County home

[JoeNapoli]

https://6abc.com/pet-snake-wraps-aro...dies/12071745/

[Bogertophis]

Well that's really sad & tragic for all concerned. And this is exactly why we're always reminding snake-keepers not to handle large snakes alone & without experienced assistants helping- there's just no way for one person to control an 18' snake. Actually, way less than 18' is a risk too.

Unfortunately this sort of incident feeds right into the snake-hater's point of view, even though it's no different than when motorcycle riders refuse to wear helmets- sooner or later, the reason becomes all too clear- but people don't rant about banning motorcycles based on the safety mistakes of a few.

[bcr229]

There is no way a boa constrictor got up to 18 feet. Retic maybe.

[Bogertophis]

There is no way a boa constrictor got up to 18 feet. Retic maybe.

Agree, obviously the reporter didn't know & was generalizing to the type of snake- ..."The coroner's office said it was a boa constrictor-type snake."

Not once did I think this was actually about a boa, & snakes are so often misidentified in news stories, it's a surprise when they get it right.

[Armiyana]

It's just the constrictor part that gets remembered... The neck was constricted so they say that because "boa constrictor". 9_9
Not that that's the primary way that more than half of the snake species in the world deal with prey. LOL.

[plateOfFlan]

Every snake is a boa constrictor or a rattler, every spider is a black widow or a brown recluse 😉

[EL-Ziggy]

I saw this story making the rounds on FB. It’s a very tragic story and it definitely bought out the anti snake folks. It was crazy reading so many comments about how snakes shouldn’t be legally allowed to be kept as pets. I tried to chime in on the responsibilities, experience, and caution required for handling giant snakes, and pointed out how few people are actually killed by pet snakes, but I highly doubt I changed any minds.


http://www.rexano.org/Statistics/Con...e_Fatality.pdf

[Snagrio]

Meanwhile dog-related deaths number in the hundreds over the past decade but let's just ignore those because reasons.
https://www.dogsbite.org/dog-bite-st...fatalities.php

[Armiyana]

It's going to be one of those things that will always be a knee jerk reaction. Like how you can explain why cats shouldn't be outdoors.
They're responsible for 1/4th of the contemporary extinctions of other species. There's diseases like Rabies, FIV, FCV, Herpes, Chlamydia, FIP... There's cars/coyotes/whatever threats to life. They're invasive.

It's always "My cat would never" or "Well he cries....". "She'll scratch/pee on the furniture". "It's cruel to lock him up inside"

And weirdly, while yes, invasive reptiles have been at least partly responsible for threatening species in areas where they've settled in they're looked at as a nuisance while feral cats are just kinda there with no problems.

Cats are also at least part of the zoonotic disease vectors we have for things like plague, toxo and cat scratch fever... but rats get blamed for more than that too.

[YungRasputin]

not to sound callous but i’m honestly doubting both the size of the snake and what led to the fatal outcome since a) i have seen idk how many people try to support a large snake by draping them around their neck and shoulders and b) the sizes of big snakes have been largely exaggerated by the media and so on, so unless a scientist verified its size i think it’s safe to assume that the snake was significantly smaller than what’s being reported as there have been documented fatal cases in the past involving 8 foot BCC’s but from my research it always seems like keeper error and not the aggressive behavior of the snake or some misjudged feeding response

what’s notable i think here is that the snakes head was said to be away from the head and neck of the keeper which i think would suggest that it was being draped over the shoulders and likely begain coiling as a means to stabilize itself without regard to what may happen to the keeper as it would probably register them as being no different than a moving tree - could be wrong but it sounds like this to me and it’s here where I think people don’t appreciate their size and strength and how they should be supported and handled accordingly because if you’re holding them and they don’t feel safe they going to coil themselves to a better position and probably squeeze a little bit tighter as well - boas are impressively strong tbh

this is important to note imo because a typical feeding response for a boa is bite and coil around the prey using the neck and upper body

per anti-snake people i think there should be significant pushback on this as this is not any different than the mishandling of a large dog