Virginia Beach, VA - Woman killed by pet python

[redpython]

The snake that killed patrick turned out to be between nine and ten feet.

I am actually the one who created this page...i knew patrick and it was a horrible and tragic situation. for his family and for the herp society.

very similar situation, he was administrating medice to the snakes mouth by himself.

http://kyherpsoc.org/patrick/

[AaronP]

The snake that killed patrick turned out to be between nine and ten feet.

I am actually the one who created this page...i knew patrick and it was a horrible and tragic situation. for his family and for the herp society.

very similar situation, he was administrating medice to the snakes mouth by himself.

http://kyherpsoc.org/patrick/

Ya know I do feel sorry for the family and friends of these people, because they have to deal with the emotions that comes with losing someone you're close to. But it's hard for me to feel sorry for the actual person when the situation could have been prevented...

[frankykeno]

I heartily dislike this back and forth jabbing at each other. Why do you folks have to do this? Do your ego's really need this boost of one upping each other on a daily basis? I do find it rather funny one of our more vocal posters was just as adament about taking the other side of the argument when it came to venomous snakes but that's a discussion for another time I suppose.

I'm glad, however, that this thread was posted if it brings into focus the responsibility to be a safe, sane and responsible snake owner when you choose to own large snakes.

We have only the one snake over 8 feet and she's certainly no giant but at over 3 feet longer than I am tall and made of pure muscle I'd be the worst kind of fool to think I could ever win out over Tequila's strength. We have rules about her. How we house her. How we handle her. Those rules were discussed, laid down and agreed to before we ever finalized her adoption from Jamie and Amy. With kids in the house, with all of us a bit complacent with handling the other much smaller snakes, Mike and I felt it was imperative to make sure we showed the kids what we think of as the right way to deal with this beautiful big snake of ours.

I'm sorry this woman died. I'm more sorry she made a horrific mistake that she was likely well aware of the consequences of but still chose to take that snake out and try to handle and medicate it alone. Her family's loss is great. The damage this sort of story does to us all in the greater herping community is pretty awful. All in all a very horrible thing that could have and should have been avoidable.

Can we simply focus on good snake keeping habits when it comes to larger snakes and leave the amateur CSIing and the insults out? I'd rather we learned from this tragedy, wouldn't you?

[wilomn]

I heartily dislike this back and forth jabbing at each other. Why do you folks have to do this? Do your ego's really need this boost of one upping each other on a daily basis? I do find it rather funny one of our more vocal posters was just as adament about taking the other side of the argument when it came to venomous snakes but that's a discussion for another time I suppose.

Jab Jab Jab

[TheKingInYellow]

I'm still new to snakes and new to these forums, but if I can take a stab at it, I would say that people looking to blame the husband or the victim here are simply getting defensive about their hobby. Look at the thread on the Gaboon Viper bite that happened here in Winnipeg and you see the same behaviour, but of course the outcome in that case was less drastic.

Given the current push in the US to ban these large and dangerous animals, you have some real cognitive dissonance going on here. People know that the reality is that any snake over six or eight feet is a potential killer given unusual circumstances. People know that snakes really aren't *ideal* pets. People know that they make mistakes in their handling all the time. Having said all that, people don't want to be told that what they are doing is potentially *wrong*.

When the unthinkable happens, everyone immediately wants to distance themselves from the events and make the person who screwed up an outcast from the community. When someone drag racing on a street kills a pedestrian, every guy who has ever floored it off a red light feels that little knot of doubt gnawing at their gut saying 'It could have been me.'

Look at what people are saying; 'She never should have', 'It must have been the husband', etc... It's hard to simply say, 'I have an animal in my home that is equally lethal, and that could have been me on any day of the week'. Burmese, coastals, retics, red-tails, bloods... Any one of these could easily overpower an average human if they got around your neck, face or chest.

I think the only healthy response to this is compassion for her family and a renewed commitment to safety in our own homes. No one wants to admit it, but the federal government probably has a point that these animals really don't belong in the hands of an average hobbiest.

Just my two cents.

[bsd13]

TKiY - You make a good point.

We've all become to complacent and familiar with our animals. For whatever reason we've lost that natural instinct of immense respect and a realization that these large snakes are NOT household pets like any other. We don't treat them as they should be treated and that's in part because familiarity breed contempt.

I mean if we had a pet bear we'd treat it as a potential killer at all times but when it comes to snakes we often treat them as if they were nothing but a kitten in a big body. How often do we see people describing their snakes as "gentle as a kitten", "would never hurt anyone", "friendly as a puppy", etc, etc, etc?

I can almost guarantee that had this woman truly realized that she was dealing with a wild animal that is by no stretch of the imagination domesticated and not a traditional pet except that it's a captive then she probably wouldn't have been killed. She would have not only been respectful of what it is but also would have been terrified of what it could potentially do.

I mentioned a pet bear and I once had the opportunity to do a rehab with a bear. It was a tiny cub when we got it and for the longest time even when it weighed almost 400lbs I still visualized it as a tiny cub. Treated it that way too. Until one day I saw it take a "playful" swipe at a 120 pound bail of hay and send it skidding well over 10 yards along rocky uneven ground. That's when I realized this bear was a wild animal and though I could scratch it behind the ears and feed it from my hands it would absolutely destroy me if it got the thought in it's mind to do so and I'm 6'4" 250lbs.

All in all I'm just saying it might be time to start treating large snakes as the wild captive animals they are and not as little lap dogs.

[wilomn]

13, you make an excellent point.

That point leads me to this thought.

If we don't treat some of them like the kittens the pretend to be, if we don't take those and then get them to procreate in the hopes of making more kittenish snakes, if no one takes that chance of dying to tame and keep tame large snakes, then there is virtually no hope of there ever actually being large snakes as tame as kittens.

However, if some do take that chance, if they do go through tens or hundreds or maybe even thousands of individuals looking for "just the right one" to plug into a breeding project, and one of the goals of that project is to have kitten tame snakes, then eventually, someday, there is a very good possibility that that is exactly what will be produced.

Comparing apples to oranges here, if you can breed a dog to be aggressive, if you can breed it to have bug eyes and a curly tail, and do that successfully through successive generations, then it may well be possible to breed attitude into snakes.

I think it is well under way even now.

[bsd13]

wilomn - I see what you are saying and here's my thought. You're right to some extent. You mentioned dogs being bred to be aggressive so I'll use dogs as an example in what I'm going to say.

When breeders started to produce the lineage that was to become the American Pit Bull Terrier they had a few things in mind. Fearless, tenacious, drive, desiring to please no matter the cost and 100% docile towards humans. They used to give the pups something commonly known as a bite test. Which essentially was to see if they could get the animal to bite out of anger or fear. Any that did were immediately culled (that is killed) so they couldn't infect future dogs with a gene that might cause aggression.

In the fight and bull baiting rings any dog that snarled or snapped or bit a human was killed on the spot. The people promoting APBTs had a very strict standard of the type of animal they wanted and selective breeding and a willingness to kill those animals that didn't meet that standard got them exactly what they set out to get.

Can you for one second imagine today someone doing anything similar with their snakes in an effort to insure that only the "best" genes were passed on? I can't. I mean imagine you stick you hand into a tank with a few baby retics and all but one strikes and hisses at you. You kill all but the one and set it aside to be used in bringing in future generations of snakes. I absolutely don't see anything like that happening with snakes and that's one reason I don't see them becoming domesticated.

Beyond that we have the backyard breeders. Just like they've all but destroyed the Pit Bull breed I can easily see that happening to snakes. Hell people are all but giving away burmese and retics even freshly hatched because everyone and their mother saw dollar signs when it came to breeding snakes. How often do you hear a hobbyist breeder say "You know there's too many retics out there right now so I'm going to take this breeding season off and maybe next."? Pretty much never or if they do it's a financial consideration more than anything.

But I digress. A woman is dead, killed by a wild animal that lives in a cage and she did something stupid. But how stupid are the rest of us for keeping wild animals in cages just a few feet from where we sleep?

[icygirl]

However, if some do take that chance, if they do go through tens or hundreds or maybe even thousands of individuals looking for "just the right one" to plug into a breeding project, and one of the goals of that project is to have kitten tame snakes, then eventually, someday, there is a very good possibility that that is exactly what will be produced.

Comparing apples to oranges here, if you can breed a dog to be aggressive, if you can breed it to have bug eyes and a curly tail, and do that successfully through successive generations, then it may well be possible to breed attitude into snakes.

I think it is well under way even now.

I didn't know it was possible to breed aggression out of snakes? Do you know who, if anyone is attempting this project?

[wilomn]

13 and Icy,

I have been in the reptile business for several decades. I'm not bragging I just want you to know where I got my ideas from. I've been in retail, wholesale, import and breeder businesses.

I've seen multitudes of people pick a pet. One of the main things they ask about is attitude. Let's say it's important to 7 out of 10.

Of those 7 let's say only 2 raise up and then breed the snake they got in part because it was nice. Those 2 breeders then become proud parents and tell everyone how specail and neat their babies are and how, here's the key, they have such different personalities.

Jimbob is so nice I can kiss him on the nose but that food bucket Abigal won't let me anywhere near her, she's just like her brother Abner.

Out of the whole litter, only those two are really mean.

So, here we have the beginnings of weeding out aggression.

Note I do NOT mention domestication.

It may take, no will take, many years and many generations but I have no doubt there will be a visible difference between the average large snake produced and the average, attitude only now, snake produce in 20 to 30 years, which for some snakes will only be 4 to 6 generations; barely enough time for any change to evidence itself.