Why do so many people GIVE THE BP such a BAD NAME?

[barbie.dragon]

Simple. People are not informed of the different species on snakes. Certain People can't tell the difference between a ball python and a Burmese and some people can't tell the difference between a German shepherd and a Belgian malinois. Some can't tell the difference between a Brown bear and grizzly. Just lack of knowledge and exposure.

[1nstinct]

Ball pythons are dangerous! do not let anyone fool you, ball pythons eat away at my bank account, i had one a year ago, now a few thousand dollars later i have 8. My bank account fears for his life every time i go on KS or to a reptile show. Ball pythons toward people not dangerous. The word "python" will always cause people to think of the huge burms or retics you see in zoos not realizing there are small children's pythons.

[arialmt]

Dude just call it a Royal. That will confuse as well as scare.

People freak out over the dumbest stuff in a conversation that won't even effect their lives. For instance, last week I finally got a food scale from wally world, the nosy lady behind me in line said," What you gonna weigh your food or somethin', you on a diet?"

I said, "No this for weighing snakes and rats"

She jump back and said, "Now your staring to scare me." with a few expletives thrown in.

It was funny to me how emotion and programming took over this person's sense of logic. Scared of an idea and a scale, funny.

[JeRMz]

yeah, and a few people told me oh no...THE SNAKE represents the devil lol

I don't have my snake yet, but he already has a name...LUCIFER (Lou, for short).
My Wifey freaked out when I first mentioned getting a BP. Since then, we have looked at them online, read books, and even went to see them at Petco/Petsmart (I'd never buy one from either of the two!), just to reduce her heeby-jeebys over them. A little knowledge goes a loooong way!

[Rob]

Snakes are just one of those animals the general public have demonized. All we can do is inform the misinformed, and give our little buddies a good name.

[JCH979]

I personally think it's just fear of the unknown. Kinda like my fear of water for not being able to see what giant fish is lurking around. Gives me the spooks just thinking about it... My brother scares my aunt just by saying that he has snakes or any critter for that matter without even having anything on hand. It's funny and sad at he same time. IMO It takes the right type of person to deal with snakes, or animals In general.


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[Rob]

I. Kinda like my fear of water for not being able to see what giant fish is lurking around. Gives me the spooks just thinking about it

Lol x2 big reason I joined he Army and not the Navy.

[sorraia]

"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." from MIB

That pretty much sums it up. An individual may take the time to educate him/herself about the world around him, including the animals that live in it. But people as a whole don't bother. They buy into media hyperbole, societal stereotypes, and ignorant myths. As a result, all snakes are evil and are partners with the devil in the same way cats, especially black cats, are partners with the witches; all pitbulls, German shepherds, rottweilers, and mastiffs are vicious dogs just waiting for the chance to turn on their owners and everyone else within reach; all rats are disgusting, dirty, disease carrying animals who will sooner eat you in your sleep than look at you; and for the sake of propriety and basic human respect, I won't even mention the stereotypes about people!

I've seen and heard a lot of it. I'm a field biologist, and as a part of my job I handle wild animals most people would rather kill without even looking at it. Sometimes I don't even want to talk about my job because I get tired of hearing people's emotional reactions of, "Ewww!!! How can you do that! That's so disgusting! You are going to get a disease! Why don't you just kill those animals instead?" In addition, I've had snakes in the past, and now have 2 rosy boas. I've been keeping rats as pets for some 20 years and bred them for some 10 years. One of my two dogs is part American Staffordshire and part Pointer, but all people see is a pitbull. In the past I had a 100 pound Rottie/Shepherd mix that people were terrified of, even though she was the biggest baby on the planet. So I get to hear it a lot. It is no less tiring the more you hear it either.

[hypnotixdmp]

I agree that most people go off of here say about snakes in general. I say this because I brought a ball python over to my aunt and uncles, she was deathly afraid and he loved it. But, he thought it was going to get HUGE....I explained that ball pythons reach a max of 6 ft long, and that's a big girl lol. But he had thought this because he watches the tv shows that show retics and rocks and so on. Guess he didn't realize that there is a species that stays rather small in comparison.


0.3 Normals (Coilette, Athena and Mary Jane)
1.0 Pastel (De Sol)
1.0 Spider (Zeus)
1.0 Mojave (Prometheus)

0.1 Brazilian Rainbow Boa (Stella)
0.1 BCI (Kiyoko)