Bad Bite by Retic

[Nate]

lol yeah. I love cave exploring! snakes would make it a little more fun

[chatcher]

There a two kinds of motorcyclists those that have wrecked and those that will. As such there are also two kinds of snake keepers those that have been bitten and those that will be. Clearly we have been hearing from the latter here. I think many of us loose sight of the fact that our captive bred animals tolerate being handled ( and tolerate is the extent of it they do not enjoy it as a cat or dog does ). This man got caught up in the excitment of the hunt as many before him have and made a bad choice but to say he overreacted to that bite shows that none of you have got bitten like that. And by the looks of things many of you have animals that have the ability to inflict much more damage then that. We are all participating in a dangerous hobby and its when we loose sight of that fact that accidents happen.

[cassandra]

There a two kinds of motorcyclists those that have wrecked and those that will. As such there are also two kinds of snake keepers those that have been bitten and those that will be. Clearly we have been hearing from the latter here. I think many of us loose sight of the fact that our captive bred animals tolerate being handled ( and tolerate is the extent of it they do not enjoy it as a cat or dog does ). This man got caught up in the excitment of the hunt as many before him have and made a bad choice but to say he overreacted to that bite shows that none of you have got bitten like that. And by the looks of things many of you have animals that have the ability to inflict much more damage then that. We are all participating in a dangerous hobby and its when we loose sight of that fact that accidents happen.

I think there's a lot of truth in what you're saying. As a giant owner who's in the "haven't been bitten camp", I always try to remind myself when we get the big boy out that he is a wild animal and he'll do whatever he thinks is necessary to defend himself or to eat.

After that, he's still my big yellow baby boy. =)

***
My take on television programming like this; it sells. They wouldn't do it if it did. Why are "Shark Week" program schedules so popular? Because we love scary movies and gore. Same thing with snakes. It just so happens that *we* don't think snakes are scary, so we end up T'ed off. My advice; just don't watch those shows.

To be honest, before Steve died, lots and lots of people didn't like his approach to wild animal television programming, me being one of them. I thought he ran around like an idiot a lot of the time, putting himself and others in unneedful danger, hamming up the Aussie accent and attitude.

In retrospect and having learned so much more about him unfortunately after his death, I have some to respect him. But do you see my point? What sells? Animated humans allowing you the viewer to feel the fear and pain or a many times dull, scientific approach that doesn't fear the animal but never gets near it out of respect of the animal?

Just my two cents. =)

[chatcher]

Cassandra unfortunatley this IS what sells commercial time. Most people want to see the snake wranglers in action. Most nascar fans wanna see a wreck. The rest of us will never get it and often get upset about but we can all turn the channel. If enough of us dont watch it wont be on. More importantly these show are scaring people away from animals that if handled properly in any given situation(in the wild or captivity) pose little threat to us. I also think some of these shows give young people begining to show an interst in our hobby the wrong idea(that it is easy to deal with these animals). I was lucky to have met a breeder who is concerned with the animals welfare,and the keepers not just profit. Not so lucky with the motorcyles but thats a hole other story.