Our mice and rats are BRED at breeding farm. After producing millions of them, they are then shipped to whomever uses them for whatever.

That isn't even a valid comparison. No-one goes out in the wild to flush out wild rats and mice, destroying valuable habitat while doing so.

No-one burns or gasses forests to flush out deer.

Here are some parts of various articles, all proven to be correct and the information can be verified. Have we lost so much respect for nature that we don't care how those yahoos get their snake ? And really, its for food and skins that are needed ??? For the venom ? That is just a side-show, that venom has never been purchased by anyone...

Do the deer get thrown in pits, half of them damaged and hurt, only to lay around there overcrowded and slowly dying before being slaughtered ? Are the hunters making a roadside carnivals out of the killing ??

I respect that everyone has the right to their own opinion, but I find those carnivals repulsive.

Here the articles :

"The eastern diamondback rattlesnake (EDR) is not a vicious creature. Ecologist D. Bruce Means, Ph. D., director of the Coastal Plains Institute and Land Conservancy, calls it the Gentle Ben of venomous snakes. If an animal is not small enough for it to swallow whole, the snake will rely on its camouflaged body to blend in or slither away.

According to Means, the EDR used to range widely over the Southeast, but because of habitat loss and roundups, their numbers have plummeted.

Today, snake hunters must drive hundreds of miles to find rattlers. The snakes they capture are thrown into overcrowded barrels and stockpiled – hungry, dehydrated, sick from the gas and many suffocating beneath their chums – until the winter roundups.

Gassing makes the burrow uninhabitable for years and permanently impairs the snakes and other species that peacefully cohabitate with them, including gopher tortoises and indigo snakes, both threatened species in Florida, Georgia and Alabama"


"ohn Jensen, senior wildlife biologist with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, says that gassing is illegal. “However, it’s still their primary method. Snake hunters couldn’t get the numbers any other way. A fairly substantial skin trade market drives the roundups,” says Jensen, who is vehemently against them.

Venom extractions are heavily promoted in an effort to legitimize the roundups. Snake handlers “milk” the venom, which, purportedly, is sold for medical purposes.

Carl M. Barden is director of the Medtoxin Venom Laboratory in DeLand, Florida, which sells snake venom to six biopharmaceutical companies in the United States.

In a phone conversation, Barden said, “To be useful, venom must be produced under sterile conditions, centrifuged and kept cold. We have never purchased EDR venom from a roundup.”

One of the companies that buys Medtoxin’s venom is BTG, the largest producer of rattlesnake anti-venom.

In an email, Ashley Tapp, BTG Communications Manager, wrote that they have never purchased venom from any rattlesnake roundup. “Our venoms are purchased only from approved suppliers.”

Roundup promoters in Georgia, sensitive to potential bad press, stress the “educational and scientific value” of the roundups and money raised for non-profit groups.

Clearly, venom collected at roundups has little or no scientific value. How about education?

One of the most harmful consequences of these roundups is that children get the message that wildlife is there for humans to use and abuse as they see fit.

Varn always taught her son to respect nature, but she feels the Whigham roundup gave him the notion that killing snakes is cool."

"This tradition has outlived its original purpose and needs to end, or at least change.

One roundup, held every January in San Antonio, Florida, has evolved into a Rattlesnake Festival. Education presentations feature snakes that are not abused or harassed, the crowd is enthralled and children go home with a new appreciation and respect for vipers. The event draws 30,000 visitors and raises thousands of dollars for local nonprofits.

Chet Powell, manager of Reed Bingham State Park in Adel, Georgia, is planning a Rattlesnake Festival to draw people away from the roundup relics. Contact him if you are interested in participating or sponsoring this event."