I went to this park the other day with my niece and father; they'd said it was nice, and had snakes. Perked me right up. They've got a copperhead, a rat snake, a corn snake, a kingsnake...some the native snakes to Fairfax. So...me being me, I had to ask the desk guy(someone who's got a degree in Parks and Management and stuff...) what method they used for feeding. F/T, Pre-killed, or live. I swear, I had a feeling I was getting myself into a minor debate. "We ONLY feed them F/T. Anyone who feeds live is putting their snakes in danger." Oh. Really? So, I told him that I fed all of my kids live. He turned pretty pale. ^_^ He went on to say that he'd seen horrible pictures of what rats/mice can do. I made the comment that the owner probably wasn't being responsible. We dropped the subject.

Then...I asked him why the rat snake and the corn snake were in the same enclosure. "Oh. They're the same species." Really? "Yes." Oh. Well, I've spoken to some prominent people in the herp world, and they've directly stated that keeping multiple snakes in the same enclosure isn't very good. "They're fine. They actually mated and had blind babies." Really? "Yes. Some of the 'best' biologists in Virginia say that it's perfectly fine." Really? "Oh yes. They're fine."

For someone who's so keen on protecting the environment and securing his snakes, he seemed like a bit of an incompetent. -Shrug.- I didn't state that I'd seen pictures of cannabalism, that keeping snakes together caused them stress, etc. I just left, shaking my head.

What do you do in a situation like that?