A rant about uneducated know it all idiot people

[Randy_T.]

Hello all, my wife went to a doctors appointment (her first check up for her current pregnancy) and she was wearing a shirt with AirCapitalConstrictors.com on it (KSShanes website) with a pic of a snake on it. Well the Nurse that was doing most of the check up looks at the shirt and says "Oh my god, is that a snake on your shirt?" my wife replies why yes it is and explains the shirt and how we have some snakes of our own (stupid mistake on her part.lol) and the lady then looks at my wife with what she described as disgust and began explaining how stupid me and my wife are for owning such a terribly dangerous animal and how a woman in Wichita (KS) had a boa constrictor she kept in a bedroom of her house, and didn't lock the door one day, and the snake got out (apparantly the snake can open doors) and the lady found it with her three year old half way down the snakes throat. And the best part of this all is now I am expecting Social Services to beat down my door to inspect my den of evil animals. I hate with a passion how someone who has no knowledge or education or factual comments can have such a heated and passionate opinion about something, kinda reminds me of racism and Religious Bigotry. (if they don't think, behave, look, and pray like you then they must be stupid and wrong.) Man I hate society sometimes.


Later Randy T.

[bcijoe]

Randy, I just can not tolerate such blatant ignorance!!!

I'll leave you with this quote from Albert Einstein...

'Only two things are infinite - the Universe and human stupidity, and i'm not sure about the former..'

I beg and pray for patience EVERYDAY to deal with people like this...

take care, Joe Rollo

[Panama_Red]

A guy down the street from me was insisting that boas will get 60 feet long. I was about to say, well I've got a room full of them, and I decided theres no way to convince someone so stupid, Because they say they saw it on tv.... It's amazing how dumb some people are, isn't it?

[bcijoe]

you said it man!
and you got the easy way out, just like you said....nothing getting through to these peoples heads..

[Doug]

HI,
I was dragged to the living room about that show on discovery a few weeks ago by my wiffeees" ( probably the same one the nurse watched) about all the dangerous reptiles that are living in our homes, many of the animals they missrepresented were the retics 20 ft+ and the 16 ft+ burmes, But they also smeared those killer  6 ft boa's. ::).. So I looked at my wife and said comparing a retic to a BCI was retarded and a disservice to reptiles an nature.
 She's  was so concerned that maybe my boa's were a threat ???
 They showed some lady in India or some where trying to use the out-.house and a retic was trying to grab her Bumm and they said it would have killed her if it could,( I think the retic didn't like her using his hide that way) hehe
then they showed some guy with a 20+ foot retic in his living room getting the Bite from heck from a hungry retic that he was feeding alone,he almost died. DUH!!!
  And finally they showed that rock python eating an antelope horns and all   head first... Jeeeze no wonder the common herp a phobics are scared to death..
 Finally in closing the show some so called reptile expert? mentioned that boa's can be as dangerous as the pythons in the right condition's..... ::) :-/ ::) holy mackerals did he say boa's.......
. No my wife isn't to fond of snakes and she tollerates them cause I likes them. But the movie on discovery about dangerous  Killer constictors was mostly hype, to say the least. She's sort of chilled after a couple weeks, but could you imagine the effects on government IE city Council that may have seen that movie.
Why do most educational programs sensationalize things to make it interesting and then smear the facts. :-/ we may all be keeping corns and kings in the future if this B.S.   :-/ keeps up..
 doug  cwm8.gif

[ash]

saw the same show ,what most people missed is were the snake owners admit they did something wrong ,i get the same reaction when people find out i have a room full of snake's "your weird ","how can you sleep with all them in the house "and many more ,i think people are tought at a young age that snakes are evil monsters,but i have heard of more people being hurt or even killed by dogs but thay are still considerd normal pets ,just my 2 cents ,,,jeff

Gawd Randy I would have smacked some sence into the ignorante bitch! I cannot stand people who are like that!

[jon_m]

the thing that kills me the most about people is when they find out you have snakes and then elect to tell you how when they find snakes they chop them up with shovels!like I really want to here that ::)
that would be like me finding out someone liked cats and then telling them how much I like to run them over with my car when I see them

jon

[Panama_Red]

LOL......Jon-M I belive I've herd that story a few times. It's fine in most peoples mind to chop up a snake with a shovel, If you told them you chopped up a dog with a shovel, you'd get arrested. Try telling them that next time they want to brag about killing a snake, I'm shure you wont have the dis-pleasure of having to speak with them again.LOL..

I have dogs, and snakes wouldn't kill either, but give me a rat and it's a different story. Twisted humor ( sorry)

[ScooterJ46]

I am relatively new to Herps and I have always loved snakes. My eight year old actually got me started in collecting when he asked for a ball python for his birthday. I got him one and then remembered my childhood, and how cool snakes really are. I started to buy boas like a drug addict and still can't stop sometimes. Well, I now have 7 boas of differing values and morphs, and I have been labeled a wierdo by everyone that hears about my collection. My wife says that if she knew that i loved snakes she would have never married me. Well, I think it may be time for a new model anyway. Frankly, I don't care about what people say. I enjoy snakes and I will continue my hobby as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else, then they can all take a flying leap!

[trinitywolf]

I think everyone who owns a snake or is interested in snakes has had those reactions before. Bar none though, if I can get someone to hold one or even touch it, they can't quit talking about how cool that was. :'(

[bcijoe]

YOU ARE RIGHT PANAMA_RED AND JON !!!
My cousins owned dogs all their lives, and I, snakes...

They are ignorant when it comes to snakes, and I used to be scared of dogs... well, atleast his grumpy big old male dalmation that always growled and snapped WAY too close to my privates!!!
well, point is, when I would tell him about being bit once in a while, he would say.. Did you kill him? Damn, if a snake ever bit me, I WOULD KILL THE DAMN THING!!!

WELL, turns out that his dog bit my grandfathers ear off!!!!!!
Unfortunate incident - the dog doesn't like his ears touched or head hugged, amongst many other things.... so my DEAF grandfather went to say hello and hugged him one day... Dog snapped and tore most of his ear off!!! Emergency room, stitches.....

What did the dog get?!?!?!? HUGGS AND KISSES!!!!

'it's ok boy, i know you didn't mean it, awwww, poor doggy' and all that...

I can just imagine if I would've said, 'Your dog bit grandpa? Did you kill him??? SHOULD'VE HAD HIM KILLED!!! '

I can just IMAGINE what he would've said.... probably would've never spoken to me again!!!!

By the way, I made it a point to learn more about dogs, become friendly with them, respect and command them, and eventually grew close to his dog, as well as 3 of my own... 2 pitbulls and a chihuahua.... (interesting mix, huh?)

You think he would've learned more about snakes, or tried to conquer his fear (which is actually just plain old ignorance..)

NOPE



take care guys...

[Panama_Red]

Pit bull's rule!

[redtailedmel]

snakes are allowed where i live there isnt any ordinances but these dumb hillbilly rednecks would probably call the cops saying the neighborhood kids werent safe if they knew i had a house full of snakes! of course no one comes in my yard because i keep my pit bull in the front yard hes a sure enough security system heheh. all the women i work with know i have them though they get all shakey and freaked out but they say the are cool but would never own one LOL at least they aint trying to kill em!

[ksshane]

Randy..
You never told me that...

I guess you dont get anymore shirts from me.

[boyle102]

(if they don't think, behave, look, and pray like you then they must be stupid and wrong.) Man I hate society sometimes.


Later Randy T.[/color][/b][/quote]
you said it all :'(

[Boabrat]

Hmm...

  Maybe the big, mean, man-eating snakes are just eating the wrong people. Perhaps they should be taken from their intellectually challenged owners and shipped to various dens of bigotry and ignorance all over the nation. Though it would take one heck of a large snake to choke down some of them beer drink'n pot-bellied born agan southern morons.


 Oh yeah, out of the millions of snakes kept in captivity in the U.S. alone.... they only came up with like 4 examples of 'When snakes attack' or whatever? I would imagine there has to be many thousands of Retics out there as pets, and even more Burms, blah.

 I have been doing some online research, and found 2 examples of snake-on-wner deaths. Both of which were around 13' Burms on owners who were <100lbs.

::)  I also found one example of a ball python trying to strangle a small child on some scary religous 'the devil controls you' website. Yeah, like that ever happened.

[Boabrat]

A Fatal Attack on a Teenage Boy by a Captive Burmese Python (Python molurus bivittatus) in Colorado
20 July 1993


"The victim was a 15-year-old male, 152 cm [5'] tall, weighing 43 kg [95lb]. While in bed, naked except for briefs, he was bitten on the right instep, with maxillary and palatine-pterygoid tooth marks clearly visible on the dorsal surface of the foot and dentary tooth marks clearly visible on the plantar surface. Numerous tooth impressions were present on the fingers of both hands, but only on their palmar surfaces, indicating that the hands had tried to pry open the snake's jaws from around the instep. The fingers and the foot bled profusely. Autopsy photographs revealed scleral ecchymotic hemorrhage, and venous congestion in the cerebrum (petechial and ecchymotic hemorrhage both present), all being signs of agonal breathing consistent with a diagnosis of suffocation as a cause of death. No attempt was made during autopsy to distinguish between suffocation and circulatory arrest (Hardy, 1993) as causes of death; however, in subsequent correspondence the pathologist hypothesized that circulatory arrest would more likely be the cause of death of smaller prey, whereas suffocation would be more likely with larger victims. Although blood was present on the victim's face, hands arms and legs, there was no blood present on the neck or on the middle of the torso, suggesting that the snake's coils had been wrapped around this area. Bruising of the victim's skin, consistent with this hypothesis, was visible in the photographs. There was no evidence that the snake had attempted to swallow any part of the victim.

"The snake was 336 cm [11'2"] total length, and weighed 24 kg [53lb]. Incidentally, almost all estimates of the snake's weight presented by the media were above 27 kg and ranged as high as 54 kg. The only accurate weight had been recorded by Officer Steven Paxton soon after the fatality, but few news writers quoted him, preferring to use the larger, exaggerated numbers. Circumference at the thickest part of the body was 38cm [15"]. The snake had not been fed for 10 days prior to taking the measurements reported here (19 September 1993) and the most recent meal had already been digested and passed. Thus, the digestive system was probably empty. We did not probe the snake's cloaca, but the short tail and diminutive pelvic spurs strongly suggest that it is a female. This animal had been raised since hatching by a close relative of the victim, and at the time of the attack the snake was not confined to a cage, but had freedom to move about the house. The victim was long familiar with the snake.

"...This raises the question of why the snake killed so large a victim. Although any answer that we can put forward would be conjectural, it is known that pythons and certain other constrictors will sometimes attack prey that cannot be ingested (Branch and Hacke, 1980; Fritts et al., 1990), whether through misinterpretation of size or through presence on the victim of chemical or other cues that are associated with normal prey.

"Perhaps the most significant point to emerge from this Colorado case is the fact that a 24kg python, modest in size by comparison with full grown specimens of this and several other species, was able to kill a healthy 43kg adolescent human. This will come as no surprise to experienced herpetologists, but it might be startling to people who have grown unjustifiably complacent with their now mature pythons that have been raised since hatching."

[Boabrat]

Based on a New York Times Report by David Herszenhorn. Thursday - October 10, 1996.

According to the New York Times, 19-year old Grant Williams of 365 East 183rd Street Bronx died as the result of an attack by his 13 foot long Burmese Python which may have mistaken him as food.

The victim was found at about 1:30 PM on October 9th by a neighbor lying in a pool of blood with the snake coiled around his torso in the hallway of his apartment building. He was pronounced dead at Jacobi Medical Center. An ambulance crew removed the snake from the victim and it was taken to the Bronx Zoo.

According to the report, Williams and his 17 year old brother, Lamar, purchased the snake at a local pet store known as Pet City about five months ago for $300.00.

This attack may be a feeding related incident as a live chicken was found nearby, still in the box. Williams was apparently getting ready to feed the snake, out of its cage. Pythons, like other snakes, have an acute sense of smell. The detection of a food odor such as a chicken and the proximity of Williams to the snake evidently led the snake to mistake Williams as its prey or food.

[Boabrat]

In the past DECADE those are the only two fatality reports I could find involving pythons or boas, however my search over the same time period resulted in literally 1000s of deaths from dog attacks.

There could very wel be more python/boa to human deaths than these two I listed here. Even if there are though, the number of deaths caused by other so caled 'domesticated' animals simply overshadows them completely statistically.

So why do people fear snakes so much? They don't understand them? Fear of being swallowed alive/whole? Mental conditioning they recieved from childhood (Serpent = devil, devil = 'Goto hell free card, do not pass go')? Who knows for sure, I think in each individual case it is a combnation of several things, and it is our job as snake lovers to try and help them to understand snakes a little better.

-John da Boabrat

[YVP]

good thing your wife wasn't wearing a shirt with a swastika on it! people are ingnorant, we will be dealing with this until the end of time. ???

[goofykid87]

I smell the need for a new documentry...maybe...one made by the moderators of theboathinktank...just a thought...send that to discovery... :-[

[Randy_T.]

lol, I just don't see the ratings in that one...Since only the real snake lovers would view it.


Also thank you for showing the statistics you found on this. Although I remember a couple years ago an incident of a young child that was presumedly killed by the family pet burm (that happened to roam free in the house as well)

Too bad about the ignorant ones making trouble for the rest of us who are responsible.

[dmac]

I am 39 years old, and I have found that life just gets plain easier if you don't advertise your passions on your shirt, bumper, or work locker-especially if it deals with snakes, guns, or (God forbid) motorcycles. If you are young and feel like debating morons all day long go for it. Otherwise, know who shares your passions and share with them.

[Randy_T.]

lol, I know what you mean..for a while I would have to "debate" (more like argue) with an ignorant woman at work who would constantly interupt and add her point of view when I would be talking herps with other herp loving co workers..(she would on a daily basis inform me that she planned to kill all of my herps the first chance she had.)

I finally just avoided working around her and she finally got the hint when everyone who she interupted would ignore her even about work matters..lol

[LadyThorn]

[color=Purple]I've had similar experiences from wearing the "wrong" sort of jewelry!

Many people are uneducated. Many don't know they are uneducated. Many know, and don't care. That's sad.

Some people, however, have a real phobia of snakes (and pentacles), and that's a little different. Phobias are uncontrollable by definition, and those people need to be treated a little differently. Respecting a phobia is different than teaching an ignorant person that your 6" corn snake is more likey to wind around their neck than the 6' boa. You can't blame somebody for irrational phobias.

For instance, I have a phobia about moths. I *know* that they all want to kill me and eat me, and I will literally RUN SCREAMING if there is one in the room. I know they don't have any teeth, but that doesn't matter! I love butterflies. I will rescue bees that are trapped indoors, or spiders that have fallen into the bathtub, but moths? No way!

If someone isn't phobic about snakes, and is just showing of how cleverly ignorant they can be, I usually counter with the story of the lady who had a black widow's nest in her beehive hairdo, or the wasp nest in the Burger King ball pit, or the man who cut off his <cough> "package" with a band saw, and then used a staple gun to put it back on. And they all had snakes , which slept in their baby's crib! Wow!

Sorry about my own rant, in response to your rant. I just have better luck pitying, trying to teach, and then mocking, than I do getting angry. It's so much more fun! Ultimately, my snakes don't care, and that's what matters to me.

BTW, my sister-in-law is refusing to come to Thanksgiving, because I have snakes in the house. This is a phobia. I just hope that if I go to her house for Christmas, that she hasn't started keeping Death's Head Moths!

[Larry]

I am relatively new to Herps and I have always loved snakes.  My eight year old actually got me started in collecting when he asked for a ball python for his birthday.  I got him one and then remembered my  

WOW!  Me Too!  When my oldest was 7, he came home from school and asked if we could get a snake (I was always petrified of them).  I told him if we took the time to learn about them first, we could get a small one.   Well.....we joined the local herpetological society and 2 months later we were the proud owners of a baby red tail  (I did say small snake).  About 3 months later, my son lost interest and I was hooked!  It is now 11 years later and I own  a red-tail, ball python and red albino corn.  Not to mention the beautiful red tail I have tattooed on my upper arm. :'(

Larry
Waynesboro, VA

[jr1551]

i live with my daughter and her husband. he owns three snakes also. to my surprize i was informed that when they have a baby the snakes must go. and if i want to keep mine i will have to move out. i dont consider her o r him idiots or uneducated. she has been raised around them and has spent alot of time with them. not to say you are all wrong. i agree with what you are saying. just that it isnt always ignorance. just a natural fear that some people cant get past. each to their own.

[BoaAmarali]

WOW you folks have all hit the nail right on the head.I think the idea and fear of snakes started thousands of years ago when man had to compete with them{larger then todays Reticulated Pythons probably}for food & prime hunting ground.I'm sure that is also how the snake became the Devil in the Bible, fear.I don't have the recent statistics,but between 1978-1988 there were 4 deaths in the United States due to Large Constricting snakes.3 of the Deaths were caused by Retics 1 death by a Burmese python.Since Then there have been only a couple that I can find.The exact date of the 15 year old boy killed by the Burmese was 20 of July 1993,in Colorado.There is absolutely no eveidence I can find of anyone ever being killed by a Boa Constrictor.Not even a baby smothered by a Boa that I can find,and I've spent many hours Looking.People just don't have a clue,heck if it's a large Constrictor they call it a Boa.Even if its a Burm or a Retic it's still a big Boa,they don't have a clue and don't care to learn.The constrictors are just lumped into one category.It's certainly is frustrating,you can't even begin to educate many of these goofs because they won't listen.One thing I know though is when I take my Dumerils Boa{Drew} out to the store,Bank,4th of july parade to watch or where ever I might decide to go.No matter where I go people are usually fascinated with him.They Love to touch him and think he feels cool.My Dumerils Boa is 1 of 35 Boas and still counting.Aithough he is by far the friendliest and the pattern looks Like flowers so woman are captivated instead of scared ,it seems.I just try to inform as many people as I can that Boas are mostly harmless.Anything mistreated or handled improperly or abused can be dangerous though!!

[Flyride]

I dont even want to get just warmed up on this on. This occurance and ignorance just makes me irate. So I will stay quiet and not get kicked off of this great site for speaking my mind lol.

[RTBoas]

This is a old thread, but a good one :)

I saw on Animal planet, "The big Squeeze" all were Pythons, no boas, I repeat NO BOAS were involved. Although Boas can be dangerous as well to small children but it is the owners  "RESPONIIBILITY" to keep them in a proper place to asure this won't happen. Letting a LARGE wild snake roam through your house is just plain DUMB.

Here a few case from that show:

1. Guy got pulled in the cage by a 13 + foot Python after holding his cinchula's. The snake Grabbed them by the neck, Thxs god a friend was there to pour Alcholhol on the snake and the snake released.

2. Was a Herper/breeder bought a wild caught 23' Retic from Indonisa, he was doing something in the cage and the snake bite his hand. After that the snake backed him up in the corner and grabbed his leg. After the bite it begin coiling him to death, YES THIS GUY DIED, the buddies handler was stabing it at the same time of the struggle, but it wouldn't let go and the guy passed out, and was not breathing. Somehow the buddy got the snake to release and turn on him, but didnt get a grip on him and was able to grab his frail friend from the cage. He revive him using CPR. OMG, the guy lived after all that.

3. Of course they showed a Rock Python consume a Adult Gazelle.

[Amber]

There is a lot of stupidity and iggnorence out there. Let's just try to edducate when we can. We can't fix everyone and make them snake lovers. Although I did get my brother in law who is affraid of my snakes to hold one of mine. It was the baby but its a step. Baby steps.