Cruelty... - Page 2

mykee · 09-23-12, 11:16 AM

Alessia, no disrespect intended but how can any one of us know (or judge)what was going through the mind of the person who saw that snake and decided to kill it. I'll be honest, if I didn't keep and breed snakes, I would probably have done the same thing. The safety of me and my loved ones comes FAR before the life of a potentially venomous snake in my midst.
As for Kaetlins very informative Powerpoint presentation (AFTER the fact)complete with pictures and red arrows; I think the farthest thing from any persons mind when put in that situation is "maybe it's NOT venomous".

Kettennatter · 09-23-12, 11:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mykee

Alessia, no disrespect intended but how can any one of us know (or judge)what was going through the mind of the person who saw that snake and decided to kill it. I'll be honest, if I didn't keep and breed snakes, I would probably have done the same thing. The safety of me and my loved ones comes FAR before the life of a potentially venomous snake in my midst.
As for Kaetlins very informative Powerpoint presentation (AFTER the fact)complete with pictures and red arrows; I think the farthest thing from any persons mind when put in that situation is "maybe it's NOT venomous".

I largely agree with you. The difference is that I probably wouldn't boast online about it.

Kaetlinv · 09-23-12, 11:26 AM

You have every right to believe what you do, Mykee, and it's perfectly reasonable too.

To use your example, those who eat dogs (and cats, too?) in asia do so because of culture, or necessity I'd imagine. People are raised differently, and people also fear differently.

So far I'm the only reptile fan in the people I have met at my college. Several of the people I have befriended profess an extreme fear of them. That's fine, but I'm not scared of them and I will do what I can to help them realize that snakes aren't monsters. Yes some can be poisonous and need to be treated with respect and caution, however just because it's different doesn't mean it's scary.

Likewise with invertebrates, I'm terrified of spiders crawling on me, or most bugs for that matter. But I try to figure out what kind it is before I react. I leave long-bodied cellar spiders to their own devices, since they're not really a threat and from what I have read, are beneficial to the house and get rid of pests I don't want present. When spiders or other bugs are outside, they're not in 'my' domain and I leave them be.

Short version.... Everyone is different, in infinite ways. What we choose to believe is up to us...But I believe that this snake wasn't being malicious. From what i'm able to glean, this was it's first showing. It may have wandered into their pool by accident, and didn't want to be there in the first place. However we will never know if it had intended to make their land it's home or not, because now the innocent snake is dead. It just wasn't necessary in this case.

Like Alessia said, it was kind of overkill. From the way she phrased it, the snake had been trying to escape, not bite them. That means that they went out of their way to chase it down and decapitate it. Misunderstandings are deadly in some circumstances, in this case it was.

And now one of the OP's friends is telling me that the only good snake is a dead snake and that any snake they kill will die. Yay trolls. I commented one thing to them informing them it was illegal in georgia to kill brown water snakes, and offered to give them a circumstance where an animal they favor has been blatantly mistreated or killed without a care in the world.

Snickers · 09-23-12, 11:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Snickers

On the topic of cruelty, I saw someone on FB posting a picture of her forcing a snake to smoke a cigarette. This is a link to the FB picture.

Facebook

I copied the picture.

Kaetlinv · 09-23-12, 11:32 AM

To respond to Kettennatter and Mykee, as I didn't get a chance to read those before posting;

True, they were concerned more about their safety, which is more than reasonable. But I repeat, the snake had been swimming the opposite direction.
"Snake swam one way and Dave about broke his foot going the other!"

As for Kettennatter's post, yes. It's the fact that she put it online and is laughing about it being dead. If this had carried on within private or face-to-face conversation, I wouldn't be upset. If I were to have found out about it on a later day through inane conversation, I would've asked why and been mildly concerned. I would have told her what she could've done different, and let it very plainly at that.

And snickers, that is just sad. I don't understand how someone could make their snake or any animal do that. Even just putting the cigarette in the animal's mouth is cruel.... If the presence was sustained in the animal's mouth, I wonder what harm couldve come to it.

TheBoogieDown · 09-23-12, 11:40 AM

But this goes along with Rattlesnake Roundups. The poor snake was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I think there are probably more humane ways to kill the snake, as it looks like it took more than one or two swipes with whatever they used to cut its head off. Whereas the roundups people go hunting for them just to kill them in front of an audience. Also, I've had to call animal control a few times to have a venomous snake removed and it didn't cost me a dime, maybe on my taxes, but not right then and there.

shaunyboy · 09-23-12, 11:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mykee

I kill spiders and earwigs in my house all the time. Is there really a difference? I see nothing wrong with this at all, in any way. We feed rodents to our reptiles without even considering the amount of death that is necessary to maintain our collection.
Oh well, a snake was killed. I killed almost 250 rodents last week alone.

imo,if man fears it,man kills it.....

if i'm being honest i kill spiders in my house the second i see them,why.....

because they scare the crap out me (even though i know they're harmless)

my wife will catch them and put them outside.....

i'm just too scared to go near them with anything other than,the long handled brush i use to kill them

i'm NOT saying i'm correct in killing them,only explaining when something scares the crap out you,it's hard to be rational

i would rather face a crazy man with an axe,than a creepy crawly beasty

for the record...

i do NOT kill for pleasure...

i kill out of fear

cheers shaun

TheBoogieDown · 09-23-12, 11:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shaunyboy

imo,if man fears it,man kills it.....

if i'm being honest i kill spiders in my house the second i see them,why.....

because they scare the crap out me (even though i know they're harmless)

my wife will catch them and put them outside.....

i'm just too scared to go near them with anything other than,the long handled brush i use to kill them

i'm NOT saying i'm correct in killing them,only explaining when something scares the crap out you,it's hard to be rational

i would rather face a crazy man with an axe,than a creepy crawly beasty

for the record...

i do NOT kill for pleasure...

i kill out of fear

cheers shaun

I try not to kill spiders, as I know they are just going with the flow of life. But you are correct, I see one and it feels like my heart will stop right in my chest. I even get a little creeped seeing pictures of them on here. Irrational? Yes. But you said it perfectly with: "if man fears it, man kills it."

shaunyboy · 09-23-12, 11:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Snickers

I copied the picture.

someone should stubb that cigerette out in the girls eye

that imo is totally uneccessary cruelty

cheers shaun

Akuma223 · 09-23-12, 01:22 PM

I agree completely shaunyboy. If I saw someone do that I would flip the frick out. I have positively no tolerance for such actions.

Lankyrob · 09-23-12, 02:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kettennatter

I largely agree with you. The difference is that I probably wouldn't boast online about it.

This sums things up well, if you feel the need to kill it in the spur of the moment then go ahead BUT posting about it and taking pictures makes it more like a ***** comparing competition and is pretty pathetic

StudentoReptile · 09-24-12, 07:41 AM

I have seen this same discussion played out on other forums.

It's not necessarily the killing of a harmless water snake that gets to me. It's that many people are simply unwilling to take the time to learn a little more about the world around them and research the natural fauna in their area.

For example: my wife and I aren't big fans of spiders. Specifically, she hates them. I am somewhat indifferent about them as long as they stay out of my house, garage and cars. Now, since we now have a toddler and a 4-mo-old, this is more of concern for us since we do occasionally see spiders in the house. And a few months ago, I did in fact find a black widow in my wife's car. SO yeah, we take spiders somewhat seriously around here.

As a result, we have spent HOURS researching spiders online, looking at various websites and images of spiders: what the males look like, what the females look like, how big they get, what the bites look like, what to do in case of a bite, preferred habitats of different species, etc etc. In essence, we have become amateur spider experts!

If people spent HALF of the time doing a little research about the snake species in their area as we have done about spiders, I bet a lot less harmless snakes would meet untimely deaths by shovel.

**millertime89** · 09-24-12, 09:12 AM

I rarely kill spiders in my place, generally only when I wake up and find them crawling on my face and get startled and smack them (and leave a nice red mark). I've always been this way, snakes too. Even when I never kept them I researched the ones that live here and knew what was what and would always try and get them to safety. It helps that we have no hots around here. When I was little I would catch wolf spiders and put them in critter keepers for a few days before releasing them back outside where I found them. To fear is understandable, but you should also respect all of the animals that we encounter. As humanity grows and communities expand, we're going to see more and more wildlife in cities and its important that we learn to interact with them in appropriate ways.

Terranaut · 09-24-12, 09:26 AM

We love snakes obviously buy when my brother inlaw called me on his cell from his cottage and asked me what he should do about the rattlesnake living under the porch all I could think of was my nephews getting bit. I told him if he saw it out from under the porch to do exactly what this person did. Kill it. Massasauga (sp?) rattle snakes are endangered and protected but so are my nephews. Damn it there are only 3 o them in the entire world

I personaly would have done the same. BUT this is not a place where we see many venomous snakes so a call to animal control would end with "leave it alone and it will go away"
If you truly believe a human life is at risk, kill the snake. Not worth the risk no matter how much you love snakes.

**millertime89** · 09-24-12, 11:54 AM

unfortunately the "leave it alone and it will go away" mentallity doesn't work with rattlesnakes and I'm sure some other species. They stay close to the den site where they hibernate in the winter. Killing it isn't the answer, but if someone's life is in immediate danger another option needs to be found.