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RE: What's the Point (long and philosophical)
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by bush_viper17 on February 10, 2005
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well said,I dream of going to exotic places and looking for wildlife. But for now all I have is working with someones exotic in their collection. I think one of the reasons we all work with snakes ven and non is the "disconnection" from the world. Your walking through the jungle,forest,desert whatever and you forget about your job, you forget about that time when your car got hit,you forget about taxes, your just out there, in the middle of nowhere and you dont care. How many times have you been walking through the woods and said "I dont care that Im not catching anything, Im still having fun" You finally come across your target whether its a rat snake or a king cobra and it feels right. Every natural instict comes back to you. You are no longer a member of the working class. You are one on one in the wild with the animal. Thats all that matters, nothing else exists. You dont care that your on probation, you dont care that you cant find work or that your wife left you. Your in paradise even when your in waste deep swamp mud with a stinky cottonmouth in sight. You take you shirt off and throw it over your shoulder and it starts to rain and you keep on walking with a smile on your face. When I handle these snakes its paradise, thats why I do it. It medicates me. It makes me feel whole. When everyone else is mad at me or if anythings going wrong in my life, I still have the animals. Even though some can and will kill me if givin the chance. Each day I try to learn as much as I can. Theres a pond up the road from my house with a canoe beside it. Sometimes I go up there and get in the canoe and paddle around. I have no reason for canoeing in that pond. im not fishing but its the experience and the knowledge I gain that makes it worth while. Just like when we see a big rock or something and you think, I wonder if I can pick that up by myself. You try it. Everytime I work with a snake, its all about gaining knowledge. I know when to quit. Another thing I say is, I dont want my first encounter with a king cobra to be in the wild in the middle of no where.(I mean that would be great) but its good to learn while you can. If givin the opportunity, you have the chose, take it or leave it. I took mine. Im still here. I prepared to face another day. Nothing has stopped me yet. Ive been in a car and been hit by an 18 wheeler and watched my brother and best friend die. So I just take it day by day. Chance by chance. We all die someday but do you want to die and honestly say "Why did I turn down so many opportunities?" Or do you want to say, Ive done everything that I was capable of doing. When people ridiculed me and when I felt like just dieing I kept on doing what I do.When lifes over I want my last words to be "It was an experience"
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RE: Reckless/criminal behavior
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by timberrattlesnake89 on February 10, 2005
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I guess it is time to speak up. Jim Harrison you should get your facts strait first before ever posting this message. I guess since everyone has their word to say I need to say mine. It was a venomoid! Someone should of asked first. Personally I did not find this out until later. One thing I have to say is that it is not us who causes the bans. It is people who keep venomous snakes with no knowledge of them. They do not keep there own anti-venom with them. If that was a hot snake we were so close to venom 1 that it would not been the worse thing to happened. Most of the time bans are b/c idoit people keep highly venomous snakes. You never see bans b/c of native venomous snakes. It is always someone who doesn't keep their own av and need zoo's to help them. That is why if I ever get non-native venomous I would keep my own antivenin.
Phillip
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RE: Reckless/criminal behavior
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by bush_viper17 on February 10, 2005
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I dont think it was a venomoid. That guy said that he thinks they are but he didnt know. Im almost positive it was venomous. You can tell when its a venomoid because its head would be sunk in. We saw one later that day that was a venomoid and It look completely different. The guy at the shop also told us that it was venomous.
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RE: Reckless/criminal behavior
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by FLVenom911 on February 10, 2005
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Philip,
That snake is no venomoid! I hope you knew at the time you were handling a fully loaded O. Hannah and not a venomoid. A good friend of mine goes to Underground all the time and he said that is the Hannah they have had for a bit and he has never seen any venomoids in there ever.
JS
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RE: Reckless/criminal behavior
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by FLVenom911 on February 10, 2005
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Also, what kinds of A$$holes do they have working there!!! Some guy tells you he thinks they are venomoid and he doesnt even know!! That is the most outrageous thing I have ever heard! So I guess the new rule is here handle it, we dont know if its hot but it might be a 'void. That is complete BS, and dude you handle it without knowing?! Com'on man
JS
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RE: Reckless/criminal behavior
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by tj on February 10, 2005
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Of course it was a venomoid. Kinda takes the thrill away now doesn't it?
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RE: Reckless/criminal behavior
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by AquaHerp on February 10, 2005
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I rarely if ever chime in anymore, but..all I can say is that in about 5-10 years it'll only be the zoos and research-oriented institutions that are back to having venomous species in most States. I'll still be working them, but sadly I won't be able to keep my own collection at home any longer. Some days I'm not sure exactly how I feel about that one.
Side note-
Hey Jim, I'm relocating to Abilene next week. Keep in touch!
Doug H.
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RE: Reckless/criminal behavior
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by bush_viper17 on February 10, 2005
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the person who said he though they were venomoids didnt have anything to do with the store. It doesnt matter anyway.
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RE: Reckless/criminal behavior
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by JHarrison on February 10, 2005
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Phillip,
It doesn't matter if it is a venomoid or not. I know someone who almost died from an infection they got from a water snake bite. Venomoid surgeries are not 100%. Especially since the *adults* who were with you didn't even know if it was or not?!?!?
Look, Jeremy seems to have gotten the point. I don't think either of you are bad people, or stupid, or anything. I just know you are young. That's not bad! But it is true that when you are in your teens and early 20's you have a lot of life still to live, and a lot left to learn. Matt brought up living life to its fullest- and I absolutely agree. But there is a line between trying to experience all you can and making a bad decision. Let's remove the age factor for a minute. I use pictures like the one of you with the snake in that store as teaching aids for the people I train to work with venomous. You had the tail too high, there was NOT enough room to work such a large animal if it started to really move, and there were way too many people too close to you and to the snake. In the pic of you there is a person in the lower right corner of the picture! Why? Does he want to be bitten in the face? I see pictures like this all the time from various sources and frankly they scare me. I have seen snakes do things that suprise me even today. Until you have seen one go from being totally calm and relaxed to acting like it's tail is on fire and you are a pile of mice, you may not realize the danger involved. Also, the comment about being down the road from Venom 1 disturbs me. Did you know that kings posess a cardiotoxin that can cause permanent heart damage EVEN IF YOU GET A?V???? You may very well survive the bite, but years later could be affected. Is it worth it?
Jeremy, Matt is right that if you are serious about wanting to work at a legit facility at some point, this kind of stuff is actually a turn-off for them. Zoos don't want someone who acts overeager and reckless, they want someone who acts calm and rational. I know you have the ability to be that way. I know it is hard to take criticism and I understand how you feel about the animals always being there- I feel that way myself. But we are trying to help you- not make you feel bad or stupid or anything else. Unfortunately, more can be learned from criticism than praise.
Jim Harrison
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RE: Reckless/criminal behavior
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by Chance on February 10, 2005
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Wow, I wasn't going to get into any of this until Mr. Phillip had to go and take a cheap shot at me. I've said it before and I'll say it again, what gives?! Obviously, Terry, you haven't a clue about what really happened with me getting out of venomous. From what depths of the crack of your rear did you pull that little tidbit from? Since it was called into question, I'll clear it up. No, I did not start with taipans. That's a laugh. I started with catching, keeping, and releasing native venomous snakes when I was about 12 or 13. Then, when I was 18, I got a baby N. naja. Over the next couple of years I developed a huge love for venomous, especially elapids, and started collecting them. I can handle elapids better than I can handle viperids, and no that's not me bragging on myself, that's just how I am. In October of '03, about two months after I bought my 1.1 baby taipans from Robbie Keszey (who now works with Glades), I bought a male tiger het albino, female het, and female lavender albino retics. Over the next several months of working with these snakes, I began to really enjoy not having to worry about them being venomous. Around March or April of '04, a Scottish man was found dead on the ground of the LR airport after having picked up a box of venomous snakes shipped to him from Exotics Reptiles Jungle. Everyone thought, naturally, he had died from snakebite, thought it was later proven to be and overdose of narcotics (even better). In late July, I made the decision, as I was already dwindling my venomous collection to make room for the retics I had invested such a huge amount of money into, to go ahead and sell of the last of the venomous: the boomslangs and the taipans. Not only that, but with the recent light put onto private venomous keepers in Arkansas, I didn't think it'd be long until they were banned here anyway. The taipans were the last to go and they were sold in August.
So, Mr. Phillip, do tell me how exactly that timeline constitutes me "starting with taipans and getting rid of them when one scared the crap out of me"? That is the gist of what you said, right? You know, here I was thinking that things between us were cool, especially now that I did what you had been wishing for for so long, got rid of my venomous. So why is it you now felt the need to take a shot at me? I would be e-mailing you this privately, but of course you don't put that sort of information on your profile, so I'm posting it here. I'm leaving everything out in the wide open for everyone to see here, and have nothing at all to hide. I don't regret getting into venomous, and I don't regret getting out. I get to work with some of the most awesome snakes in the world, and I don't have to worry about jerks like yourself bashing me for it. So what will it take for me to do, exactly, to get you to leave me the crap alone?? That, I guess, is the main purpose of this post. My guess is that nothing will change. Time will go on and you'll continue to take little cheap shots at me when you think it's funny.
Anyway, sorry for having to waste the bandwidth to post this on this site. It really should be unnecessary, but so should flammatory comments like that. I look forward to your reply, Terry.
-Chance
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