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RE: OHIO people getting bit so much.
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by kykeeper23 on February 11, 2005
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I work in Louisville, Kentucky at the Louisville Zoo and what has been going on is very dangerous for all venomous keepers. These goofballs are watching too much Austin Stevens and think they can do what he does.The man who was bitten recently actually had been bitten before by the same exact snake when he was free handling before. The problem is this idiot used up all of Cincinnati Zoo's antivenom serum so now they are without for who knows how long and they still have to work their venomous animals. It is going to be a heated debate as Louisville is now working on a ban of all venomous animals and crocodilians. Next it will be ball pythons and so on. I just shake my head and wonder.Thanks for reading this and I love the site, keep up the good work!!
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RE: OHIO people getting bit so much.
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by MattHarris on February 11, 2005
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Well, you could argue that everyone in Michigan is getting bitten by bushmasters. I think we are almost jumping the gun, as much as the media, in putting the recent bites in perspective.
2 bites in MI, bushmasters
3 bites in Ohio(2 rhino, 1 urutu)
1 bite in NY (sidewinder)
6 bites (that come to mind) out of how many countless hours????? Does anyone keep an actual log of hours spent? I can make an estimate that I'm dealing with venomous species (directly transferring,cleaning or feeding) nearly 8-9hrs per week. thats 400-450 hrs a year. That doesn't include, handling them for lectures, demos, programs....
now there are likely 100 other people in NY with hot permits. I will assume they do the same. 1 bite in 4000 man-hrs of direct handling for NY.
lets assume 25 states have the same number of keepers(likely an underestimate). That's 6 bites in 100,000 man hours of keeping. If you convert that to Man-years....6 bites in 50 man years of working with the snakes. Or, one person, working for their entire life in direct contact with venomous snakes, has 6 bites. How does this compare with Jim H. or Bill Haast(he's over 100 is he not?). This may provide a barometer for comparing the national average to those of individuals.
I think if the actual numbers were compiled, you'd see that most handlers are much safer than the well publicized cases would indicate. The real problem, is the public's perception of a) Snakes b) the people keeping them and c) that the whole basis of bans is not based on CONCRETE DATA, but simply the perception of risk.
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