showing snakes to the public - Experts Forum at VenomousReptiles.org

showing snakes to the public	Reply
by snakeguy101 on November 11, 2006	Mail this to a friend!
earlier today, i was at the museum of science and history showing of a florida pine snake. the snake is normaly very calm and has never even attempted to bite anyone BUT, a lady was petting him as i let her and the snake struck out and came close to tagging her. what should i do incase this happens again other than wash the bite and give her a free tee-shirt and hope for the best, thank goodness it didn't happen this time..... but if it does.... thanks in advance chris hartmann

RE: showing snakes to the public	Reply
by Cro on November 11, 2006	Mail this to a friend!
Chris, you should always control the head of the snakes you use for display, even if they are normally calm. There is always going to be the person who for some reason causes the snake to act differently. Perhaps the lady gave off some kind of signal that disturbed the snake, or perhaps she had some kind of scent that caused the response. Most people who give lectures on snakes will hold the snake and let folks touch it, all the while controlling the ``sharp`` end. It would be very bad for your program if someone were to get bitten by the pine snake. A T shirt and washing the wound might not be enough. It depends on how bad the person is freaked out by the experience. Why dont you hold the snake a bit behind the head and near the tail, and let folks touch the middle area. That way there is no possibility they will get bit. ( you might, LOL ) but that better than the public getting bitten. Hope this helps. Best Regards JohnZ

RE: showing snakes to the public	Reply
by Viperlady on November 11, 2006	Mail this to a friend!
UNPREDICTABILITY... is one of the main details about reptiles I admire the most, but the public might not think the same way, and specially the mothers of small children. Also consider the amount of stress being caused on the specimen and consider his/her threshold. How can you know up to what point he/she will stand the presence of a petting little hand that smells some or other way? Just to cite an example. At the pet trading company I work for, there is a program called somethin' like "touch a pet". Kids and their parents are invited to touch and "play around" with almost every species possible, without taking in consideration any security measures. Kids are allowed and encouraged to play and touch birds, rodents, snakes and arthropods without any particular order. What if some colubrid or boid feels hungry and attacks someone's hand? I don't think they've considered such posibility, but I hope they start doing so as soon as I take my report to the supervisiors. I'm new to this company, I was hired this last week as a reptile specialist, and belive me I'VE GOT MORE WORK THAN I COULD'VE ASKED FOR, specially because there is very little culture and very few people specialized on our scaly friends here in my country.

RE: showing snakes to the public	Reply
by SwampY on November 12, 2006	Mail this to a friend!
the worst nonven in a pet shop bite to a customer I've heard about was 12 stitches in the thumb from a tokay gecko. I got sliced open once trying to help a pet store owner catch a monitor that had gotten under some cages when I was about 12. I didn't really care though, that's one of the sweet things about monitors. :-)

RE: showing snakes to the public	Reply
by Rob_Carmichael on November 12, 2006	Mail this to a friend!
At our facility, you have to be at least 16 years of age to do any herp show by yourself. My rule of thumb is that a "bite is never acceptable....ever" and in our 15 years of existence, no participant has ever been bitten during one of our shows or programs. Can it happen? Yes, but it shouldn't if you know what you are doing. This takes years of experience in learning how to read a snake's behavior, knowing that particular snake, etc. It's always the handler's responsibility to have control of the head area; not by force, but by simply manipulating the snake so that the head is always towards you so that folks can safely handle the snake. There's nothing worse than a snake bite to a participate; it basically kills whatever education message you were trying to send. We try to identify those species that do well in large public forums; we also spend a lot of time with the animals that are used for education so that we are ready for anything. The original post got very, very lucky but it goes to show that even long term tame animals can have their bad day. Rob Carmichael, Curator The Wildlife Discovery Center

RE: showing snakes to the public	Reply
by snakeguy101 on November 12, 2006	Mail this to a friend!
Thanks for all of your help but just as a side note there were several more experienced herpers nearby, I was not doing the show alone. I will keep all of your suggestions in the front of my mind next time I am in a smilar situation

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