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Just setting everything straight.
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by bush_viper17 on September 4, 2004
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Hi, I just want to set everything straight about me free handling. I dont go out and free handle every snake i see. I found the one in question, and I was very calm and didnt even rattle. I AM IN NO WAY TRYING TO TELL PEOPLE HOW TO FREE HANDLE, but I started by slowly tailing it. I watched every movement closely. I slid my hand alittle further, I raised it off the ground a little. I had one hand on the tail, and The hand closest to the head wasnt grasping the snake at all. I just laid my hand under it. I held it up some more and my friend had a camera and said lets take a picture. After I sat the snake down my friend who has free handled it before said GET A Picture of me. I said are u sure. Its not to safe. He did it anyway and I took a photo. He has been doing it longer than me and "Knew" what he was doing. Noone is above a mistake. I realize after reading my other posts that I was being childish. I took offense to what people said but now Ive calmed down. I dont often free handle snakes because it is dangerous. But I get hyped up sometime and just want to be real close but I always keep a clear mind. I took offense because I felt that it was a personal attack at first, because I didnt think anything of the photos and then the next day I was on the site, everyone was calling me stupid. Lets just work together and learn,conserve, and understand these animals.....no matter how you do it. I understand that I put my self at risk. But it was a risk that I was fully aware of and fully understood. I did it just to see how far I can go. PLEASE, DONT FREE HANDLE SNAKES. THERE IS NO REASON TO. I really wasnt trying to get people to free handle or show off. I really am a good person and want to help these animals at any cost.
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RE: Just setting everything straight.
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by Buzztail1 on September 4, 2004
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Well Jeremy,
everything in this post is well reasoned and non confrontational.
I can understand your excitement at being able to handle these beautiful animals. Please bear in mind that although sometimes they are a little aggressive in their methods and manner, almost everyone on this site is also interested in educating the public and preserving habitat for venomous reptiles.
The SHHS does not routinely tell people how to keep or handle their reptiles. We recommend things that we believe are safe for both the keeper and the kept. We are, however, responsible for what is portrayed on our site and always try to portray things in a good light for both keepers and snakes. That is why you were asked to change your picture.
Thank you.
Karl H. Betz
Buzztail@hotmail.com
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RE: Just setting everything straight.
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by LarryDFishel on September 4, 2004
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I'm glad to hear that you've calmed down (and this time it sounds like you mean it, I wasn't sure in a couple of your other posts). I respect the way you feel about snakes and appreciate you trying to help them, but let me try to articulate a few things that others may have been too worked up to explain. 1) All the help you give the snakes by teaching people not to fear them will be undone a thousand-fold if some kid sees your free handling photos and tries it and gets bit. 2) I know you feel like you've been working with snakes for a long time, but you haven't. When you've been handling them off and on for more than 25 years like I have, you will look back and remember all the snakes (non-venomous) that seemed perfectly docile (some not biting once for years) that suddenly freak out and bite you for no obvious reason. Then you will remember all the times you've seen a rattlesnake strike around corners at something it couldn't have even seen when it started tha strike, or at impossible angles, so fast you didn't really see what appened. Then you'll put these two things together and realize that you were 1/10 of a second away from a very painful bite in that photo. 3) The truth is that that snake might very well not kill you (directly) if it bites you. How long are you silling to wait in the woods to die? It might take weeks for the gangrene to spread far enough to kill you. How do you feel about suicide? 4) The testosterone jokes people were making were not really jokes. To be a teenage male is to be on drugs involuntarily. Testosterone messes with your mind, and you won't know it until it wears off in a few years, and then you will wonder what you were thinking when you said you didn't care if you died, because you didn't realize that you had another 3, 4 or even 5 of what you think of as a lifetime ahead of you, that you would have missed.
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