Girl has to call police to free her from a BALL PYTHON
You know, 99% of the time I hate to see an article involving people and reptiles in the news. It almost always results in a bad image of herps, and this is yet another example.
Fortunately the snake wasn’t portrayed in nearly as bad a light as it could have been, thanks in part to the fact one of the cops was apparently somewhat knowledgeable about them.
Still, anytime the police are involved in something which also involves a reptile, it’s never good, and this instance just astounds me.
A 17 year old girl was bitten and constricted by a 2-3 foot long ball python, 2-3 FEET! and what do they do? They call the police! I couldn’t believe it when I read it. Why involve the police in something so trivial?
We’re not talking about a large constrictor, nothing that snake could have done would have endangered the girl in any way, but yet the police were called, which of course got the media involved.
I couldn’t begin to count the number of times I’ve been snake bitten. I’ve been constricted by a number of smaller species as well, including ball pythons, but never did the idea of calling anyone, let alone the police, ever so much as cross my mind.
Every time something stupid like this happens and finds it’s way to the news media, it does just a little more damage to our hobby as a whole. It give just another bit of ammunition to those who desire to completely take away our ability to legally keep these animals.
This girl should have done us all a favor and stuck to keeping hamsters if she is no better prepared to deal with something as simple as a bite from a ball python.
It seems that every couple of months we are seeing yet another state or community proposing a ban on the keeping of snakes. Generally it’s an ill-worded piece of legislation which calls for a ban on “constrictors”, or some other similar wide ranging blanket legislation. Every time our reptiles are shown in an unfavorable light in the news, I always think, will this city be next on the list? How many more local civic leaders will be called upon to enact another piece of knee jerk legislation?
For the whole story see this link http://tinyurl.com/26bez6
Clay :: Nov.10.2007 :: Herp News ::
