snakegetters

Motorcycles kill, maim and hospitalize many more people in a single day than captive venomous reptiles do in many years. Do you also propose to make the ownership of motorcycles illegal? It is certainly true that if you are careless with a motorcycle, you can get hurt. And there is no antivenom for a motorcycle accident.



That feeling is not supported by fact. There have been zero documented bites in North America to date that I am aware of to innocent bystanders from an escaped captive venomous snake. The only people who are bitten by captive venomous snakes are the people who deliberately choose to work with them.



Had root canals much? Majorly invasive operations in that area tend to hurt rather a lot, even if the doc gives you pain medicine. Snake mouths are extremely well innervated; their pain perception and sensitivity in this area is extremely high. Once the trauma is healed it does not appear to affect their long term quality of life, but that does not change the fact that you are inflicting very significant pain and damage on an animal for cosmetic or convenience purposes. Most veterinarians consider this contrary to their oath and will not perform such operations. These kinds of surgeries are completely illegal in the UK and no veterinarian there will perform them.

The normal scenario for a venomoid snake is unfortunately not anesthesia or pain meds, but an amateur hack job. The "surgeries" are being done primarily by unlicensed amateurs who do not use pain medication and in some cases do not even use anesthesia - they make the snake too cold to move and strap it to a board. Some of these jobs are botched; the snake is still able to envenomate even if it is sold as "venomoid".

Another issue about venomoids is the class of people who tend to purchase them. Venomoid keepers are much less likely to be described as sober, serious, responsible and highly skilled. Any idiot who wants to show off a cool toy to his friends can buy a "venomoid" cobra. What happens when he takes this animal to the shopping mall around his neck, and what happens when it bites someone because it was so carelessly handled - and it turns out not to be a full venomoid? For that matter even if there is no envenomation, the bite itself can be quite a serious injury.

There was a photo a few years back in the k.com classifieds depicting a young minor child freely handling a "venomoid" king cobra. I feel sick when I think about the possible consequences.

I have listened to some of the most respected and well published reptile veterinarians in the world lecture on the subject of healing, re-fissuring and regeneration in reptiles. I have asked them specifically their opinion on the venomoid operation, and recieved the affirmative reply that regrowth and re-fissuring has happened in their personal experience and would not be an unexpected outcome.

There have been a number of cases where a snake presented as venomoid has either been milked successfully or has envenomated prey. I know of one documented human envenomation case from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine involving a venomoid cobra. Jim Harrison recently wrote about two cases of serious injury requiring hospital treatment from venomoid vipers. I believe that the irresponsible keeping of venomoids is a more significant threat to the herpetological community than the responsible keeping of venomous reptiles in a safe manner by qualified keepers.

Yes, it's also true that there are some unqualified people keeping venomous reptiles and being careless with them. That is a problem, but it's a separate problem. Venomoids invite this specific scenario because even unskilled keepers feel confident in handling them.

More info here: http://www.snakegetters.com/demo/vet/venomoid-faq.html