The issue and the disease.
Hello,
After a long day in the field looking for gummy lizards, I thought I'd share some thoughts I've been having regarding the etiology of zonata disease, and also some of the more recent posts.
Like some of the more recent posters have stated, I do believe it is a waste of our time and energy making further posts regarding whether or not Jerry will fulfill his promise to Stu of a swift refund. He has made the first payment, so all he has to do now is make a second refund. However, I think some of you may have missed why Stu's actions of posting every message from Jerry was within the realm of fairness and reason.
First, while all of us have only been recently made aware of Stu and Jerry's situation (around three weeks), Stu has been frustrated and upset with how things have been handled for well over two months. We have been made privy to some of the inflammatory texts and emails he's received during that time. My take on Stu's mood and mindset is that the BOI was a last resort. His initial post stated he wanted a refund, and only after a small novel had been written, and under severe peer pressure, was a refund offered. Regardless of whether or not both parties should have been held accountable to some extent, most successful businesses over full refunds if a refund is requested in a reasonable period of time, or the product purchased leaves the buyer completely unsatisfied.
My take on this is that Stu was completely dissatisfied and that he was entitled to a full refund. Whether Jerry should have absorbed the full cost of the refund is another issue all together; regardless of fault, the refund was the correct business outcome. Any of us that choose to sell live animals run the risk of things going awry as soon as the animal(s) leave our facilities. As much as it sucks, and yes, coming up with $3100 is hard for any normal human being, if any of us choose to sell live animals we should prepare for the eventuality of offering large-sum refunds if we want to run a publicly-praised business. The alternative is to not offer a refund to a dissatisfied customer, but if that is the choice of action taken by a seller running a small private business, it shouldn't be a surprise if negative public opinion ensues.
Having said all of this, I think it's safe to assume that Stu was at his wits-end regarding this whole ordeal. Some of you think Stu was rash and quick to post a problem with the first refund...a refund Stu did eventually receive. For all of you that think this, I'd ask you to put yourself in the shoes of the person out $3100 and in the possession of sick snakes. Stu took Jerry at his word, and most importantly, held him to a specific date. The first date was the upcoming weekend after their agreement was made. That agreed upon date quickly dissolved because of an apparent oversight of Jerry's regarding when he thought he'd get paid. This was the first concession Stu had to make regarding the first of a large-sum refund. Stu then agreed to wait for a refund that had a specific date attached to it: Wednesday. Wednesday came and went. No refund. Stu is the one out money and snakes in this deal, and he had just experienced the second instance of an unsuccessful promised refund.
For those of you who have inserted yourselves in Stu's shoes, wouldn't you be even more frustrated and upset than ever before? Sharing with everyone at the BOI that the refund he had been publicly promised had not come to fruition was a valid action of Stu's. Secondly, and most importantly, it's exactly the type of information that's supposed to be shared in the pages of the BOI - was the promise and guarantee of a person whose character has recently been called into question something others could count on in future transactions? Only after all of us were informed of two failed refunds (timelines established by the seller to the buyer - clearly established in emails and texts) was the first half of the promised refund sent. It shouldn't have reached that point.
Lastly, shouldn't Jerry be hyper-vigilante regarding getting the refund to Stu when he told him he would? After coming under such intense public scrutiny, wouldn't refunding Stu's money on the promised date be of the utmost importance? Any oversight by Jerry, any tardiness on his part, would most certainly result in exactly what we've seen occur. As someone who wants to be seen as a respectable businessman, it's simply dumbfounding that not one, but two, refund dates weren't met on his part, regardless of the reason for each instance's failure.
I'm trying my best to simply sit back and view this as a business transaction between two unhappy parties. In the end, no matter how I try to rationalize the actions of each person involved, I always find myself siding with the buyer. Our (Western) society holds businesses to much higher standards and responsibilities than to the consumer. Regardless the size of the business, as consumers (which the most of us are), we expect to be treated well at all times (because, without the consumer the business wouldn't exist) - hence 'the customer is always right'.
Now, switching gears completely, I wanted to discuss Stu and his animals that are afflicted with 'zonata disease'. I realize many of you have questioned repeatedly if the affected animals could be experiencing something other than zonata disease, but no, they are not. Dehydration seems to be the causal factor that many have insinuated may be at play here. My experience with dehydrated snakes, first and foremost, is that they are visibly desiccated. Secondly, almost every snake I've ever seen that is dehydrated has serious issues shedding. They usually don't have the proper amount of moisture necessary to separate the old layer of skin from the newly developed one. Dehydrated snakes tend to need to soak so they can detach themselves from their old skin. Stu's animals aren't having that problem. They're shedding without issue. Furthermore, the time between shed cycles has been reduced dramatically, resulting in four or five sheds during a time period when only one should occur. After each shed the scales are left dimpled and dry, almost as though the protective exterior to each scale wasn't properly formed. Because snakes also have a protective dermal layer over each eye, when they go through these sheds theirs eyes are also left with the same dry and scratched appearance. The symptomology each of the inflicted snakes is showing is 'classic' zonata disease, plain and simple.
Having 'zonata disease' in your collection is something any person who's worked with zonata long enough has had to deal with. When I was collecting zonata for my breeding trials I had a wild-caught Mt. Hamilton snake suddenly come down with it. She had been in our breeding colony for over a year, with no symptoms. During hibernation she suddenly kinked up, all along her body. Only after two months did she begin to display the characteristic shed issues associated with this infliction. After her euthanization we had no other animals ever become sick. No matter who I talk to, if they've spent any time working with zonata, all of them have had to deal with this issue at some point. How severe, and what kind of toll is taken on their colony, is what differs from collection to collection.
Jerry insists that he's never had a snake in his collection come down with zonata disease. This may be 100% true. However, just because they aren't displaying the telltale symptoms of the disease, doesn't mean that animals in his collection aren't carrying it. Instead of insisting that what has occurred to the animals he's sold to Stu isn't zonata disease, I think Jerry would be better off discussing with Stu and other prospective customers where it might have originated.
Here's a brief, but 100% accurate history lesson regarding where Jerry obtained the parents of the snakes sold to Stu. The sire and dam that Jerry used to produce Stu's snakes came from a breeder that had zonata disease sweep through that breeder's colony. Furthermore, and even more importantly, other people who purchased zonata from the same breeder have had multiple animals come down with zonata disease. This information alone shows that Jerry could have very well have unknowingly purchased snakes infected with latent zonata disease. Zonata disease has reared it's ugly head in far too many colonies for me to even begin to insinuate that Jerry is 'ground zero' for zonata disease. Instead, I propose that his colony is probably the unfortunate current 'hot spot' for a disease that will pop up again and again. How Jerry goes about identifying which animals might possibly be inflicted with a possible pathogen that we still can't identify is a mystery to me. Be sure of this though, Jerry isn't the first person who's been in this position, and he won't be the last.
Some of you who are reading this know me very well, but for the majority of you you have no idea who I am, or more importantly, anything about my medical history. Bare with me, because I'm about to share a personal story of mine that is directly relevant to what might be occurring in Stu's snakes and Jerry's collection. During the spring of 2001 I came down with a neurological condition known as Bell's Palsy (BP). About 0.00005% of the US population is diagnosed with BP every year - so it's a very rare condition. Two weeks prior to me coming down with BP my neck began to hurt, almost as though I had whiplash. At the same time, both of my ears hurt immensely and the tip of my tongue had a metallic taste to it. I had no clue what was going on. Besides me complaining about three separate conditions, two which were painful and one that was just really weird, no one would have known what was about to happen. Well, one day all three symptoms disappeared. Great. Nope, not great. Two days later the right side of my face was completely paralyzed. Completely. My right eyelid couldn't blink. I couldn't furl the brow of my right forehead. I had a severe lisp because I couldn't purse my lips together on the right side of my face. Just an hour earlier nothing was wrong, and then all of a sudden it looked like I was having a stroke. From normal to paralyzation...that sucked.
Bell's Palsy is a condition that can occur to anyone who is permanently inflicted with the herpes virus. Just to be clear, I have the kind that causes those super painful lip sores, not the kind on your junk. How many of you know that the WHO estimates that 50-80% of the world's population is infected with the herpes virus that causes cold sores? Furthermore, a recent scientific study found that 98% of all their healthy subjects were unknowingly infected with latent herpes. Whichever percentage you choose to accept, that means that at least half, if not almost every person in the world is infected with one type of herpes virus. Most people infected with herpes experience only a single outbreak. The type of herpes that causes painful cold sores (which can also be transmitted to the junk downstairs...remember that!) is considered an irritant and a social stigma. It's not considered life threatening. It's also not known by most to be the virus responsible for causing the paralysis associated with BP.
Researchers have found that the herpes virus almost always leaves it's latent state and becomes active when an individual is under great stress (stress makes the body produce high levels of stress-hormones that dramatically reduce the efficacy of the immune system, usually resulting in sickness and poor health). It's during these times of stress that for some reason the herpes virus attacks the seventh cranial nerve right where the nerve goes through a small opening in the skull. The nerve swells as a result of the herpes virus, leading to physical damage to the nerve. That physical damage to the nerve leads to paralysis of that side of the face. This is why doctors prescribe Valtrex (a drug to combat the herpes virus) and prednisone (a steroid to reduce the swelling of the nerve) to someone with BP, to hopefully halt any further damage to the nerve. Once you know you have BP, the damage is done. Individuals with BP are faced with a very uncertain future. Some never regain any movement to the paralyzed portion of their face. Others regain some movement, but not all. Still, others like myself, gain full movement of their facial muscles. I was one of the lucky ones. When looking at the right side of my face you can't tell that I ever suffered a paralysis to it, however, for six months I wasn't able to move a muscle.
What if zonata disease is similar to BP? What if almost every zonata is carrying a virus that is simply in a latent state? What if during it's active state that same virus only causes a small part of a shed to stick to a snake (as keepers we see that all the time), or a small abscess to form under one or two ventral scales? What if when active the very same virus causes minor inflammation to the muccoal (sp?) lining of the mouth (something we might never notice, but it results in the snake not feeding when offered food one week...something we've all experienced too)? What if 98% of our zonata carry this virus, but it's generally not a big deal. But what if, during times of stress or decreased immune function, the virus causes bad sheds and body paralysis to zonata, just like the herpes virus did to me (with the exception of the bad sheds!) with the onset of BP. This might explain why zonata disease seems to just 'pop-up out of the blue' in collections.
Jerry shared with us how he keeps his snakes. He said that the high temp in his containers is in the high seventies. In my opinion, that's too cool. I've found that while they do need a cool end, they also happily search out and sit in hotspots in the upper 80's and even low 90's. Research has shown that reptiles without access to warms spots where they can heat themselves adequately undergo compromised immune function. This is why we get fevers when we're sick; a higher internal body temperature leads to better enzymatic function and greater immune efficacy. So, without a warm enough heat source, many reptiles won't have an immune system that is functioning at 100%. It's possible that due to the low temperatures that Jerry keeps his zonata, coupled with the stress and shock of transport, and subsequent warmer temps in Stu's collection, that the virus that causes zonata disease did what it rarely does - full-blown zonata disease (although Stu's animals haven't yet become paralyzed, it is just as common that the paralysis is the first symptom, only then to be followed with the bad sheds). I'm not saying that is what happened 100%, but it's definitely something to think about. It might explain why a lot of cases of ZD occur right after the animal leaves hibernation. In hibernation a snake's immune function is compromised (this also might explain why we find zonata under surface rocks in January instead of hibernating underground - they might need to fight a pathogen of some kind and have to leave hibernation for a short period of time to heat up and increase their immune function).
All of what I've just said regarding what might cause ZD is simply one of many explanations. What I don't think is up for discussion anymore is if Stu's animals have ZD. Those of us that have seen it up close, or have had the misfortune of losing our collections to it, know what's wrong with Stu's snakes. What I'm proposing here though it that ZD may not be that horrible disease 100% of the time. Zonata disease may in fact simply be the incredibly rare result of a very common pathogen carried by almost every zonata. In that case, it seems that identifying who's snakes have that virus might not be as important as figuring out what conditions make a normally benign-like virus become incredibly virulent with a high incidence of mortality. My bet is stress and a compromised immune system.
In the end though, everything I've written, and everything anyone else has written directly stems from a business transaction involving sick snakes. Regardless of whether or not Jerry knew this was in his collection, it is, and ultimately I believe that is why he's refunding Stu's money. Most of us have voiced our opinion that a refund is the right course of action for Jerry to take; because we expect and receive that kind of customer service with almost all of the successful businesses we buy from. It's this type of customer care that makes us keep coming back. It's also the same customer care that is easy for multi-billion dollar companies to participate in, but extremely hard for the small businessman to follow through with. Regardless, if a small business expects to succeed and grow I think it's no surprise that the majority of the public expects them to provide the same customer care that large corporations show us on a day-to-day basis.
Food for thought though, donating an animal for study won't accomplish much of anything. As Rick stated in an earlier post...no one knows what to look for. Unless you're donating to a researcher who is studying infections diseases in reptiles you'll just be killing an animal and cutting it open for fun. Lastly, I would suggest to both parties involved to check with the shipping company you use, as well as both states that the snakes will be shipped to-and-fro in the future, as it might very well not be allowed or illegal to ship live animals infected with an unknown pathogen. Getting in trouble for shipping sick animals would be a horrible way to cap off a transaction I'm sure both Jerry and Stu will be glad to put behind them.
Oh, and I want to be clear with this. I've had my issues with Jerry, and I still mean what I said earlier, I NEVER want to interact or speak with him again...but I thought it was important that everyone try to look at what's truly occurred here, and what is important to continue talking about.
Anyhow, thanks for listening to my drivel.
Mitch
I, myself, happen to enjoy fragrant hooves, just sayin'