Eastern D
New member
Did anyone else read this sad story? I found it at www.staugustine.com. The Putnam Co. Fire Marshal responded to a call from a friend about a 5' Eastern diamond back in her yard. After being shot multipal times, the animal tried to crawl under the woman's shed, at which time the man apparently TRIED TO GRAB IT. He was of course bitten on the hand. This was Oct 1st. After appearing to be recovering he died on Fri. This is of course a tragic story. I can only imagine the pain his family and friends must be suffering, and my deepest sympathy goes out to them. It does, however bring up some other issues. Why must the first human response to potentially dangerous animals be the use of deadly force? Groups such as Snakegetters etc. work very hard to educate the public, train emergency response personell and even remove the animal if there are no other options. Yet we still go in with guns blazing. To then attempt to bare handle an animal that has been blinded with fear and pain...what could he have been thinking? I can only hope that this might make people think twice about automatically killing these animals but i fear it will only give weight to the notion that "the only good snake is a dead snake.