What kind of person has to have 'pet' cobra? 8 ft. cobra on the loose- Orlando

[intakexhaust]

What kind of koo-koo owns a cobra snake? Or let alone any dangerous snake. Hard to believe some are granted permission to have. Then there's those who had pet boa escape in the house strangling their little infant. Its happened more than once including one case where it escaped from a neighbor's apartment!

Is it cool to have, do they love to play with them? Why have them - legal or not? Look at all the hybrid aka super-snakes taking over wildlife in the Everglades. They evolved from owners leaving prior to a hurricane and the snakes were either let go or escaped. Nutz!

8-foot-long king cobra escapes from Orlando home

Do you think the Fed's needs to crack down on this, override state DNR?

Here's another nutcase:
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1997-02-07/news/9702070377_1_giant-snake-new-snake-snakes-and-turtles

[TCracingCA]

Seems like lately I have been having run ins with a lot of snakes! I was hiking and had one slither right at me while I was hiking, and then in shooting pictures for the epic Mulholland Drive thread here on Pelican this week Pg. 339, darn if there isn't a belly up Rattler lying next to the road. So in trying to id the Rattler in my neighborhood, I stumble across Wiki list of the snake deaths in the US and some clown was killed by his illegal Cobra, and how they knew was that they found the dead snake freshly ran over, lying on the road! So there are some seriously crazy individuals running around out there!

[Hugh R]

[intakexhaust]

^Good for thought.... apparel and fashion. OK then.

Bizarre to think in the US its unlawful to possess a bald eagles feather but one could have a killer and dangerous snake. I can't go around pimped out with my fedora and eagle feather, but suppose one likes the look of the cobra, they start breeding a few just for the skin. Chop a few of these deadly snakes for a belt and nobody complains? Is that how it works? LOL

edit: Are these deadly snakes protected by law.... on a protected species list? Can one walk down the street or hang out in the tavern with one in a gunny sack?

[intakexhaust]

Awe, so cute and cuddly!

[Hugh R]

In case you need to know how.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/off-topic-discussions/480552-making-rattlesnake-belt-warning-potential-gagging-photos.html

[intakexhaust]

^delightful!

Perhaps the gangsta's in Miami might have some new Sat. night entertainment and learn from these guys:

The self-styled King Cobra Village of Ban Khok Sa-Nga hosts regular snake boxing matches, where handlers taunt snakes in face-to-face battles.


The strange custom of fighting snakes began when a herb farmer began putting on shows to attract customers to the village, and the art of breeding and training snakes has been nurtured ever since.


King cobras are common in Thailand and many families keep them in boxes under their houses.


The deadly reptiles can often be seen slithering across the dusty streets when they are not being provoked into fighting.


Villagers proudly point out that they no longer keep chickens and ducks in their houses as the snakes tend to kill other livestock.


with no doctor or pharmacy nearby, herbal medicines produced by mixing crushed leaves and lemon juice are the only treatment for those unlucky enough to get bitten. Three villagers died last year alone in organised snake fights.

The king cobras venom paralyses its victims nervous system, normally killing a man within 15 minutes.

The bites are even venemous enough to kill elephants.

Adding to the danger of snake boxing, men can only prove their honour by fighting the snakes on their own ground.

Tools or weapons are banned and the more provocative or dangerous the fight the more the demanding crowd likes it.

[Manda Racing]

https://youtu.be/mEVq_fGsY-o
Baby and the king cobra
Third world entertainment I guess.

[TCracingCA]

So invited him to the big fireworks fourth of July street gathering of neighbors. He was so excited to meet his new neighbors who were giving him free alcohol, that when he got super drunk, he disappeared and came back an hour or so later with his private stash of super expensive Cognac with a twist! It came from the old country!

So he hands me the bottle and damned if there wasn't a full hooded Cobra snake stuffed in the bottle. He was telling us how much it was worth and so when he wasn't looking, we gave it back to his wife assuming he was not sober enough for the decision to share. Well he thought we had finished it all, so what did he do-- he went and got a second bottle with an even big snake inside and most of us just said what the hell!

[TCracingCA]

Originally Posted by intakexhaust

Awe, so cute and cuddly!

The snake talking, quote "all cute and cuddly"

[Jeff Higgins]

You guys would love Snake Alley in Taipei. There's really nothing I can tell you about it that you can't find on the inter webs, and you probably wouldn't believe me anyway. Suffice to say, the locals take 'Mericuns like me there in an effort to shock. It works. Every time. On second thought, most of what I've read about it on the 'net does not even come close to doing it justice. It's far, far worse than they are willing to let on...

I hate snakes and see no reason why anyone would want one, especially a venomous one, as a pet. It's purely some macho b.s. nonsense from the same crowd that loves their pit bulls and, now, Ovcharkas. I'm all about live and let live and all of that, but harboring deadly animals that can escape and harm others should not be allowed.

When my oldest was still crawling, my wife and I had him at a local Puget Sound beach. Some knucklehead shows up with about a five or six foot python or boa or something in a basket, and lays him out on the sand. My Lab/Golden mix, Rocky, immediately went into "protect the baby" mode, growling fiercely at it and looking furtively at me for the "go" command (he was off leash, but well under voice command, even with this threat at hand).

The guy got really upset and told me to leash my dog. I got up, literally drew a line in the sand with my foot, and told him the second that snake crosses it my dog kills him. Period. He thought I was "over reacting". I simply told him my dog was under voice control, and unless his snake was, too, it better be the one on the leash. A park ranger who happened by at the time agreed with me and told this clown to either put a leash on it or put it back in the basket. It was great... the guy left, and every parent in earshot thanked me. Some people...

[Tervuren]

I never understood the appeal of reptiles or snakes until an unusual almost still summer freeze had a rash of snakes deciding to seek indoor heated comforts.

Didn't really feel like chucking them to an unexpected freeze where they hadn't had time to find setup their normal winter shelter.

Kept one black snake from the bunch, haven't had a mouse problem in three years. Now I can understand the fascination.

[intakexhaust]

Here's a sad one-
CNN report Aug 7, 2013

Sunday had been a ball for Noah and Connor Barthe.

Noah, 4, and Connor, whose 7th birthday was coming up, spent Sunday afternoon playing in a pool, shopping for treats and playing with animals at the farm of a family friend. They even got to steer a tractor, said their great-uncle, Dave Rose.

"That's the type of life they had, and that's what we're going to try to remember," Rose told reporters Tuesday in Campbellton, New Brunswick.

Then sometime before dawn Monday, a 100-pound snake came crashing through the ceiling of the apartment where they were spending the night. They were found dead there Monday morning, apparently victims of an African rock python more than 10 feet (3 meters) long, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said.

Autopsies were being performed on the boys Tuesday afternoon, RCMP Sgt. Alain Tremblay said. A reptile expert is assisting the Mounties in their investigation, and the snake has been euthanized, he said.

The apartment was the home of Jean-Claude Savoie, a family friend whose Campbellton pet store was downstairs. But Tremblay said the python was kept upstairs in a custom-built glass enclosure similar to an aquarium.

The cage reached the ceiling, and the snake was somehow able to crawl through a vent into the building's ductwork. It was above the living room, where the boys were sleeping, when the ceiling fell in.



No 'regular case' for the Mounties

The snake was found in the same room as the boys, Tremblay said, but he would provide no further details. He said the RCMP is conducting a criminal investigation but wouldn't discuss possible charges.

"Obviously, it's not a standard or regular case," he said. "It's very traumatic for the family that this happened. But for the police, this is an investigation where there's a loss of life, and our approach to analyze a scene is almost identical, although here we're dealing with a reptile."


Rose said pet store owner Savoie and his family are longtime friends of the boy's family. It was his family farm they went to Sunday afternoon, and both families were together until midnight, Rose said.

"They were two typical children who enjoyed life to the maximum," he said.

Savoie told the Canadian website Global News that he came upon the awful sight Monday when he entered the living room.

"I thought they were sleeping until I seen the hole in the ceiling. Everything had fallen. And I turned the lights on and I seen this horrific scene," said in a phone interview with the Canadian website Global News.

Savoie said he located the reptile in a hole.

"I pinned him down and put him in a cage," he said.

Savoie has spoken briefly with investigators and is expected to meet with them again, Tremblay said.

Neighbor expresses shock

Canadian broadcaster CBC reported that the python is between 11 and nearly 15 feet long and weighs more than 99 pounds.

A neighbor, Diane Fournier, has lived on the same street as the pet store for 12 years. She described the deaths as "shocking."

"I knew the kids. They were brothers," she said. "They played in my yard with my dogs all of the time."

Fournier sent CNN a photograph her husband took of the pet store. It showed police cars, cones and yellow tape blocking off the area.

The store, Reptile Ocean Inc., offered condolences on its Facebook page Monday before the page was shut down.

A 1996 report by the animal protection charity Zoocheck and the World Society for the Protection of Animals listed Savoie as the owner of Reptile Ocean.

It described him then as "a young enthusiastic amateur collector who has only recently embarked on this commercial venture."

Talking to children about a tragedy

'I can't believe this is real'

According to Global News, Savoie said that the two boys were the children of his best friend and that they often slept over at his apartment.

"I have so many mixed emotions right now, it's ridiculous," he said. "I can't believe this is real."

Deaths caused by large constrictor snakes like pythons are fairly rare.

The Humane Society documents 17 people who have died in incidents in the United States related to the snakes since 1978, 12 of them since 1990.

But scores of adults and children have been hurt in attacks by the reptiles, the society said in a report this year.

"Children, parents, and authorities are finding released or escaped pet pythons, boa constrictors, and anacondas all over the country, where they endanger communities, threaten ecosystems, and in many cases suffer tragic deaths," the report says.

In Canada, a man in Ontario was killed in 1992 by his pet python, the Globe and Mail reported, citing Melissa Matlow, a spokeswoman for the World Society for the Protection of Animals in Canada.

[intakexhaust]

Overall statistics seem low but even so, creeps me out and one tragedy is one too many.

And yet, snakes are one of the most common “pet” reptiles. A 2012 report revealed that more than 1,110 snakes live in U.S. homes, which is nearly double from the 2007 record. However, forcing these creatures into captivity will not turn them into domesticated family members.

At least 20,000 deaths occur worldwide from snakebites each year, according to the World Health Organization. In the United States, the Humane Society has documented 17 people who have died in snake attacks since 1978. Seven of those fatalities were children, including four babies who were sleeping in their cribs when squeezed to death by large constrictors.

In total, 34 snake attacks involving children have been cited. The report explains, “Youngsters have been attacked while playing in their yards, compressed to the point of unconsciousness, nearly blinded when bitten in the face, and suffered numerous other painful, traumatic, and disfiguring injuries.”

[G50]

Originally Posted by intakexhaust

And yet, snakes are one of the most common “pet” reptiles. A 2012 report revealed that more than 1,110 snakes live in U.S. homes, which is nearly double from the 2007 record.

I'd think there's a lot more than 1,100 pet snakes in the US.

[jyl]

Pet dogs kill 35 to 40 people in the US each year. Plus many more non fatal attacks.

How many do pet snakes kill?

Apparently 17 deaths in 35 years, which is about 0.5 per year.

Doesn't seem like a meaningful problem.

[epbrown]

Originally Posted by jyl

Pet dogs kill 35 to 40 people in the US each year. Plus many more non fatal attacks.

How many do pet snakes kill?

Apparently 17 deaths in 35 years, which is about 0.5 per year.

Doesn't seem like a meaningful problem.

^This. I think more kids die from unattended swimming pools. It's really a case of "My hazardous behaviors are okay, but that guy's are bad." The guy with a swimming pool lambasts the guy who takes his kid on his motorcycle, who disses the guy who lets his kids play with his pit bull, who thinks the guy with snakes is a psycho, who thinks letting kids eat meat is insane....

[Scuba Steve]

Originally Posted by jyl

Pet dogs kill 35 to 40 people in the US each year. Plus many more non fatal attacks.

How many do pet snakes kill?

Apparently 17 deaths in 35 years, which is about 0.5 per year.

Doesn't seem like a meaningful problem.

The numbers look true, but I would be more concerned about the establishment of dangerous invasive species in the US.

[intakexhaust]

Its estimated there's 150,000 of the invasive Burmese python in the FL Everglades. And then the aggressive rock python has bred with the Burmese python. It all started from owners having as pets and later had to leave during the large hurricanes. Snakes escaped and well, lets just say hope those down there can sleep at night.

[intakexhaust]

Where did this anaconda come from?

KISSIMMEE, Fla. — 2010
A 12-foot anaconda was captured in Kissimmee by mounted patrol deputies conducting training Wednesday near East Lake Fish Camp.
Deputies with the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office found the snake while having their horses walk over storm grates, part of a training exercise. While examining the grates, deputies spotted the dormant snake.

“Neighbors in the area have told us, within the past months, they’ve seen a lot of missing chicken and geese and duck in that area, and this would certainly explain why those animals are disappearing,” said Twis Lizasuain, Osceola County Sheriff's Office.

The deputies immediately called Animal Control, who captured the snake and took it to Reptile World Serpentarium in St. Cloud. Officials there confirmed the snake was an anaconda. It's believed the snake had been living in a retention pond in the East Lake Fish Camp. It is unknown how long the snake had been there or how it got to the location