Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Been reading Fry et. al's paper on venoms (the recent one) and his many media releases and articles that he's foisted on us, including in the daily papers on his own website and as posted on this forum below, and I cannot help but be alarmed at the tack he's taken.
It strikes me as a cynical grab for funds AND as a bid to give ammo to those regulation obsessed bureaucrats another excuse to ban or restrict the keeping of reptiles - this time the mildly venomous forms.
Claims of near death experiences as a result of allergic reactions to venom or saliva componants does nothing to further rational debate on these snakes or their relevant risks.
It's akin to trying to ban all dogs and cats on the basis that some may carry fleas, have mange, or salmonella.
Had Fry et. al. merely provided data without hyperbole then their paper may eventually have gained due respect and perhaps even made a useful contribution to our general knowlegde of these snakes.
However now it will go down in history (along with the his hype) as yet another nail in the coffin of private people being allowed the right to keep venomous and even very mildly venomous snakes.
I delayed posting on this so as to save anothe barrage of attacks on myself, but on Fri night at a local herp meeting several people there expressed outrage at Fry's comments as reported in the Melbourne media and hence I can say that the views above are not just my own.
ALL THE BEST IN HERP

I do not think so, based on how he has defended hydrodynastes as a species that should be treated as non-venomous for purposes of legislation. If you look at the followng thread you will see what I mean. It seems to me he's taken a very practical and realistic approach when it comes to legislation of colubrids, from what I've seen. However, keep in mind that people thought thelotornis was not dangerous, until one killed a prominent herpetologist. I think it is important to analyze and report colubrid toxicity and let the scientific community examine the finding. We shouldn't hold scientists accountable for how ignorant, agenda-driven politicians interpret, or misinterpret and twist scientific findings. It's ultimately our job to police our politicians.

http://forum.kingsnake.com/rearfang/messages/4492.

I'm not sure what you're on about, here. Yeah, BGF's argued that a lot of colubrids are more dangerous than they've traditionally been thought to be--but, then, that's been a common trend ever since Karl Schmidt's death. In any case, I haven't heard him calling for bans or anything, and reports of the effects of the venoms of various colubrids obviously is of use to herpers, because the more we know about the risks involved the better we can keep these species without screwing up and getting our own severe effects to report on.

And, of course, any implcations of academic impropriety are a bit ironic coming from you...

Patrick Alexander

Clifford Warwick is a UK anti herpetoculture campaigner, who, based on his own abject failures, claims that is simply impossible to keep any reptile properly in captivity, how cruel reptile shows are (did you know they sell hatchling snakes in - ::gasp:: - margarine tubs???)and how they should be banned, and how much any herpetoculture damages wild populations.

He tends to loose credibility when these statements of his are accompanied by photos of him standing in front of racks of CB albino kingsnakes on sale at a show, but unfortunately, a number of UK agencies (e.g., RSPCA) have joined him in his crusade.

Ray's post title is more than a little misleading - BGF has been a consistent campaigner FOR herper's rights, so any analogy is more than a little misleading.

Let's just remember one thing: the most damaging headline of all for herpers would be:

"10 Year Old Killed by 'Harmless' Pet Snake"

Subtitled:

"How can this be allowed to happen?" asks distraught mother

Putting out the info that care should be taken with some known and any unknown colubrid will do us a lot more good in the long run.

Cheers,

Wolfgang
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WW

WW Home

To everyone here
I cut and pasted the following from another list:

Ray,

Having struggled through this report and all the technical information, it seems to me to only really say that people who suffer allergies may be at risk from mildly venomous snakes. As if we didn't already know that was the case!!!! Perhaps beekeepers should have DWAA licences in view of the fact that some people have hugely dangerous allergic reactions to them. All in all, i think this report is an attempt at gaining publicity by exaggerating the risks involved with mildly venomous snakes so as to make it newsworthy. The huge amount of technical information is there just to impress authorities in order to gain funding in my opinion.

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Eddie Munt
Shop-owner,member of IHS,Pet Care Trust.

Yes but did you know that the snakes are putting out the exact same sorts of neurotoxins as a cobra? Thats quite a bit different from 'toxic saliva'.

Cheers
BGF

Wolfgang

While I agree that an accident with a thought to be harmless snake would be very bad for the hobby there was a failure to distinguish which colubrids had dangerous potential and which ones did not. Instead they appear to all be lumped together. At least that's all the snake grabbing law makers will make of it as they rarely bother trying to add common sense into the mix. For that reason I feel the paper runs the risk of causing great harm albeit unintentional. With as much effort as was directed at showing all to have venemous traits it would seem that an egual amount of effort would be warranted to show which ones were not a threat simply to protect the hobby.

Phil

Hi mate

That is exactly the key, we don't know which. In one of the followup papers, we have tested the toxicity of a good sampling and some of them are well into elapid territory (and a couple approaching death adder levels of neurotoxicity!!). SO, its not trivial at all. Nor were we able to predict some of the massive venom yields (like from Telescopus).

We are talking about a couple thousand species here so to go through systematically (as we have started doing on a family level and now on a genus level) will of course take quite a bit of time.

All the best
Bryan
Venomdoc Homepage

Taking a look at BGF's media release at:
http://www.sciencenow.org.au/fresh/fry.htm
is enough to send shockwaves through the herop community.
Fry says:My research now shows that the vast majority of the snakes commonly kept as pets are actually venomous."
and
"the discovery will cause shockwaves and a legislative storm in the United States and Europe."and
"However, this dark storm cloud over the pet trade actually has a silver lining – a new resource for biotechnology. The ratsnake venom is an excellent candidate for use as a laboratory tool or even as a scaffold for use in drug design and development."
Oh well, it seems that snake keepers are in strife, but BGF will be certain to get his next hand out from the gov't.

It will cause a legislative storm but does this mean I am advocating the ban on these snakes? Certainly not. Indeed, I have already been contacted by wildlife authorities and have made it very clear that not all of these snakes are to be considered dangerous.

Nice try.

Why don't you get a life?

BGF

"It’s a stunning discovery that will send shockwaves through the international pet snake trade."

"We are talking about a couple thousand species here so to go through systematically (as we have started doing on a family level and now on a genus level) will of course take quite a bit of time"

How's this going to send shockwaves through the international pet trade?!!? It's a know fact that 99% of snakes kept as pets has never ever cause any type of envenomation to their owners. Mr. Fry nobody needs you to tell them that pythons, boas, kingsnakes, bull and gopher snakes, ratsnakes, hognose snakes, milksnakes,N. A. garter snakes, and N. A. water snakes are safe to keep as pets. WE ALREADY KNOWN THIS FOR AT LEAST 50 YEARS!!! Snakes like Psammophis are rarely imported into the U.S.and sold as pets to little kids, so stop making it sound like this is some type of epidemic.Envenomation by rear-fanged and other colubrids has already been well documented.
Envenomation by Rear-fanged and "Harmless" Snakes: Bibliography

The key here is that we have isolated and characterised the archetypal cobra-style toxins (called 'three-finger toxins' in case you care) from various 'colubrids'. Some of these snakes are pumping out huge amounts of venom, easily into the lethal range. This includes commonly kept species like Telescopus.

Cheers
BGF

"The key here is that we have isolated and characterised the archetypal cobra-style toxins (called 'three-finger toxins' in case you care) from various 'colubrids'. Some of these snakes are pumping out huge amounts of venom, easily into the lethal range. This includes commonly kept species like Telescopus."

So What!!??!! This proves nothing at all but their venom may prove harmful to mice not man. If their venom was so lethal there would be a lot people dieing from their pet snakes, at least a lot of sick people. But guess what?, there is none. Species like Telescopes are not commonly kept as pets. A commonly kept pet snake would be a corn snake, ball python and kingsnake, NOT Telescopes. The very few that are sold are sold under rear-fang-ed snakes snakes by dealers only to adults. If you don't believe me go look at the kingsnake.com classifieds,now look at the colubrid section and you will see there is no Telescopes or Psammophis for sale, mater of fact I have never seen these snakes for sale on the colubrid section.I hate to say this but I'am starting to believe Ray and so are a lot of other people.

>>"The key here is that we have isolated and characterised the archetypal cobra-style toxins (called 'three-finger toxins' in case you care) from various 'colubrids'. Some of these snakes are pumping out huge amounts of venom, easily into the lethal range. This includes commonly kept species like Telescopus."
>>
>> So What!!??!! This proves nothing at all but their venom may prove harmful to mice not man. If their venom was so lethal there would be a lot people dieing from their pet snakes, at least a lot of sick people. But guess what?, there is none.

Hmmm - we have already discussed the Rhabdophis scenario from the 70s, whent hey were believed to be, and sold as, harmless. Could it happen again? To damned right - see comments about Coluber rhodorachis below.

In other words, it HAS ALREADY HAPPENED, and is likely to happen again.

Why don't more people die? Because rear-fangs don't get much venom in. Most hognose bites are asymptomatic, as are most Hydrodynastes bites, and so on and so forth. I have been bitten by Hydrodynastes, Enhydris, Cerberus, Philodryas olfersii (dangerous by anyone's standards), Boiga dendrophila, Thamnodynastes, Ahaetulla and a whole host of other colubrids without anything other than a burning sensation after the two Thamnodynastes bites. But then, we KNOW that some of these can cause very nasty bites under some circumstances.

Circumstances such as:

Parents buy new pet snake from shop for young teenager - no scientific name, just some English concoction and an assurance that it's harmless (and if you don't believe that could happen, welcome to the real world)

Teenager feeds snake. Snake smells food, feeding bite, chews thoroughly.

Teenager doesn't know what to do, fnds parents. Parents try to pull snake off, but that hurts. And we don't want to hurt its teeth either, do we? Before you know it, the sanke has been chewing for several minutes, plenty of time for even an dentally underendowed colubrid to get some venom in.

What happens next? If it's a hognose, probably something along the lines of http://www.herpnet.net/bite/ - it hurts, everybody gets upset, but everybody is fine a few days later.

But what if it's a Telescopus that, quite exceptionally, gets a good dose in? Or one of the other unknowns?

Teenager starts to show neurotoxic symptoms some hours later - drooping eyelids - slurred speech - breathing gets difficult....

Parents take him/her to hospital. If they are smart, they will make a connection with the snake bite, if they are not, then they may not. If they do, medics ask "What sort of snake"? Parents say "grey-spotted cat snake". Medic says "What's that?" Parents say "errrrmmmm.... uuuhhhhhhhhhh.... purple-spotted zombie snake - that's what the guy in the pet shop says". Medic phones Poison Control: "We have a kid who got bitten by a grey spotted cat snake and is showing neurotoxic symptoms - what do we do?" Poison Control says: "A what snake? What's the scientific name?". Medic says: "errrrmmmm.... uuuhhhhhhhhhh.... purple-spotted zombie snake - apparently that's what the guy in the pet shop who sold it to the kid said"

And so on and so forth - you can see where this is going.

Unlikely? In any one case, for any one individual snake yes. But for large volumes sold without warning to large numbers of general petkeepers? Highly plausible.

And, like I said, it HAS ALREADY HAPPENED.

>>Species like Telescopes are not commonly kept as pets. A commonly kept pet snake would be a corn snake, ball python and kingsnake, NOT Telescopes. The very few that are sold are sold under rear-fang-ed snakes snakes by dealers only to adults. If you don't believe me go look at the kingsnake.com classifieds,now look at the colubrid section and you will see there is no Telescopes or Psammophis for sale, mater of fact I have never seen these snakes for sale on the colubrid section.I hate to say this but I'am starting to believe Ray and so are a lot of other people.
>>

Psammophis and Telescopus do get kept in various countries at times, certainly in Europe (there are other countries in the world than that covered by kingsnake.com's classifieds section). The scale of it is certainly vastly less than any of the common milk, corn, rat or garter snakes, but nevertheless, they are sometimes kept.

Why else would two US petshop employees have suffered severe neurotoxic symptoms from colubrid snakes in the last year alone?

Now let's get back to a few basic facts here:

(i) some of the most commonly kept pet snakes are in fact non-venomous, including all boas and pythons, and also, among the colubrids, the N. American (as opposed to Asian) rat snakes, king snakes, milk snakes and bull snakes, who have become specialised constrictors and abandoned venom in the process.

(ii) some of the other most commonly kept pet snakes are technically venomous, whether you like it or not. Happily, they are also almost totally harmless. That would include garter snakes, water snakes and various other colubrids, including the Asian rat snakes such as Coelognathus radiatus (ex-Elaphe radiata). (but even then, garters are certainly capable of producing local symptoms...)

(iii) There is a huge variety of colubrid snakes out there. Some are already on the suspect list, but some are not, and may cause some nasty surprises. Less than a year ago, a US pet shop employee suffered substantial neurotoxic envenoming from a bite by Coluber rhodorachis. Please show me the reference that says that C. rhodorachis is seriously venomous and can cause neurotoxicity.

(iv) As new countries open up to exporters, and as new habitats are encroached on and new species exported, some of these poorly known species may suddenly become common and cheap in the trade - lots of people, not just rear-fang specialists, will have the opportunity to buy them. The reliability of petshops in providing good advice is not above criticsism, to put it very mildly indeed.

(v) How dangerous is dangerous? What is an acceptable risk? Check out this URL on a hognose bite (link below):
http://www.herpnet.net/bite/
Is that an acceptable risk?
To a venomous herper, having a sore arm for a few days is probably not such a big deal. Objectively, the damage done is considerably less than could be done by a medium-sized dog. I would not stop me keeping or freehandling hoggies (but I would use forceps for feeding, and not stick my hands in its way after hadnling mice).
However, how will it go down with a family that bought a hoggie for a teenage offspring on the understanding that it is totaly harmless?
Now OK, we know hoggies can do that and hopefully, buyers are told about the possibility, but what about some of these new imports?

The point of it all is not that al colubrids should be regulated, the point is that people who deal with them should be careful. Don't be the first to find out that a species previously believed to be harmless is in fact dangerous.

Cheers,

Wolfgang
Hoggie bite

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WW

WW Home

>>Wolfgang
>>
>>While I agree that an accident with a thought to be harmless snake would be very bad for the hobby there was a failure to distinguish which colubrids had dangerous potential and which ones did not. Instead they appear to all be lumped together. At least that's all the snake grabbing law makers will make of it as they rarely bother trying to add common sense into the mix. For that reason I feel the paper runs the risk of causing great harm albeit unintentional. With as much effort as was directed at showing all to have venemous traits it would seem that an egual amount of effort would be warranted to show which ones were not a threat simply to protect the hobby.

I have no problems with that. We are planning a series of further papers in both the scientific and non-scientific literature in which the implications of these findings for herpetoculurer will be discussed in more detail.

Cheers,

Wolfgang
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WW

WW Home

WW's preceding message seems to be a tacit admission that Fry and himself have got it wrong and that they may now be planning to amnd their more sensational claims in one or more forthcoming papers.
It's just a pity that they have to repair the damage they have already caused, if in fact they eventually ever get around to it after the current fracas dies down.

Actually, some of these followup papers details staggering levels of toxin diversity, venom yield and toxicity.

BGF

that this particular paper was one of a series to be publish. I am very pleased that this has occured, and I am definitely looking forward to the followups !

Cheers,

Derek K.

`Clifford Warwick is a UK anti herpetoculture campaigner, who, based on his own abject failures, claims that is simply impossible to keep any reptile properly in captivity, how cruel reptile shows are (did you know they sell hatchling snakes in - ::gasp:: - margarine tubs???)and how they should be banned, and how much any herpetoculture damages wild populations.'

Ah. The parallel is clear. Or at least I'm sure it would be if I were drunk enough...

`Ray's post title is more than a little misleading - BGF has been a consistent campaigner FOR herper's rights, so any analogy is more than a little misleading.'

That' s pretty much what I'd figured, but just hadn't heard of Mr. Warwick before.

`Putting out the info that care should be taken with some known and any unknown colubrid will do us a lot more good in the long run.'

Seconded.

Patrick Alexander

BGF has never in any post that I have read come off as anti-rearfang. The purpose of research is gain knowledge not to support or deny a hobby. The information that he has presented is invaluable to all herp keepers and can only assist us in keeping these animals safely. I am sure that there are ingorant people who will react badly to this information, but you can't make that BGF's fault.

You know...I thought this was supposed to be a forum on snakes...Not ego bashing and posturing. That's pretty boring. I keep seeing the same stupid arguement going back and forth...NEWS FLASH...No ones going to change their mind here. The bottom line is....ANY information True or Not is going to be used against the keeping of any Herp HOT OR NOT. Those who have the predjudice and money to back it will continue to use any means or excuse to advance their cause. Maybe if I was a reearcher intent advancing my career I would blow my own trumpet and worry about the tune played in the next platoon, but I'm not. I am interested in the facts....and well aware of the consequences. knowledge-theoretical or otherwise... should not be surpressed. If there are doubts...DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH AND COMPARE RESULTS. That is the way to handle this. Facts should stand up to the test of research...Not be booed down by personal attacks and posturing. As to the anti-snake forces. They really don't care...They don't think.....they don't listen to any voice unless it sounds like their own. In the end....They will do what they want anyway.