NEWS JOURNAL (Mansfield, Ohio) 08 February 05 Vendors: If you want to buy a poisonous snake, know the risks (Karen Palmer)
Mansfield: The rhinoceros viper that bit a Crawford County man is a poisonous snake whose natural home is in Central African rain forest swamps.
Area pet store owners disagree on whether these snakes should be pets, but agree vipers are dangerous.
"I don't advise keeping a poisonous snake; just the pure danger of it," said Deb Miller, 32, owner of Critter Castle in Ontario.
"You wouldn't be able to predict when they would bite you, and trying to get the anti-venom is expensive. The prices that I've heard just from watching 'Animal Planet' -- it's usually $2,000 per dose, and usually it takes more than one dose to treat," Miller said.
"So it would definitely be expensive and life-threatening and you might lose a limb," she said. "Is that really worth it just to say you have (the snake)? And that would be exactly the reason you would have it."
During her 14 years in the pet business, Miller said there has been only one poisonous snake at the store. It was a green vine snake, mistakenly sent when she ordered a green snake.
At Petland in Ontario, owner Ed Hughes said he sells snakes, but none are venomous.
"We don't want to sell anything where anyone could get hurt," Hughes said. "Any snake can bite. There are snakes that don't have a tendency to bite, and then you have different variations of how poisonous they can be. You can get venomous snakes that can make you ill or lightheaded, and then you have those that can kill you."
He said the rhinoceros viper is uncommon.
"You have to look for a snake like that. It's not the kind of snake you'd pick up at the corner pet store," he said.
Hughes doesn't see anything wrong with keeping such a snake "as long as it's an educated consumer."
Vendors: If you want to buy a poisonous snake, know the risks