Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Anyone know conclusively one way or the other if a person has ever been killed by a boa constrictor in the US? If so, where can I find documentation for / against?

Also...# of deaths from burms/retics/rock/anacondas in the US?

I'm working on stats to have in my arsenal if needed.
We are currently up against a ban on constrictors that reach over 8'

THANKS
Dean Alessandrini
VP THE GREATER CINCINNATI HERPETOLOGICAL SOCIETY

I don't have an answer for you, but I hope that you're in contact with Goini04 who posted the thread below about Ohio legislation.

You might want to check the National Safety Council. Years ago, I was able to find some statistics about deaths on their website. I believe that the running average on deaths by domestic dogs was about 25 a year back in the 90's. I think lawnmowers were getting about 75 of us each year at that time, and high school football games were getting three or four. Of course, the problem is that millions of voters own dogs, like a trim lawn, and like high school football.

As I said to Goini04, you might try contacting the Libertarian Party which is likely to agree with you on principle. You might also have some luck with libertarian-leaning Republicans if you appeal to the principle of not passing more laws than are absolutely necessary. Your appeal to on-the-fence Democrats probably needs to be that many reptile owners are younger people who will long remember and take ballot box revenge on someone who forces them to sell a beloved pet.

Now would be a good time to hit the public schools in your area with volunteer talks about snakes. If you can generate interest in snakes at the family level, people will be less inclined to support the ban out of ignorance.

You might even try to get a few of the legislators to allow you to bring a boa to his/her office. Some people may be inclined to support a ban because the whole idea of having a big constrictor seems scary. If they can see for themselves that some people do well with these animals, they might be more inclined to dismiss the legislation as misguided.

What do you know about the legislator who introduced the bill? Is he/she responding to a specific incident? Does he/she have a history of supporting controversial causes? If so, you might want to try tying the bill to the legislator. A legislator who might support the ban if it's called "Dangerous Constrictor Ban" might vote the opposite if the ban is referred to by most people as "Old Blowhard's Latest Introduction." If the bill is inspired by a specific incident, you should point out how unusual that incident is. If nothing else, go to the legislator's website and see what he/she is saying to support the ban. If he can list only one incident, then you need to play up the fact that he's supporting a ban based on a single event. If he's sponsored this legislation because of the events in Florida, have someone in Cleveland stand in waist-deep, lake effect snow holding a sign saying that Representative Blowhard wants this ban to keep exotic snakes from eating all of Ohio's alligators.

You might spend some time at Cleveland.com on their message boards. (They're at http://www.cleveland.com/forums/ if they haven't moved it.) They have some reasonably active political and social message boards, and you might be able to get some discussion going there. I don't know whether Cincinnatti has anything similar, but you could look.

We've become a society of people who think that laws can prevent tragedy. Tragedy is a part of life, and no set of laws can control people or events to the point of preventing all tragedy.

I wish you well with your effort. I need to be careful here. I come to Kingsnake.com to get away from the political arguments on the websites where I usually post.

Bill
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It's not how many snakes you have. It's how happy and healthy you can keep them.