Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Here is a link to the article.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/os-boy-mauled-by-dog-in-ocala-20100220,0,6440922.story

This is the THIRD dog related death that I am aware of that has happened here in Fl since Christmas. The first death involved a rotweiler in the New Port Richey area and the second death involved a weimereiner (how ever you spell it.) in the west Palm area. this latest one occurred in Ocala and involved 4 pit bulls. The first and third attack involved toddlers and the weimereiner attack involved a child around 8 to 10 years old if I remember correctly. These are only the deaths in Fl. since christmas that I am aware of, there may have been more. I am also aware of two serious dog mauling cases that have occurred in the Orlando area within the same time frame and there are most definitely more of those that I am not aware of. These figures only involve Fl. in the last 2 months and do not include figures for the rest of the year or for the other 49 states.
All of this vs. ONE python related death here in Fl. I have lived in Fl. for almost 15yrs. and I am not aware of any other related deaths that have occurred here in Fl. within that timeframe. Does anyone even know if any other python related deaths have EVER occurred here in Fl.? I am aware that other deaths have occurred in other states that have been attributed to pythons, my post is in reference to fl. only.
I am not anti dog by any stretch of the imagination. My point however is that as much as politicians scream about large snakes dogs are way more dangerous.
I personally do not think politicians should do anything about either dogs or large snakes. I think politicians should abide by the oath the took when they were sworn into office and uphold our constitutional rights and leave me alone to live my life as I see fit in a manner the does not violate anyone else's right to their life liberty or property. I think it's time to water the tree of liberty.
Anyway I figured the info should be of interest to most people on here as well as a few good points to add to any letters or e-mails to our elected idiots.

Any statistics on Alligator deaths (or does that ever even happen)? Or even American Crocodile?

It's all about perceived risk. I'm sure more people die driving to the Everglades than by any predator there but heaven forbid someone does eventually get killed by a wild burm. Certainly dogs are a much bigger real risk that everyone seems willing to accept just like the risk of driving or drinking soda.

lousy spelling

I think that is OK, after all this is only Kingsnake.com, not a graded research paper. I'm more interested in your ideas and thoughts then your grammar.

>>Any statistics on Alligator deaths (or does that ever even happen)? Or even American Crocodile?
>>

Alligator attacks in FL

http://www.sun-sentinel2.com/news/ftlaudGatorAttacks/ftlaudGatorAttacks_list.php
Link

>>Here is a link to the article.
>>
>>http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/os-boy-mauled-by-dog-in-ocala-20100220,0,6440922.story
>>
>>This is the THIRD dog related death that I am aware of that has happened here in Fl since Christmas. The first death involved a rotweiler in the New Port Richey area and the second death involved a weimereiner (how ever you spell it.)

At lesat they didn't call it a pit too. A lot of the time, any dog that attacks a human almost automatically gets labeled as a pit or pit mix....

I agree with you in general about dog attacks vs. python attacks. HOWEVER (you knew there had to be a "however", you also have to take into account that there are many many more dogs in "captivity" than there are large pythons.

Does anyone have good data relating to the numbers of "big 9" snakes currently in the US? It would be interesting to compare the relative risk of dog-related death to big-9-related death, but you'd have to know the population size to do it.
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0.1 Peruvian rainbow boa (Amaru)
2.0 Brazilian rainbow boas (TBA)
0.3 Honduran milksnakes (Chicchan, Chanir, Hari)
1.0 Thayeri kingsnake (TBA)
2.7 corns (Cetto, Tolosa, TBA)
1,000,000.1,000,000 other critters

Here is a link that may help. Not sure if they list their sources.

http://www.rexano.org//Education.htm

I also like this site too.

http://www.dogbitelaw.com/PAGES/statistics.html

>>Here is a link that may help. Not sure if they list their sources.
>>
>>http://www.rexano.org//Education.htm
>>
>>I also like this site too.
>>
>>http://www.dogbitelaw.com/PAGES/statistics.html

Those are very interesting pages. Thanks for posting em! Unfortunately, the first one only calculates odds...and that's not what I'm looking for. And the second one only talks about dogs.

I wish there were good population numbers for snakes in the US. IMHO, having the "risk-per-snake" compared to the "risk-per-dog" numbers would be more impressive for the anti-ban crowd than the raw overall number of attacks is -- precisely because lots of people WILL bring up the question of how few snakes there are compared to dogs.
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0.1 Peruvian rainbow boa (Amaru)
2.0 Brazilian rainbow boas (TBA)
0.3 Honduran milksnakes (Chicchan, Chanir, Hari)
1.0 Thayeri kingsnake (TBA)
2.7 corns (Cetto, Tolosa, TBA)
1,000,000.1,000,000 other critters

http://www.americanpetproducts.org/press_industrytrends.asp

doesn't break down by type of reptile but does provide some numbers.

>>http://www.americanpetproducts.org/press_industrytrends.asp
>>
>>doesn't break down by type of reptile but does provide some numbers.

Thanks. Those are interseting numbers. I'll play with them a little bit after I get back this evening.
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0.1 Peruvian rainbow boa (Amaru)
2.0 Brazilian rainbow boas (TBA)
0.3 Honduran milksnakes (Chicchan, Chanir, Hari)
1.0 Thayeri kingsnake (TBA)
2.7 corns (Cetto, Tolosa, TBA)
1,000,000.1,000,000 other critters

Okay, here's an initial very rough guesstimate on a comparison:

First the data:

There are currently approximately 77.5 million dogs in the US. Depending on the source you look at, there are roughly 16-30 dogbite-related deaths in the US every year.

There are currently approximately 13.6 million reptiles in the US. In the period 1990-2008, there were 8 constrictor-related deaths.

Now some extrapolation from that data:

If there are 16-30 dogbite deaths every year, then in the period 1990-2008 (the period we have constrictor death data for), there were roughly 288-540 people killed by dogs in the US.

Comparing that number to the current dog population, you come up with .0000037-.000007 deaths per dog. (3.7-7.0 x 10(-6))

If there are 13.6 million reptiles in the US, I'm going to make a wild guess that 10% of those are constrictors. I could be way off here, I just dunno. So let's guess 1.36 million constrictors.

If we accept this number, then given the number of constrictor-related deaths we come up with .00000059 deaths per constrictor. (5.9 x 10(-7))

So our wild guess guesstimate indicates that there are roughly 10 times as many deaths per dog as there are deaths per constrictor. And this is probably an under-estimate, since it includes many dog breeds that have never been recorded as causing human death.

We would need much better numbers on specific breed populations and specific constrictor populations to make this anything reliable, but IMHO it's the kind of statistic that people ought to be trying to calculate in order to impress John Q. Public.
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0.1 Peruvian rainbow boa (Amaru)
2.0 Brazilian rainbow boas (TBA)
0.3 Honduran milksnakes (Chicchan, Chanir, Hari)
1.0 Thayeri kingsnake (TBA)
2.7 corns (Cetto, Tolosa, TBA)
1,000,000.1,000,000 other critters

Numbers are a funny thing, for example .....you can say something like, there have been over 50 deaths in the US due to such and such last year and everyone says OMG , we have to do something, or you can say only 1 in 6 million were effected by such and such last year, essentially the same stat but not the same mental picture is painted.........

I don't think the safty numbers regarding large constrictors have to be compared to anything but I do understand the basis for using a everyday common ground type comparision like dog attacks,

Ive been all up and down with this type of "Percentage " approach. Its a smart approach from one perspective, While it does create a clear picture of the incredibly low, virtually non existent risk these animals pose to the average citizen.......and where these animals really fall within the full spectrum of everyday society in real world numbers, Ultimately it seems a waste of time, most people would rather complain about cats and argue from a two wrongs make it right perspective.

ERNIE EISON
WESTWOOD ACRES REPTILE FARM INC.

the 2 rallying points behind the ban on large constrictors that the politicians have used has been the treat to the environment and the threat to public safety. Bill Nelson and other politicians have specifically mentioned the incident of the child that was supposedly killed in Lady Lake Fl.. My point was that as far as Fl. is concerned there have been more deaths involving dogs in the last 2 MONTHS not to mention 4 serious dog attacks that I am aware of.
I am not anti dog as I have said in other posts. I have not stood up and publicly declared that large snakes were a serious problem they did. From the numbers I see 1 death in one year vs. 3 in 2 months shows that there is a more serious problem and based on that logic they should pursue problem instead. According to Amazon there has been 8 deaths related to large Boids since 1990 in the U.S.. I wonder how many more there have been since 1986, because I can think of 14 deaths in that time period that are related to Mr. Nelson's space program so perhaps we should ban that as well based on such logic. Apparently strapping a giant bottle to your butt is much more dangerous than keeping a pet snake that might mistake you for a rabbit one day.
Personally I think worrying about any of it is not what our politicians should be doing. They should be more concerned with Unemployment, the foreclosure crisis which is related to that high unemployment. Those two wars we got ourselves into that we can't seem to get out of and the ramifications of what their stupid healthcare experiment and cap and trade are going to do to our economy which is in serious trouble.
It's to bad the cold snap wiped out so many of those burms as they could be a useful food source when things get worse then they are now. We could have Snake ala Nelson. I'll bet it tastes something like Hoover Hogs.

One of the reasons that Gopher Tortoises are scarce in N. W. Florida is they were eaten in the Great Deppression. My Grandmother called them Hoover Chickens...LOL Strange but true. My Grandma told me many a story about "gopher pulling" trips to eat. The women caught Gophers and the men hunted deer, hogs, squirrels, rabbits, gators and just about anything that moved because they were HONGREY...
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Tom Crutchfield
www.tomcrutchfield.com

I grew up in South Texas and the "hoover Hog" thing was told to me by an old timer.
FYI for those who don't know it was a reference to armadillos. I had some once but I was not aware that I was eating it at the time so I don't remember what it tasted like.
I wonder how good it goes with barbecued burm?

I understand what is trying to be siad, what people are trying to get across,But the whole Dogs kill more people then pythons, cats are worst for the environment then pythons adds up to what? How many times have I seen people spouting out things like we should ban cats? We need to do something about them. There's to many feral cats blah blah blah ...........Now who does that sound like? Peta, the HSUS......... the castles these activist groups (The same ones going after us now) live in are built on going after dog and cat owners. That's been their number one priority from day one. Its what 90% of their business is all about.

Does anyone really think pointing out dog related deaths and cat issues is making some kind of point? Talking about the dangers and problems surrounding these pet animals. When people do that all they are doing is repeating the SAME things that the anti ownership / animal rights groups hang their hats on. Peta and the Humane Society should be thanking these people for helping them get THEIR message out.

ERNIE EISON
WESTWOOD ACRES REPTILE FARM INC.

>>
>> It's to bad the cold snap wiped out so many of those burms as they could be a useful food source when things get worse then they are now. We could have Snake ala Nelson. I'll bet it tastes something like Hoover Hogs.

Probably not a good idea to be eating the burms. I read on one site, I think it was the FWC site, that burm meat has EXTREMELY high levels of mercury.
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0.1 Peruvian rainbow boa (Amaru)
2.0 Brazilian rainbow boas (TBA)
0.3 Honduran milksnakes (Chicchan, Chanir, Hari)
1.0 Thayeri kingsnake (TBA)
2.7 corns (Cetto, Tolosa, TBA)
1,000,000.1,000,000 other critters

...liquid metal my friends and I played with in grade school (late '70's oil patch in Tx. that should tell you alot there.). I'm totally screwed in that dept.

This is the tactic that polititions try to use to shut down the argument about snake death vs. dog debate. The problem is that they include all dogs on there side and limit the snakes to 3 or 4 types. If you use only the large potntialy dangerous snakes to the large potentialy dangerous dogs it would be alot closer.
You cant count a toy dog if you are not going to count a king snake.
I am sure you could get a conservative estamate of snakes by looking at 3 years of import data and then doing a rough estamate of captive borns for 3 years. I would be fine with a conservative number on the snake side beacuse snake deaths are so rare 2 or 3 in 10 years and dog deaths are common 20 to 40 a year that statisticly dogs I am sure would come out much more dangerous.
Another factor is the one usualy killed by a snake is the owner and ocasionaly there child while a dog is either there child or an innocent stranger walking down the street or in there own yard. The piont is the dogs actively target go after the person.
Also what if we look at wild dangerous dog kills vs. wild dangerous snake kills, I think wild snakes would out number wild dogs a million to one but there are still probobly more wild dog kills that wild snake kills.
Another interesting thin is if a dog kills a child it gets only local news possibly a mention in national news but if it is a snake it is world news and and gets weeks of nationl coverage.
Rob

I knew the argument about dog numbers would get thrown out there. My point of posting this was that several politicians here in Fl. on both the fed. and state levels are screaming for bans on ownership of large snakes. They are all citing the case of a little girl who died in Lady Lake Fl. from a Burmese python and saying something needs to be done about large constrictors. This is to my knowledge (feel free to correct me if you find something.) the ONLY death related to a large constrictor here in Fl. in the almost 15yrs. I've lived here and as I said before I am not sure any other such deaths have occurred in Fl. prior to that one.
The permitting thing aside this snake was improperly caged. If in fact this girl was actually killed by the snake (I still have my doubts given the size of the snake.) there was plenty irresponsibility to go around in this situation and it does not reflect on most keepers. Ultimately however my dog figures were only from what I have read online from the past 2 months. I don't care how many dogs people own 3 deaths and 2 maulings is off the charts and is more cause for alarm than snakes ever should be.
I am against legislating against either with the exception of laws encouraging more responsible ownership and even then their are plenty of laws on the books for that now. However given the number of recent dog attacks here in Fl., screaming about the dangers of large snake attacks is kind of like worrying about a burning strawman in your fireplace while the Ocala forrest is burning down behind you.

As far as I know, it's still the "alleged" death by the python of the little girl. Most knowledgeable python people figure the drug-adled boyfriend is the real culprit. Most of the facts don't add up to the snake being the killer.

>>This is the tactic that polititions try to use to shut down the argument about snake death vs. dog debate. The problem is that they include all dogs on there side and limit the snakes to 3 or 4 types. If you use only the large potntialy dangerous snakes to the large potentialy dangerous dogs it would be alot closer.
>>You cant count a toy dog if you are not going to count a king snake.

I see your point. However, even small dogs are capable of killing human beings -- a pomeranian killed an infant a few years ago -- while small snakes can't (not counting venomous). Actually, speaking of venomous, maybe they should be included as well? Hmm.

But even if you do restrict the population comparison to large breeds, there's still more of them around than large snakes.

>>I am sure you could get a conservative estamate of snakes by looking at 3 years of import data and then doing a rough estamate of captive borns for 3 years. I would be fine with a conservative number on the snake side beacuse snake deaths are so rare 2 or 3 in 10 years and dog deaths are common 20 to 40 a year that statisticly dogs I am sure would come out much more dangerous.

I think you're probably right that dogs would still come out more dangerous. But it would be an interesting number to see, and IMHO it would be more useful to the anti-ban side than the overall number is.
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0.1 Peruvian rainbow boa (Amaru)
2.0 Brazilian rainbow boas (TBA)
0.3 Honduran milksnakes (Chicchan, Chanir, Hari)
1.0 Thayeri kingsnake (TBA)
2.7 corns (Cetto, Tolosa, TBA)
1,000,000.1,000,000 other critters

That the deadliest snake is the one that just bit you. The point being that it doesn't matter how potent the venom is it only becomes dangerous once you are envenomated.
No matter what statistics you come up with people are not killed by snakes out there running at large. The people who are actually at danger are those who own such animals and possibly those who live with them if they are not caged properly and allowed to roam freely around a house. Ultimately however the people most at risk are those who actually interact with them and do not follow proper handling/feeding protocols.
But lets get to the hypothetical attack issue. I currently am not keeping large boids but I did for many years in the past I currently keep 2 large dogs. If I was keeping both types of animals statistics of how many of either type are out there are irrelevent as I actually have both types of animals. Tigers, elephants and chimpanzees are way more dangerous than either animal but they do not matter as for this situation I am not keeping any of them for this situation so as dangerous as they may be they don't pose any danger to me.
Anyway in this situation where I have both types of animals where the factor of how many are out there dosen't matter which is more dangerous?
We are comparing a predatory mammal that roams freely in my house that has large canines, extremely sharp incisors and carnassials (penny cutters lol.) and huge molars designed to crush and grind bones and with jaw strength between 1000 and 2000 pounds of pressure per square inch depending the breed with a reptile that has almost no jaw strength and and rather small needle like teeth. An animal with big strong jaws that also happens to have 4 legs and is able to reach speeds close to 40 mph vs an animal that has small teeth relatively weak jaws and no legs. I am thinking the dog wins hands down in this hypothetical scenario as far as being more dangerous.
Here are some other factors to consider proper protocol for keeping large boids calls for having someone else present when you feed large snakes in the event that a feeding accident occurs in which you are bitten and wrapped which is the point at which you could be killed. The additional person can unwrap the snake from you quite easily and if the snake does not let go with it's mouth you can make it let go by putting a small amount of strong alcohol in it's mouth should that become necessary. Common also dictates that you keep large boids in a secure cage so when you are not interacting with them you are not at risk of an accident occurring.
How many people keep their dogs in their house and let them run around in a manner completely opposite to how snakes are properly kept? Mine are doing that right now. In the unlikely but certainly event that they decided to turn on me I would hope that I could escape but assuming I did I would absolutely sustain more injuries than I would from a mistaken feeding response with a large boid. Quite realistcly I would probably be pretty screwed.
Btw I did realize their was another dog attack I forgot about it involved 2 pit bulls in Kissimmee a few weeks ago the were roaming freely in a neighborhood and attacked 3 people at an apartment complex. They were not from the area and were not found after the attack. That is the first of 2 incidents in the Orlando area where people were attacked by someone else's dogs that were out wandering around. A similar scenario involving large snakes would most likely never happen. Even in their natural habitat such attacks are almost unheard of.

Don't worry. I agree with you that a dog is much more likely to kill you than a large snake. However, when you are trying to convince people about things like the ban you are dealing with public PERCEPTION rather than objective reality.

I think you can improve the perception of large snake safety if we can get better death statistics. Let me play with the numbers a little bit and see what they look like.
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0.1 Peruvian rainbow boa (Amaru)
2.0 Brazilian rainbow boas (TBA)
0.3 Honduran milksnakes (Chicchan, Chanir, Hari)
1.0 Thayeri kingsnake (TBA)
2.7 corns (Cetto, Tolosa, TBA)
1,000,000.1,000,000 other critters

The question should also be "dangerous to whom?".

Injury associated with reptiles tends to be between the owner and their pet, but what are the numbers associated with the general public? I haven't heard of many random python attacks from roaming snakes against the general public. On the other hand we see that with dogs, that can be from an escape dog or from some one coming in contact with an aggressive dog in the dog's space, i.e. the yard. We don't see many strangers entering into a snake enclosure.

So, if we are contemplating laws to protect the general public then we need to consider who is getting injured and why.