http://www.anapsid.org/pdv-boid.html

I always use the horse reference when writing to legislators concerning keeping of venomous, especially since many legislators are horse people. Horses kill and injure more people a year in the U.S than do all venomous snakes both wild and captive. Yet who would ban horses? They are all American! People buy them for little girls!

Personally, I love horses. I was raised on a ranch where we saw an average of four rattlesnakes a day just in the course of work, atrox, scutes, cerastes and sometimes tigris or molossus in the rocky areas. And I have been keeping rattlesnakes for forty years with no mishaps, yet I have been thrown, stepped on, kicked, bitten and smashed agains fenceposts, barn walls etc. by horses. My best friend was kicked in the head and killed by a horse while trimming its hoof.

I have never personally known anybody who died of snakebite. I do have a couple of friends with some damaged/missing fingers from bites and one with a fasciotomy scar, but that's it. I know MANY people who are permanently mangled/crippled from horse related accidents. Just go to any feed store or rodeo and you will see crippled cowboys limping around.Yet America views horse realted accidenta as "part of the territory" and doesn't give it a second thought. But a snakebite is big news. I always make it clear that I am not rying to ban horses, just trying to put some real perspective on things.

Rich

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