Matt,

Obviously, living in IL means the answer is no, but I might add a few other points.

I think venomous snake keepers should have to keep other difficult species for a few years first. I might suggest trying to keep an unpredictable, aggressive species for a while. Something like a wild-caught Amazon Treeboas. They are pretty hardy but they will teach you very quickly not to be careless in your cage cleaning/feedind duties. One mistake means you get a nasty bite. And when that happens you have to consider that if you made that mistake with a venomous species it might have been disfiguring, expensive and possibly lethal.

If you lived in a state where venomous was legal, I would suggest starting out with a native hot like a copperhead. If you can keep that for a year or so with no mistakes, it means you are learning to be careful enough. However, if you make a mistake, it isn't necessarily life threatening and local hospitals will have the antivenin. And if that does happen, you can ask yourself "What would have happened if that had been a Gaboon?".

Another thing to seriously consider is the potential financial costs of owning a venomous snake. A venomous snake bite can easily ring up tens of thousands of dollars in medical bills. If it bites someone else, your liability could be many times that.

Here's some questions to ask:

1. How would I pay for the medical bills incurred by a bite (assume something in the $25,000 range)?
2. If the answer to number 1 is insurance, does my medical insurance cover being bitten by a venomous snake that I owned? Does my homeowners/renters cover it?
3. If someone else was bitten by a venomous snake I owned, who would cover my liability? Who would cover their medical bills (your medical insurance wouldn't, and their insurance might come after you for it). Does my homeowners/renters cover that? Some homeowners/renters policies specifically exclude those kind of claims and you could be on the hook for tens or hundreds of thousands of $$$.
4. If my animal escaped to an area of my house that I couldn't recover it (in a crack in a foundation, etc), would I be willing to kill it to prevent a neighbor or some other innocent party from being put at risk? (The answer needs to be yes).

If you don't know the answer to these questions, you aren't ready for venomous snakes. Sure, these are worst-case scenarios, but you need to have considered them. I have automobile insurance and wear my seatbelt when I drive even though after over a million miles and 30 years of driving, I haven't had an accident.

I'm not saying don't do it. I'm saying if you do decide to do it somewhere that it is legal, make sure you understand the real responsibilities.
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Chris Harrison
San Antonio, Texas

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