The Accurate Reloading Forums THE ACCURATE RELOADING.COM FORUMS Hunting African Big Game Hunting Re: Buying A Puff Adder?????????????Go | New | Find | Notify | Tools | Reply | |
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Quote: It seems to me that a big strong man should be ashamed of not being able to manage what a little bitty gal can do with an easy smile. From my perspective, needing to use a gun on a snake is kind of like needing to use a crane to get up on a horse. A bit of an embarrassing spectacle, eh? | |||
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Quote: Well, now, you're all wrong here, Tanith. I've seen "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi" a whole BUNCH of times and mommy and daddy cobras DO TOO travel together! Nag and Nagaina were always hangin' out together! Until, however, Nag got it with a 12-gauge (HURRAY for the good guys!), which gave Nagaina a real case of the derriere. Yup, cobras hang out together. I saw it in a cartoon on TV. Honest! Russ  | |||
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It's all in what you are used to. The first time I took care of a patient having an acute MI (heart attack) I was shaking in my shoes. Now I just sip a diet Coke and tell the team what to do in a relaxed voice. I imagine it is the same as catching snakes. You get very good at it over time, but you guard against getting too relaxed or sloppy. | |||
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Quote: Er, if you take a bite from a genuine specimen of Bitis arietans, and it's not a dry "bluff bite", considerably more will happen to you than a sore foot. http://www-surgery.ucsd.edu/ent/DAVIDSON/Snake/Arietans.htm If a snake bites you once, it wouldn't be very bright to compound the problem by tangling with it and inviting it to bite you again. Forget about getting revenge on a dumb animal and get your butt to the nearest source of antivenom ASAP. Running around to kill a snake is not going to do an envenomation case any good atall. | |||
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I think its rather interesting that SG has joined us, I dated a womman in school that was fond of snakes and have had a couple myself, and am not sorry to say i have killed several over the years, have been bit twice and that was enough,Mamm don't mean to disagree with an expert in her own field but I was in RVN, and did see what they refered to as a "One-Stepper", I belive it was a Green bamboo pit viper, and the reason for sudden death, i think was due to the area of the attack, normally the neck or head area, a passing friend of mine used to collect "Hots", and it was kind of wried, if you went into the room, they would began to buzz and make what ever noise they could, when he stepped in the quited down.Hope you make your trip and would love to see photos of your new friends when you catch them YOu have to cut Russ a little slack, he's a Tanker, and they always believe in the "Bigger Hammer Theory" | |||
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Quote: You saw Trimeresurus albolabris, the green bamboo pit viper. They are very common in Vietnam, and also common in the wildlife trade in the US - young albolabris sell for about $25 retail (to legally licensed venomous keepers only in most states) and they are easy to breed. They are commonly known, somewhat inaccurately, as the "one step snake" or the "five step snake". A number of my friends have been bitten on fingers or hands by Trimeresurus species including albolabris with minimal consequences except for swelling and a small area of necrosis. The LD-50 of their venom is not particularly impressive. What makes this species dangerous to humans in their natural environment is their habit of dwelling in thick bushes about five to seven feet off the ground - eg, right at face level if you are walking into one of these well camoflauged creatures unawares. The general outcome of any envenomation to the face or neck is swelling which can lead to closure of the airway. If the airway can be physically managed by a competent medic, the patient will not die if the venom itself is not potent enough to have lethal effect on an adult. This is certainly the case with T. albolabris. A patient stung by a wasp in just the right unlucky spot on the throat, or several wasp stings in the general area of the face and neck, could suffer the same fatal consequence even though a wasp sting to the hand is a relatively trivial event. So that's the true story of the "one step snake". In my experience with a number of T. albolabris bites incurred by local snake keepers, the onset of swelling has varied from fairly rapid to quite slow. It depends on how much venom the individual snake decides to smack down on you, and how large the specimen is. One of my friends was bitten by an absolutely gigantic T. hageni and that was a very interesting medical case, but albolabris is a smaller animal and generally doesn't push out a lot of juice. If you have an actual firsthand report of any T. albolabris fatalities in Vietnam and how they were medically managed, I'd be very interested in hearing about it. My guess is that they would not have been managed very well, since a good medic should be able to keep the airway open even in the presence of swelling subsequent to envenomation. Any doctors have some input here? Quote: Thank you. Some of my current friends are pictured on my website. I am particularly proud of my unusually orange colored king cobra, "Sunkist", who will be a daddy very soon. A large image of him is downloadable here: http://www.snakegetters.com/king.jpg | |||
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Wow - That's gorgeous!  What is the "story" behind Sunkist's coloration. i.e. - what is the rarity of this and is it hereditary? I talked with a guy at the American Museum of Natural Hist., in NYC, some 33 years ago, who was doing research with California Kings and color patterns. By inbreeding siblings, he obtained individuals with 3 different patterns, sometimes occuring on the same snake.  It seems breeding for color mutations is quite common amoung collector/breeders these days.BTW - I sent you a PM (this site) yesterday. | |||
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Quote: Precisely and amen. Russ | |||
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Quote: I wasn't issued a smile, so I have to resort to testosterone and firepower. "A good man always knows his limitations." -- Dirty Harry I accepted a long time ago that I'd never beat David Tubb at 1,000 yards. I can deal with it that I'm only a pretty-good 600-yard man. You smile, I'll destroy. I'm rarely embarrassed. I think the last time was when America reelected Clinton. The time before that was when Carter's response to the Soviets invading Afghanistan was to boycott the Olympics. Yup, pretty much just those two times, I think. Russ | |||
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So what yer saying is not to use one of these  But rather use one of these  towing one of these  Thanks, gotta think, safety first! Toolmaker | |||
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Russell, if you insist on your napalm plan, may I suggest one of these:  750,000 BTU Portable Propane Torch Kit Power Jet burner melts ice, incinerates weeds and tree stumps, and performs other heating tasks. With steel pilot tip, flame control trigger valve, 0-100 PSI pressure regulator PLUS 10-ft. UL listed gas hose, excess flow POL valve, aluminum extender tube and instructions. Requires a 100-lb. propane cylinder. U.S.A. In Stock Ship Wt. 5.0 lbs Item# 173845 Discount Price... $159.99 Sale Price... $149.99 www.northerntool.com Oh, and don't forget the fire extinguisher. Toolmaker | |||
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Sunkist is a wild caught, imported Malaysian king of unusually bright coloration. He will be a daddy soon (the eggs are being laid now) so I suppose we will see if the color is hereditary. King cobras have some fairly complex social behaviors. For the first few years I had him, I used to be able to play "dominant cobra" with him, pushing his hood down gently and making him turn submissively when I entered his cage to clean it. He was easy to handle and predictable because he would always submit after a gentle "hood down" push. Since he bred this year with the two females he knows that he is the biggest, baddest, strongest cobra in his territory and he will not hood down or submit. He has to be handled now by force, and it's a savage wrestling match every time I open his cage. The wild caught female remains downright nice compared to this big bull. He's nearly unmanageable, and it takes every bit of my skill these days to stay unpunctured while working with him. He was just short of 10' in the photo, but he's grown a bit since. 11' at least now, maybe 12'. His original measurements a few years ago were under anesthesia at the vet clinic, and that would be the only way I could get a tape measure on him again. You can't brute force king cobras for more than the few seconds it takes to throw them into a safety bin for cage cleaning; they start going into respiratory and cardiac failure on extended conscious restraint. No joke. They really need to be knocked out for vet exams or any procedure that takes more than two minutes. You can get venom if you're quick, but you can't do procedures like assist feeding, medication or eyecap checks with undrugged kings unless you like having your wildlife patients code on you. I'm almost sorry I bred him, but not that sorry, since the new litter of kings will be hand raised to accept human contact. All of the kings I have hand raised from the egg are pretty much dog tame. I would not handle them with any impunity; I still use a snake hook to direct the head while supporting the tail in my hand. But they're going to be a lot easier to work with than big daddy. | |||
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You have my attention. Just one question. What's the distance on that sucker from the hand holding the contraption to the end where the flame comes out? Seems like a good price, by the way. Russ | |||
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Quote: Maybe Im old fashioned but last time I knew, that girl with the smile could do all kinds of things no man could. That of course includes manipulating the man. | |||
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Quote: I guess you haven't met any of my friends from San Francisco. LOL I don't want to manipulate anybody. I relate to men (and to women) in an easy, honest, open and friendly way. No games, no bullshit. It's fundamentally unethical and deceitful to be manipulative. I really don't admire women who get by in life using manipulation. It's something society tries to teach us to do, but society is dead wrong to do it in my opinion. I do smile at snakes though. And at men, if they're smart and cute. A man has to work pretty hard at being more interesting to me than a new species of snake though. LOL Last I checked, you can't actually catch a snake just by smiling at it. I guess they're a lot smarter than men that way. I don't catch snakes easily because I smile prettily at them. I catch snakes easily because it's just an easy thing to do. Even a little gal like me can get safe control of a snake without breaking a sweat. So you'd figure that a big strong man could do like I do with no trouble atall. And if he can't, if he insists on bringing thermonuclear firepower in to solve a problem that a five foot tall gal can fix in five minutes with a push broom and a bucket, it kinda makes me wonder. | |||
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They work great - the only reason I haven't bought one is I want that one(the biggest they sell) and it requires a 100lb propane tank to work properly - the twenties don't have enough surface area for the gas to vaporize fast enough. the handle is about five feet. I think they'd do wonders on snake duty if you cna rig up a slightly longer handle. Napalm only will set fire to said snake, leaving it alive and hurt for at least 15/20 sec. this thing on the other hand applies some like 1500 degrees and 100 times the btu's of a typical kitchen stove burner. The snake would probably die before you actually applied the flame to him simply from radiant heat, but if your fast enough you might get a steam rupture out of the carcass. if ya do get one, make sure you use "commercial" LP - the stuff sold at the barbecue tank places isn't always what you think it is. Toolmaker | |||
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SG the only one I knew of was hit in the face, and died with in about 15 mins, one thing to remember back then we didn't understand about the snakes and the medics and corpsman weren't trained in them, the only guys I knew who were trained on snakes were the SF guys, The cobra is beautifull colored, I have seen two in real life, one we killed in a bunker,and later we we measured it,it was just over 12', and about as big around as an old beer can. THe 2nd one help up my platoon, during a night ambush set up, he or she set up right in the middle of a pathway between to rices paddies, and in the moon lite it was as tall as my shoulders,and I'm 6' on a good day, and I was only about 10 or 15 meters from it. | |||
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You guys do realize that this subject makes me want to reach for a flamethrower myself. I want those snakes very badly, and I generally have to spend an obscene amount of money and do an annoying amount of work for the privilege of catching them. So listening to stories like this makes my head hurt. Think how you would feel if somebody else recounted tales of the most incredible trophy animals, targets that make you envious with a desire to encounter them and take them. Except they proceeded to destroy the trophies so that nobody gets them. Kind of sucks from my perspective even to hear about it.  | |||
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SG,sorry wasn't try'en to turn your crank, the one we killed was during a mortar attack, and other than my steel pot and boots, I was bucknekked I was afraid some thing important mite get bit,, hell I was only 17 | |||
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Well, Dave, what was the matter with you and your buddies?! Think of all that perfectly-good venom that some research outfit would have appreciated!!! Seriously, though, with me standing 6'5" and some snake coming close to that when it was standing... hmmmm, good point, do snakes "stand?"... well, it would have been rock-and-roll time -- and I'm not talking The Rolling Stones, either. Glad you made it home alive from that war, Dave. Russ | |||
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Quote: I heard that Jimmy Brown has two of the babies from the big female I got in Aus in the 80's for sale. Not sure if they are breeders anymore. I'll dig up Jimmy's ph # and try calling him for you. Quote: I only have kept one green, and she was an idiot. I had a bad experience with black mambas in RSA once. We just rolled into a camp that had not been used for a year, and I had to run for the outhouse when the truck stopped. The outhouse was a thatched roof rondavell, and when I opened the door, I scared the hell out of a nice 7 or 8 foot black in the space between the thatch and the top of the wall. He struck straight at my face and managed to hit the bill of my baseball cap, the underside of which still carries the ugly yellow/brown stains of the venom. Yes capes can be a bit dumb. Same outhouse, we had to shoo away a 5' male from coiling on the threshhold every afternoon. 4 pm every day he came up and we carted him off. I have many more encounters at home (Florida) than I ever have in Africa. Our biggest problem now is a developer taking a Catapillar diesel shaver to 600 acres 100 yds from my front door. Florida needs more golf courses! We are a bit inundated with Eastern Diamondbacks (horridus horridus, nice name, eh?) and Southeastern massasogas. I will say this to those who don't think snakes are important or beneficial, plague (carried by rats) killed more people than snakes ever will, and snakes eat rats as a matter of course. Huanta virus in the SW US is a real threat carried by field mice, a favorite snack of snakes. Florida kingsnakes kill more rattlers every year than people do, so it really behooves us to learn a bit about what lives around us. The harmless, non-venomous king snake you carelessly kill in the yard may have been the one that eats the rattlesnake that bites the neighbor's kid. Just food for thought, not trying to convert anyone, just making them think. SG, that bull looks just like the Maylaysian king I kept for years. Last I heard, he was at the Cinci zoo and about 14' long. I love the orange color phase. Had an indonesian that was a bit pink under the hood, male and female both had the hint of pink. Favorites I kept were a pair of red kraits from Borneo. | |||
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Quote: Oh now come ON!!! Most of us who encounter snakes are encountering them while hunting. You'd have us, in addition to a rifle and whatever other gear we haul around, take A BROOM AND A BUCKET just "in case" we happen across a snake in our AO?  Russ | |||
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Quote: Oh, I quite agree, many snakes are useful. I just can't tell the difference between hardly any of them, so they all must die. I just don't have the time or money to start taking herpetology courses just so I won't erradicate the "wrong" snake. For what it's worth, though, I try VERY HARD not to go places where there are likely to be snakes at the time of year I'm there. So, the snakes live, I live, everyone's living all happy-happy joy-joy. In all fairness to the snakes, though, I'd also shoot the mice and rats -- although, I admit, I probably wouldn't do so with the same level of vengeance. Russ | |||
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Quote: That would be Crotalus adamanteus actually. Regards, ~Holmes | |||
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Holmes .. did you complete your crocodile project? | |||
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Quote: You're right, I just liked the old horridus horridus name. It's actually a very pretty snake, but I always chuckled at the misnomer. | |||
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Quote: I don't know a Jimmy Brown offhand, but if you mean Jimmy M. I think he lost most of his Aussie stuff after the divorce. But yes, please, if they don't have some insane price tag, I want them. Quote: My assessment is that Eastern greens calm down quickly, blacks start out downright evil but also calm down quickly, Jameson's stay nervous and flighty for months, and I've only worked briefly with the Western greens so I'm not sure how they fit in. For some reason they never come in as rehab cases, though they do come in. I get a ton of Easterns and blacks and Jameson's dumped on me as rehabbers every time an import load comes in. Quote: Funny, that happens in my bathroom here in Florida too. LOL Oh right, I put the cobras there on purpose. And I had to pay money to get the cobras. Darn it. Some guys have all the luck. Quote: Unless you live in very far north Florida you don't see C. horridus, the canebrake or timber rattler. Our local Sistrurus (miliarius barbouri) is a pygmy rather than a massassauga, but same genus. I live in Central Florida and am always happy to take in these fellows when they are displaced by habitat destruction. Would you consider joining the Snake Getters volunteer network for nuisance snake removal? www.snakegetters.com Quote: Some idiot called me to complain about a huge black snake in his shed. I explained that if it was a racer it was harmless, and if it was an indigo it was illegal for us to touch. He killed it before we could send anybody out, then called us back screaming a few months later because a rattlesnake had moved under the shed right where the black snake used to live and had promptly bitten his dog. I had zero sympathy but sent somebody out to get the rattler anyhow. If he had left the black snake alone, it would have eaten the small rattler or kept it off the territory. More people are hospitalized or die from rodent borne illnesses in North America every year than are ever bitten by any kind of snake. Food for thought. Quote: My male has physically thickened up and also darkened in body coloration very rapidly in the last two months while he was breeding, as well as changing his behavior radically. Hormonal changes I expect. I wonder if it's permanent? He doesn't look nearly as light gold on the body as he did just before breeding. But I imagine his kids will look very nice indeed. I am very fond of kraits and have kept several species, but not flaviceps. They are a bit pricey and they tend to be imported in such bad condition that they don't survive. I wouldn't say no to trying if I wasn't risking too heavy a loss, but the price tags on flaviceps have been pretty prohibitive for snakes that often don't survive. I have successfully maintained multicinctus, ceruleus and fasciatus with no great difficulty, other than procuring their specialized diet until they can be switched to scented rodents. A particularly lovely black and yellow Malaysian krait has added a fine splash of color to my bedroom decor for many years now, at least when it deigns to come out of hiding - here's a pic of the shy thing. http://www.snakegetters.com/class/bungarus.html | |||
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Quote: What I'm saying is that a snake is so weak and helpless you should easily be able to get total control of it with anything that happens to be handy. I don't expect most hunters to carry the particular tools I mentioned into the bush, unless they're very serious neat freaks. LOL | |||
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SG, heres a question for you, we told time and again, that if we saw one cobra, that another was around, is it true they travel in pairs?, I thought this a little strange, but what the heck, I figure any thing is possible. When i was younger I got bit by a western diamonback twice in three years working on the farm ,in wheat fields, Doc said I was lucky due to it being a dry bit,are they really ever dry? | |||
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The percentage of dry bites is fairly high, ranging from 30-50% depending upon the reference cited. It must be understood that these stats are relevant only to natural bites, that is, a defencive bite delivered to a non-combatant. If the snake is deliberately provoked, all bets are off. You're getting the whole pharmacy! Virtually all serpent venom has evolved as an aid for acquisition of prey, not as a defence tool. If snake venom had specifically evolved to kill the serpent's enemy, humans would perish on a regular basis from such envenomations. Most snakes first line of defence is flight or freeze. When they freeze they are depending upon their cryptic invisibility. Cobras in pairs represents one of those sweeping generalisations that are so often inaccurate. The King cobras do however, have some very interesting behavioural patterns, reproductive and others, that separate them not only from the other cobras, but from most other members of the serpent world. I'll let the Lady Snakegetters elaborate as I am more involved with the viperids than the elapids. She is well versed in that area. BTW, TT, the kaouthia is doing well. Not the most attractive specimen but his temperament certainly makes up for it. Easiest cobra I have ever maintained. He has grown substantially and I was finally forced to regiment his intake as he was getting a bit chubby! I call him Boris after my old hero Boris Karloff. Regards, ~Holmes | |||
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Quote: I tought you called him Boris in honor of Yeltsin, Russia's chubby ex-PM. | |||
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Quote: Ummm, you mean that this snake lives unconstrained in your bedroom, or in a cage in your bedroom? Uhhh, just curious is all...  Bill | |||
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Quote: Hehehe.... that, my friend, is a tale worthy of it's own thread  I'll try to sit down a put together the story and post it in the Natural World forum. Or, mayhap the humour forum would be more apropos! Take care. ~Holmes | |||
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Quote: Snakes are not very social creatures. Females of most species do not tend to have more than one litter by the same male, and may even have one litter fathered by different males. Yes, snakes are total sluts. LOL They don't pair bond and they have fairly limited social behaviors. One researcher found a tendency for female sibling rattlesnakes as well as mothers and daughters to voluntarily associate, but it's only a tendency and it does not mean they travel in pairs. Where you see one snake there is quite possibly more than one, especially in the species that congregate and bask communally. Cobras don't really fit that description however - it's more of a viper thing. Female snakes tend to hang out in a very small area for their entire lives, male snakes tend to be wanderers. The males may get into strenuous wrestling arguments over who gets to hang around the longest in a female's territory Quote: Yes, most defensive bites are dry actually - with one exception. If you've hurt the snake, especially if it's a mortal or serious injury, autonomic nerve reflexes take over and you will get the whole grocery store instead of a dry bite or a small nip with a few drops of venom. Percentage estimates on dry bites range from 30-60% depending on the species and the circumstances. Mild bites with only a tiny amount of venom released compared to what a snake of that size and age could deliver make up another fair percentage of bites. It is harder to calculate this percentage because a rattlesnake is always six feet long and weighs fifty pounds when you are scared of it, even if it would only be three feet long and weigh 800 grams when a herpetologist got there to catch and measure it. | |||
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Quote: Glad to hear it. He was in fairly poor shape when he came in with that gigantic facial abscess which we had to surgically debriede. I figured that some time in your care would do about right by him. I was handling him daily for quite some time after the surgery to keep the wound clean, and he got quite used to being picked up and having his face played with. He had turned into quite a good sport about that by the time I sent him off to you. | |||
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Quote: As amusing as it would be to live somewhere that kraits could roam around the house, legal requirements for my licensing here in Florida specify zoo quality secure housing with locks for venomous snakes. I think that's a pretty good idea. | |||
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Thanks for the answers, the Rhade or Moi or Yards what ever you want to call them, really believed the thing about cobra's in pairs, enough that when we saw the one set up in the path way we detoured over 2 klick's to get to the ambush site,, Must say there is some thing unnevering about the looking into the cobra eye's, I know the pair that Jimmy had, would follow your evrey move with in the living room where they where housed, | |||
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Quote: I like tarantulas. Always have. A gal at my Reserve unit brought hers in one time. "Naomi" was her name. Sweet critter. Very friendly. I held her and pet her. Great spider. I'm a hunter and respect all God's creatures as such; I'll still go out of my way to destroy any snake in my immediate AO. I have absolutely no problem respecting the heck out of snakes -- God's creatures as they are -- while I'm killing them. I also agree with you that hatred of, and fear of, snakes is a learned behavior. My degree is in psychology, so I'm fairly well-versed in matters of learned behavior. The behavior I learned as a young child, which has been reinforced endlessly over the years, is to violently erradicate any snake I come across. I just can't be bothered to wait and see if it's some harmless little thing or a Black Mamba. I'm of the "Kill 'em all, let God sort 'em out" mentality. Not popular with the bunny-hugger (or snake-hugger) crowd but, as I always say, hesitation kills. I won't hesitate. "Golly! Africa sure is a neat place for a safari!" There. Now we're back on topic. Russ | |||
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Quote: The ones you really have to watch out for are the kind that can put their tails in their mouths and roll after you at 50 miles per hour. When they reach you, they pull their tails out of their mouths and sting with them. What you have to do is sidestep quickly so that the sting hits the tree behind you. The tree will turn black within seconds and fall down, and you can escape. Some of our local snakes have apparently developed a new twist on the standard hoop rolling behavior which I propose to call quadrilineatic circumlocution. Four of these animals will form wheels, and a nest of up to thirty more will pile in between and on top. The resulting nest of cottonmouths will go motoring down the road at top speed, running down cars and puncturing their tires with well placed bites from specially evolved radial fangs. We call this species Agkistrodon piscifabula, aka "fish story viper". We think they are born at six feet long because sightings of them never occur under that mark. Adults are reported up to 18' in length. They seem to be strongly attracted to the odor of fermented and distilled grain products as this is always a hallmark in their sighting by the locals. You never know what you can learn from cartoons and stuff you read on the Internet, eh? | |||
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Quote: Does that include "Here Bubba, hold my beer and watch this!" commonly reported to be what "Billy Bob" said just before he got bit? I never realized that it might have been olfactory stimulation that triggered biting behavior. I suppose if you were to throw in BBQ sauce odors and wood smoke, it could be courting a real disasterous attack!  | |||
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