...And I wish they werent available for everybody.
Thats absolutely unreal. Maybe in another world.
Accidents happen. If the 20 year old idiot of your neighbour forgets closing the lid on the black mamba, de P.Fera, the Puff adder...It is a bit of an everyone corncern.
What, then, do you think the role of experts is in this community, if not to instruct and guide the up-and-coming hobbyists and help them make good decisions about what to keep?
That is not a logical response to ANY risk. You can't choose to not drive, not go out of your home, etc. on the premise that "one cannot make sure that ___ won't happen, therefore nobody should ____." This is a ridiculous level of fear of accident. Operating on your paradigm, I would never go wilderness hiking, fishing, mountain climbing...I could be killed in any of those activities. I couldn't even drive...because, who knows...my brakes might fail.
You're right, far more deaths and injuries occur per-capita of car owners than occur per-capita of snake and spider owners combined. Cars are much more dangerous to keep than snakes are.
Again, you accept somebody driving past you on the street--that is a risk you have gotten used to. Don't you see the inherent risk with a car moving at 40 mph only yards away from a sidewalk? Isn't that a crazy risk, to have moving vehicles so close to people they could hit--and DO hit all the time? And yet, you accept this deliberate and dangerous behaviour because you are acclimated to it, and because people are generally very responsible. And yet, accidents happen quite frequently. Do you think cars should be kept away from all pedestrians and residential zones? I tell you, there is no difference between safe drivers operating their vehicles near others, and safe hobbyists keeping their scorpions and spiders near others also.
Home? Alone? With no nearby neighbors? Go for it. Their blast radius is pretty short.
On a racetrack, sure. There's a place for that. There is also a place for keeping venomous inverts: a locked closet or invert-room. Problem solved.
That is a modern European worldview: regulate everything, don't trust the individual, government is the answer. I reject that. Individuals are smart enough to decide what is best for themselves. As Ronald Reagan said: "I don't believe in a government that protects us from ourselves."
There is no reason to be offended. I was not applying that description to you.
I was 6 months old when my family moved to Ireland, which was home until I was 13. I travelled back and forth between the US and Ireland, England, and the Continent extensively and frequently. Comparing cultures is how I grew up. When we returned permanently to the US I spent the next several years in culture shock, trying to come to terms with life in the US. I am very much a "third-culture kid." Trust me, I understand Europe, and I understand Europeans. I'm also finishing up an M.A. degree in European history. I have extensively studied 18th-century colonial and Early-Republic America, at the 300-level, and at the 700-level. As per my position, I co-taught Survey of Early American History at my university.
I wasn't even thinking of any other species of spider, let alone another type of animal, but just considering the subject at hand, Phoneutria. But since you mention it, I don't think they are worse than cobras or puff adders and I don't condone them, either.
Well Fran...no stupid ideas but really man...get a grip....there is no stupidity in my post but yours..:?..
I have a mind that can see beyond the spiders web...yours seems to get caught up in it
Well Fran...no stupid ideas but really man...get a grip....there is no stupidity in my post but yours..:?..
simply put there are way more phoneutria in Brazil than there are cars in USA and cars in the USA kill more people than phoes bite people dry or otherwise......hmmm my spidey sense is tingling...I see another useless crusade by someone that can't read between the lines coming up.
Man I wonder how many mistakes have happened by all the folk keeping these ;]
