# Another New England "Puff Adder"!



## imported_Varanus (Mar 9, 2011)

Hi All,

Here's another "Puff Adder"I've had in rehab now for several months following a severe "spading", from which no one thought he would recover. So glad we didn't euth now!! Just waiting a warm morning for release.

Appologies for the thread title to any hot keepers.


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## saximus (Mar 9, 2011)

Aww poor thing. Why did they not kill it? Did they realise after the first hit it was only a Bluey? Glad to hear you've rehabed it so well


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## reptilife (Mar 9, 2011)

Geez! Looks like he copped the spade good and proper! 

Great that he has made a good recovery. Well done!


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## saratoga (Mar 9, 2011)

Sickening that people do this to animals...but really well done in nursing it back to health!!


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## hugsta (Mar 9, 2011)

Was it done on purpose or by accident? I have a few resident bluies around my house that I see here and there and the other week I was doing some landscaping and took the toes of a bluey that I did not see under the mulch. He/she was only small, maybe 20cm TL, but brought it in for some betadine and a few days to rest and was promplty released back from where it came from. I have seen it a few times since then and he/she is powering along.


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## Snake Catcher Victoria (Mar 9, 2011)

Well done, good to see you didnt just go for euthing the little guy.
As Huggy said, they cammo well in the grass,mulch ect and are easily accidently injured.
Im caring for one at the moment that was attacked by a dog, but Im not to hopeful.


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## imported_Varanus (Mar 9, 2011)

The gardener from a local primary school was moving a large sheet of black plastic off the ground, saw a "puff adder" and sliced at it with a spade while it was moving around under the plastic, so I'd say deliberate. The really sad thing is that this isn't the only puff adder call I've had, even from people who have lived here all their lives and should have seen Bluies before. Some people will even tell you the animal was hit by a car, even though there's no crush injuries or degloving but there is a large slicing wound.

That's what never ceases to amaze me is that an animal in such a state, if given a little iodine, a warm place to stay and some food often can make a full recovery.

Yeah, I'll think twice about euthing anything in the future. When this guy(?) came in, the backend had little or no movement and the wound was so deep our local vet thought the spine had been severed.

Good luck with your little Bluie Baz, apparently infection is more of a problem with dog/ cat attacks, even when the wound seems minor.


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## hugsta (Mar 9, 2011)

I had a call out to brown snake in a local school a few years ago. I spoke to the guy who called it in and asked him about the animal. Was definately a brown snake he said, as he had grown up on a farm and had seen plenty. He saw it come acroos the grass playing feild and into the maintainence shed at which point he shut the door and blocked it in. He confirmed it was a brown snake on many times as I tend to keep asking the similar questions to find out any more info. So with great caution I opened the door and started pulling all the bins and lawn mowers out etc etc. Taking my time and checking everything on the way out. Finally in the back of the room I found a blue tongue and when I showed him he said it must have eaten the brown snake. I really shouldn't have laughed so much, it was a great story. As I bagged up the bluey and headed back to the car he said I put all the stuff back, not likely, my job is to remove the venomous brown snakes, that's all and I left. The guys face was sooo red when I pulled out the bluey, really was a funny day.


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## imported_Varanus (Mar 9, 2011)

Nothing suprises me anymore, most people are very reasonable, but it's the extreme cases that are easier to recall.

My first New England "puff adder" event happened when I was in a shop and an older fella came in telling his mate behind the counter that he had "just killed a nest of puff adders". I happened to overhear and said I would be interested to see them, so he takes me around the corner to an undeveloped residential block, lifts a piece of corro up and points to a mass of still writhing bodies. You guessed it, a large female Blue who, I assume, had just given birth to several young! "Can't you see the legs", I said, "Oh Yeah, I hadn't noticed" was the reply!! Very sad.


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## saximus (Mar 9, 2011)

Wow that would have been so upsetting to see...


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## benjamind2010 (Mar 10, 2011)

Boy, that makes me angry to hear about this. I understand why people kill snakes, but bluetongues, c'mon what a joke!


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## spongebob (Mar 10, 2011)

Few years back an English tourist out near Windsor on the Hawkesbury picked up a bluey and got bitten several times. Thing was it was an adder and he ended up in hospital! So I guess to the uninitiated they must look kind of similar.


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## Spot_the_mac (Mar 10, 2011)

man death adders and blueys are hard to tell apart after 25 drinks, just ask that dood from del rio


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## vampstorso (Mar 10, 2011)

welldone!

beyond people mistaking blueys for snakes...I can't believe how fearful city kids are of them in general.
A few times now that I live in the city I've picked them up to move them (roads/drive ways etc) and everyone freaks and says how vicious it is. 


Happy to see this guy made it! and what a cutie he is!


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## Elapidae1 (Mar 11, 2011)

I had one recently where the husband said they had contained a small dugite but his wife had seen a much bigger one as well. Turns out she was just to afraid to dispose of the one she had killed and made the story of the larger one up. It wasn't even a Dugite and I was pretty pissed to find a little whip snake, a critter I'm still yet to see alive.
View attachment 190084


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## Psilo (Mar 11, 2011)

poor lil fella, much respect yo you IV


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## sarcastocrat (Mar 11, 2011)

We don't even have puff adders in Australia, do we? I thought they were from Africa. Do you get adders up in the New England area?


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## vampstorso (Mar 11, 2011)

steve1 said:


> I had one recently where the husband said they had contained a small dugite but his wife had seen a much bigger one as well. Turns out she was just to afraid to dispose of the one she had killed and made the story of the larger one up. It wasn't even a Dugite and I was pretty pissed to find a little whip snake, a critter I'm still yet to see alive.
> View attachment 190084


 
if people REALLY feel the need to kill wildlife...they could at least do it cleanly...looks like that poor fella took a fair few extremely nasty shots none of which would've killed it straight off the bat :\


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## Elapidae1 (Mar 11, 2011)

Yes I think she used a stiff bristled garden broom.


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## robwilco76 (Mar 23, 2011)

I've never head of the puff adder before... it makes me really angry that people are so naive... or are they really? Perhaps they are just banjo pluckin, straw chewing inbred red necks... "ayuh, this'n's a puff adder alright. Best get the axe, son".


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## Bez84 (Mar 23, 2011)

Story i constantly hear from people is that the local pythons are now venemous due to cross breeding with the red bellys and browns....No matter how hard you try to explain thats the dumbest thing youve ever heard there convinced there right and there cousins brothers hairdresser can back up there story completely.


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## SteveNT (Mar 23, 2011)

Some people are just ignorant and respond to anything out of the ordinary like TV told them to. 
Forums like this are brilliant at edjumukating folk.

Our bhp has turned a few snake haters into snake lovers.

Good onya mate. Your good deeds are appreciated (if only the real puff adders had blokes like you!)


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## imported_Varanus (Mar 24, 2011)

I've heard the cross breeding pythons one too, it's a doosey, especially when they dig a bigger trench for themselves by explaining how it happens! Most people I find are pretty good, it's just the odd stories that tend to stand out and I've found there's little point arguing. "Some mother's do ave em'".

I should mention, nice outcome for this little fella. I had a call a few months ago from the biggest, scariest bloke I've ever met (an ex "Rebels" bikie). He phoned because a neighbouring dog had just killed his back yard bluetongue and he wanted me to remove the carcass, also , he was just interested to talk reptiles. When I left, he was literally in tears, crying and hugging me. Anyway, to cut a long story short, he now has a new "backyard bluie"!!


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## crocdoc (Mar 25, 2011)

Well done, Richard!


spongebob said:


> Few years back an English tourist out near Windsor on the Hawkesbury picked up a bluey and got bitten several times. Thing was it was an adder and he ended up in hospital! So I guess to the uninitiated they must look kind of similar.


He was a local and Australian, but severely inebriated. The newspapers interviewed me at work about it. What got me was that it was reported as a 'snake attack' in the paper, whereas to me it sounded very much like a 'man attack'. Snake minding its own business until a drunk guy harassed it. 

To add to the 'puff adder' and 'brown snake' stories, many years ago (before I learned to disregard the observational skills of 99% of the lay public) I got a call from a Canadian acquaintance living in Sydney. He and his flatmates were frantic, as their cat found a snake in their yard and was hissing at it. The snake had since retreated into a burrow or under something, but was described as being short and thick, with an angular head and dark and light bands down its body. Good description of a death adder, I thought, so I told them to ring me the next time they saw it and I'd relocate it. For the next three days I'd get a call, invariably after the snake had been chased back down its hole by the cat, with yet another description. On the last day the description included "oh, I noticed today that it had tiny little legs". When I told them it wasn't a snake, but a lizard called a blue tongue, the response was "but the legs were only little". I shouldn't have laughed, but I asked how small a lizard's legs would have to be before it qualified as a snake.



Bez84 said:


> Story i constantly hear from people is that the local pythons are now venemous due to cross breeding with the red bellys and browns....No matter how hard you try to explain thats the dumbest thing youve ever heard there convinced there right and there cousins brothers hairdresser can back up there story completely.


 I first heard this a few years ago from a guy I worked with and was later shocked to discover it was a common story. When I explained the impossibility of this he nodded with a "yeah, and what the f would you know" sort of look, for he grew up on a farm and I grew up in Canada.

Over the years I've heard a lot of bizarre stories relating to reptiles and I continue to hear them from the public at my workplace (I work in a zoological institution). I love those stories, as long as they don't lead to harm to the animal (which unfortunately they often do). Most people have a slim grasp of biology and physics anyway, but when you add an animal that they find creepy and fail to comprehend, it seems anything is possible.


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## BLACKY75 (Mar 25, 2011)

The funniest one I have ever heard was after relocating a brown tree snake, I went to the pub for a beer when a old local proceeded to tell me about a harrowing run in with a hoop snake, apparently it grabbed it tail in its mouth and roll down the hill after him. I was speechless and didn't know whether laugh or what. I couldn't bring myself to argue the point with old guy. The old cross breeding carpets story gets trotted out all the time, I just tell them you would ahve a better chance cross breeding your dog with a cat


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## richardsc (Mar 27, 2011)

nice job with the bluey,some folk are terrified of them just like they are of snakes and do the same thing,some even think they are venomous.

there pretty tough so well worth the effort in rehabilitating


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