elapids

[saltyballs]

hey guys, I'm wondering how one goes about preparing for keeping venomous snakes. just curious at his point but keeping one is of interest to me. obviously experience is needed but i don't see how just keeping pythons would prepare someone for that. so yeah if anyone has any experience or stories id be keen to hear them.

also are they really worth the potential hospital trip? for me watching my pythons grow and there patterns come out and building there enclosures to help them thrive among other things is a huge pay off to keeping them. and monitors for example can be very rewarding to keep if tamed well and that but I'm finding hard to find real info on elapids to come to a real conclusion on if i would keep them. helpfully some people here can shed some light.

 

[dragonlover1]

First up I have never owned or handled elapids, but know a few friends who have.
But in NSW at least, you have to do a first aid course,a venomous handling course, have secure enclosures and have a secure lockable room.
Before you even get to that stage you must have kept R1 colubrid or elapid species for 2 years just to get the upgrade to R2, pythons aren't the stepping stone.
Even then basic elapids like Red Belly are R3, so if you want things like death adders R4, you are looking at a 6 to 8 year process.
Personally I will stick with the things I have , the most potentially dangerous things I keep are Lace monitors. My pythons and dragons won't kill me.

 

[saltyballs]

Yeah I think the laws are similar in QLD. But!! I looked into it after posting this thread and the page i found said that a read belly is only are R1 and same first aid and stuff but you only need to have kept a snake for one year. That kinda blew me away. Didn't see anything about the escape proof room but there was quite a few ways to get approval. I didn't cheak any dates on the pdf I was reading but it was on the QLD government website so I think its current. If anyone wants it I can try find it again and post the link. Basically it said you just need to prove you know what your doing. I think the minimum is first aid corse and a vens handling corse

 

[Sdaji]

When I started keeping elapids no one had ever imagined a handling course, you just decided you were ready, it was up to you. I got my license as a teenager, I was under 18 and the rule was that you weren't supposed to be given a license to keep elapids that young, but I sent in my money and they sent me the license. Back then most of us were self taught, we just learned to catch snakes playing out in the forest as kids. I think that worked much better than a course which really doesn't teach you anything much but gives you a certificate saying you're competent which gives people the misconception that they're competent and ready. Back when the onus was on the individual, the individual made the judgement, and for the most part it worked much better than today's way of doing things. The NSW system of 'you've kept a python for x years so you're ready for a Brown Tree Snake and after another x years you're ready for a deadly elapid' is somewhere well beyond insane. Some people are perfectly capable of keeping deadly elapids as their first snakes (back when I was first keeping snakes this wasn't too unusual) and others will never be able to do it safely. Telling people they're ready because they've jumped through an arbitrary hoop is stupid and irresponsible, and telling people they're not competent when they clearly are is ridiculous too. When I applied for a license to keep elapids in NSW (at that stage I'd kept and bred large numbers of elapids, been licensed to collect wild deadly snakes for venom collection and research, trained other people, published articles on elapid keeping, had plenty of highly accomplished and well known keepers and handlers vouching for my ability, had done snake removals on license sometimes with high profile snake catchers) they declined me because I hadn't previously had any license in NSW so they wanted to start me as a beginner! Australia truly is a ridiculous nanny state.

If you want someone holding your hand while you learn (which is perfectly reasonable) you can usually find elapid keepers and/or field herpers willing to let you tag along with them on their adventures and chores and have a go.

 

[GBWhite]

Hi,

I mightn't live in Qld or be all that that familiar with their licensing system but do have quite a bit of experience with captive vens.

I live in NSW and have held a R4 reptile keepers license (that allows me to keep all species of Australian snakes including highly venomous species) for just on 30 years. Elapids aren't that hard to keep. In fact some are even easier to maintain than pythons. The primary concern is safety and not just for the keeper but house hold members, neighbours and visitors. So it's a case of respect for the critter, knowledge of each individual species husbandry requirements, no showing off or free handling, locked cages, locked room, knowledge of snake bite first aid and elastic bandages on hand in case of a mishap. Over this time I've kept everything from Tais and Death Adders to what I currently hold in the way of Red Bellied Blacks, Tigers and Colletts.

Just like Sdaji, when I first started my adventure with herps it was a situation where we were self taught and I actually cut my teeth with reptiles catching wild vens as a kid back in the 1960s. Back then we'd spend our weekends and school holidays either riding our bikes or catching trains to comb local bush haunts, cemeteries and national parks in search of snakes as well as other reptiles. Couldn't count the number of Red Bellied Blacks, Eastern Browns, Tigers, Broad Headed Snakes, Yellow Faced Whips, Small Eyes, Swamp (Marsh) Snakes, Golden Crowns and Mustard Bellied Snakes (aka Rhodogasters and more recently Blue Mountains Crowned Snake) I caught back then. But I can tell you that there were days spent down south of Nowra with like minded mates when we would regularly turn up over 100 Whips and a similar number of Small Eyes plus a couple of dozen Broad Heads and Rhodogasters in a single day. There were no licensing or restrictions in place back then but we pretty much practiced catch and release with only the odd specimen taken to add to our collections or to swap with others.

In fact the first snake I caught was a Red Bellied Black at Earlwood NSW followed by a juvenile Eastern Brown at George's River National Park just south of Revesby NSW. All before I was 12 years old.

Like Sdaji, I'm not for these 2 day snake courses to learn how to handle vens, In fact I believe they are pretty useless and as Sdaji alludes can provide a sense of false confidence for the good intentioned but inexperienced punter. I was one of the original "snake Catchers/relocators" in NSW way back in the 1970's when the service was undertaken on a voluntary basis at the request of NSW NPWS. My wife was actually one of WIRES original snake handling trainers and the number of people who did the course, went out thinking they were a snake handler/catcher to engage a hot Brown to only quickly find out that it was not as easy as it appeared at training and many actually gave the game away soon after. Mind you it was different when WIRES introduced snake handling courses back then in the 1990's. It wasn't like it is today with all these facebook show ponies that know nothing about snake ecology, bio-dynamics or carrying capacities ply their trade. Even back in the 1990's it was a voluntary service undertaken as a community service. I still do it as a community service these days but only on vary rare occasion when someone in the community is stuck in a situation where there is potential danger to the person or persons and/or the snake. From personal knowledge and experience I am able to successfully diffuse 99% of requests for assistance over the phone. My most recent removal was only a few weeks back where I removed a highly strung Stephen's Banded Snake from inside a house in Thora near where I live in Bellingen on the NSW mid north coast.

So I'd suggest that if you are keen to keep vens and before wasting money on a snake handling course you might like to consider aligning yourself with an experienced keeper, joining a herp society or try to volunteer at a wildlife sanctuary or zoo where you'll get to meet not only keepers but also very experienced field workers who can give you tips and point you in the right direction.

Cheer,

George.

 

[saltyballs]

Last 2 comments are awesome, thanks guys.