Goanna kills dog and bites elderly couple

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I don't mind burying the hatchet, even if its in each other backs , but not over an issue like this.

Ive put up here why I took offence at your method of dealing with an EB, and I tried to extend the olive branch of friendship post 15.

I've kept it up for a couple of reasons (as immature as my method may have been) not because I want to get involved in your life, but because people read this stuff.
There's quite a bit of duality in your arguments like for eg, your post saying the dogs have saved your life a few times from EB's, but now you talk of one EB encounter in the yard.
You didn't bother to read my post 15, because you preferred to try and belittle me again, yet you refer back to it..... There's others, but water under the bridge.

Put it this way - if I want to learn about turtles, I'll find someone with experience like you to ask.

Quote - "Please refer back to post #37... simply calling a snake catcher is not always an option...(it doesn't have to be, more often than not I attempt to talk the people into not having me come out) it makes perfect sense if a snake was encountered in the shed, one could simply back out, shut the door, take all the merry time in the world call someone to come remove it,( Not necessarily, only if the snake thinks you didn't see it and it is curled up resting, otherwise because of the flighty nature of EB's it will vacate the way it came in and it will be gone before I get there.) happy days. When there's kids being kids in a suburban back yard playing ball, crashing through the garden beds etc there's a HIGH risk of them being bitten totally unawares and not even realising.(There is a risk I'll give you that, it isn't high risk, it's relatively low. If you are concerned that it really actually is a HIGH risk then before you go letting them "crash through the garden beds", go through the garden yourself with a rake or a hose, because the truth is snakes are coming and going anyway, the fact that you see one, one day doesn't mean they haven't been and gone many times.) You're not gettimg my point, this isn't about calmly finding a snake in the yard and safely removing it, this is I don't want an EB in.the yard period.(Normal thought process, please refer to my previous comment) The only way for me to ensure the kid's safety is to lock them inside 24/7 or have the dogs do what they do best and keep the yard free of potentially hazardous wildlife.(this is incorrect, There is no reason whatsoever for you to stop your kids being kids. The ONLY way to ensure they survive a snakebite is Teach your kids about snakes - Have the proper first aid on- site easy to reach- and teach them how to apply it. You can do this with them as often as you like, have them remove any jewellery because of swelling, apply the bandages, splints, mark the bite site, time of bite... to each other in a mock up scenario, drum it into them if that makes you feel better. I honestly don't know why we don't do this at school. Teach them to make a "mock" call to 000.. teach them to remain calm and sit and wait for the ambulance. Done correctly this will buy you 5-8 hrs of time, which is plenty in suburbia. The only risk and the reason why a bite is fatal is because the person who got bitten, and the people around doesn't know the correct first aid) If you can't see that then we'll never settle this.( guess we'll never settle it then) I'm not having my kids terrified to go outdoors cos there's possibly a snake hiding in the bushes that could bite them if they stepped on it or put their hand on it while retrieving a ball etc.(Then don't teach them to fear snakes then, I have had three kids, all are now adults, they grew up in semi-rural area with plenty of bush and they led a childhood just like me , charging through the bush playing armies , paintball etc with a heap of other local kids. I am the local snake catcher, I would remove snakes from their backyards and ours occasionally and still do, sometimes from inside houses too. Having a snake turn up in a yard or a house is pretty common, but rare the same house or yard on a regular basis. Truth is most of my call-outs are only ever to new places, not re-visiting the same, This only occurs occasionally ) We're not in the bush we're in the middle of suburbia, I'm pretty amazed we even had an EB all the way in here (In my opinion - Learn't over many years there may be actually more snakes in suburbia then in the bush. My reasons for this thinking is that we provide the perfect habitat for us and for rodents. We can't seperate ourselves from them, it's impossible, we supply rodents with absolutely everything they need to thrive. The bush will only ever supply enough for a certain volume of species. Don't write me off here, you said I never answer your questions earlier.)... the snakes can have the rest of the damn country ( They already do, in fact they have the rest of the whole planet, for a creature that has only got a mouth, an **** and a limbless body between, I find it fascinating that it has colonised every inch of this planet, except for the very deep oceans and the permafrost areas they are everywhere, no other species come close except for maybe birds, but they can fly) , this is my small piece of ground and it's declared snake free.(They don't recognise fence lines, or any human ideas, like the word drought. They are simple, dumb animals that are only interested in survival. The EB came to your yard on the smell of rodent, snakes don't know if we are in a drought or not, and trust me in suburbia they will get a drink if they want one. If it drank from your dog water bowl, or pond it was a secondary reaction to why it was there. If a snake dies in a drought it will be from lack of food and they die where they lie. I have personally found and heard from other snake men about finding snakes curled up as if asleep but dead next to what was once a water filled billabong full of life. They don't go in search of water as far as I know, If George or someone else, Sdaji or another long term herper wants to weigh in here please be my guest) If the situation panned out differently like the brown was encountered in the shed, there's no way the dog would have been put on it, but that wasn't the case, I literally stepped on it.(you weren't bitten. The snake went ape sh$# because you scared the hell out of it, and the only thing it can do is bung on a threat response. It was amazing you weren't bitten,...but on one hand I have more true encounters where people weren't bitten then they were.From stepping or bumping a snake Unfortunately, the extreme toxicity of an EB certainly makes it one you don't want to get bitten by. But EB's are one of the fastest snakes to get out of our way, most people never see them , if anything its a tail disappearing ) The rest is history and I'd do the exact same thing again.( It is no more then unfortunate that you see it that way, but like I said I don't put this up here to get involved in your life, but your reaction, wether you want to believe me or not, is a fear based reaction. My advice, take it or leave it, is to learn as much about the animal as possible and you will negate the fear, and your kids will grow up without it as well. I don't fear snakes because I know them and how they react, I have the utmost respect for them though, especially Taipan, brown, death adder, tiger, black, all hoppo's,and just about every other species that has the potential to hospitalise me, and to be honest if I get tagged it is my fault, just like it isn't the snakes fault if it ends up in your backyard. Your kids have much more to fear in life than snake bite, but that doesn't mean be blaze'. Trust me ,I have bagged animals that afterwards I have had to sit down and calm myself because of the act of catching some large elapids. I'm no hero. But all the snake wants is to get away from me, it is me stupidly trying to catch the animal, never the other way around, it is my fault if I get tagged. 90 odd % of bites are from people trying to catch or KILL the snake, the other 10% are accidents. There are much more common ways of ending up in hospital and I know what its like to be a father, if you've got daughters like mine, snakes are the least of concern, education is the best way but as you have demonstrated not the only way.

Enjoy your weekend, I hope you never have to send the dogs onto another snake, period.
Sincerely.
 
Thank you Cement (I feel ridiculous calling you that - if I knew your actual name, I'd use it now) for taking the time to reply. Believe me, I'm not a heartless ven destroyer, I do have a very healthy respect for all Aussie vens and it's based on a generous dose of fear. I'm not at all ashamed to admit that. I don't have a phobia of snakes, I just prefer those that could end my life to give me as much distance as I give them. I do not go looking for trouble... I am an adrenalin junkie but I don't have a death wish. I'll pick up T's, scorps, pedes etc no worries but I'm not playing back yard hero like many do trying to pick up or beat a snake with a rake or whatever and film in in the process. In the field when I see a ven, I don't even approach it for a photo, I'm heading the other way. Holding that dead EB just behind the head was the closest I ever want to get to one again and the pic does not show how much my hand was shaking. I probably didn't sit still for 3 hours after that after having returned from the vet with my dogs and I kept looking over my legs trying to reassure myself that no it didn't tag me, it's all in your head, it's not an exercise I wish to repeat. Whilst a lot of what you said makes sense in reality it's just not practical... I.mean who is literally going to comb a 1000 square metre block every time the kids head outside? By the time I was done they'd be over it and playing Nintendo.. . Kids today, attention spans of moths. Not having a go at you I mean it's just not practical.. mine are 8 and 10... they're not thinking "beware of snakes" they're thinking wow I'm going to catch that butterfly, running blindly tripping over **** as they go. However High low medium the risk is doesn't matter to me if my daughter's got tagged by a brown there's a chance they might not even realise it... just think they got a scrape from one of their mum's rose bushes and I find them dead in the sand pit half hour later... I don't want to even think about it...

Again, thanks for the time you've taken out of your evening.
All the best.
 

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