Venomous Snake Warning

Keith's started a thread on the topic SE. I've been tagged twice also and had absolutely no ill effects. 

Edited by GemmaJF - 29 May 2012 at 11:23am

Just the sort of knee jerk nonsense one would expect after the HPA 'warning' Chris.

Unfortunately some local papers are even taking this article up and a local one here has even claimed the warning is due to "a rise in reports of sightings of adders — especially in South Derbyshire."
http://www.burtonmail.co.uk/News/Increase-in-adder-sightings-leads-to-summer-warning-25052012.htm
This is very interesting news to us because:
a) There are no adders in South Derbyshire and certainly no rise in the reports of adders. There is only one location definitely known now for adders in the National Forest and it's nowhere near South Derbyshire
b) For whatever reason the HPA issued the warning, best known to themselves, it wasn't based on increased sightings or even increased numbers of queries about adder bites.

I did lend Amy from OPAL an adder slough for showing at the Live 'n' Deadly roadshow at the National Forest Conkers Centre last year. Perhaps it was possessed by the ghost of an angry adder and bit the children at the event or perhaps it became re-animated and is now roaming South Derbyshire terrifying the local population!

Chris:  Think you should be ok, unless you are sleeping in a tent.

Gemma; That is very sad, and a reason why I don't want to move into the conservation sector, because they haven't got a clue on the needs for reptiles.

Regards
SE Reptiles Ecologist

26 degC on Mendip and definitely not the best conditions to see herps.  I caught a glimpse out of the corner of my eye of (I think) a Common Lizard and also what was probably a female Adder disappearing very quickly.  Otherwise diddly.

I did though see a superb pair of Redstarts - my first for about 20 years.

This snake bite scaremongering is similar to the bad press that sharks get.  Periodically a holiday maker will see a Basking Shark off a Cornish beach and assume it's a Great White.  Of course the newspapers love that, as "Benign Plankton Eater Seen Off Coast (Which is Actually Quite a Common Occurence)" isn't much of a headline.

I went to a lecture by the Shark Trust, about shark attacks in the UK.  Not surprisingly there've been very few.  As I recall the only fatality was many years ago when (probably) a Basking Shark knocked a small boat and someone drowned as a result.

Other UK shark attacks include a pub landlady who received head wounds, when a stuffed shark fell off the wall and onto her.  Then there was a chef who was driving to a resaurant with a 2m Porbeagle on ice in the back of his van.  When he braked sharply it shot forward and its teeth gashed his arm.

People kill 70 to 100 million sharks each year, primarily for their fins.  The fins are cut off and the sharks thrown back into the water to die.

Is there nobody or no body that could be lobbied to help protect British herps?  What about the HCT and/or Amphibian and Reptile Conservation people?  Apologies if I've missed reference to these organisations.



Edited by tim-f - 27 May 2012 at 7:04pm