Country walking? Think snakes...

Can't the HPA do something useful like ban staircases? Apparently one of the largest causes of death and personal injury in the UK. It is now an established fact that nearly as many deaths occur in the home as in road accidents. Many of these deaths are due to falls, half of which involve stairs.

There you have it, a clear thing for the HPA to do.

That can keep them busy instead of wasting money scaremongering regarding wild snakes in the UK which have accounted for, lets think, eeer.....  exactly zero deaths in the past 100 years...

 

- also don't forget that the most dangerous place is a bed - you're more likely to die there than anywhere else.  Each bed should therefore come with a mandatory health warning and training course on how to use one properly ...

 ....the only risk then will be being killed by a bulldozer 

Good job we all have a sense of humour on here it isn't it 

What happens is that more people go out in the countryside on nice days. As it appears that many these days have absolutely no sense and will pick up snakes, sit on them and walk around on heaths and in long grass in nothing more than sandals or trainers, a handful of them get bitten each year. 

I think in many cases adder are blamed for any bites, where certainly some can be attributed to insect stings, spider bites and simply thorns. Plenty of reported cases of 'adder bites'  crop up where none have ever been recorded.

It's no surprise to me a Wildlife Trust would consider itself an authority on the subject. EWT even take on consultancy work. You can guess the results, considering they came up with the gem that there were no suitable sites iin Essex for the translocation of the Gateway animals. 

I guess Suffolk Wildlilfe Trust were just afraid someone might get bitten at one of their sites over the weekend and sue them. 

I can quite honestly say I now feel there is absolutely no place for a native reptiles in the current picture of wildlife conservation. How terribly sad that is.

 

It really does seem at the moment that adder are not having much luck. I almost feel the next news I'll hear is there is some government plan to totally eradicate adder from the UK.

Adder bites normally though are certainly unpleasant and to be avoided. We don't need scaremongering though, a simple message to wear sensible footwear when out and about in the countryside and keeping dogs on leads would have done. Also of course a timely reminder that adder are a protected species. 

I am all for the public being warned about the risk of adder bite, god only knows that we don't need is a death in the UK due to one. However the HPA should have been aware of the likely public response to using language such as 'attacks'. I've been around adder a long long time, they never attack you, all bites are purely defensive from their point of view. The only things that need to fear being attacked by adders are lizards, voles and shrews!