by BushSnake » Tue Aug 18, 2009 1:30 pm
joef_connor, if you feel like making comments such as the one above you are more than welcome to leave this forum for good! Yes, some snakes are dangerous, but with a little bit of knowledge and common sense you can decrease the chance that you will get bitten dramatically. It is like saying you will make an accident if you drive on the road. There are accidents, and some could have been avoided, but a lot of people go through their lives without being in an accident. This forum is there to teach people about the correct way to do things, not to scare them away!
So Mgiddings, I would strongly recommend you do that course with your father. Half of my family also suffer from a fear of snakes but you will be surprised to see how quickly their attitudes change once they see people handling snakes like it should be done, and not like is is shown on TV! I've done Mike's handling course, as well as the mamba handling course, and even though it is quite expensive it does not way up against the costs of an accident that could have been avoided. If you have a passion for snakes, you will at some point in time want to catch a dangerous snake and it is far better learning how to do that in a controlled environment than learning it for yourself where you may make unnecessary mistakes!
We must remember that a photograph can hold just as much as we put into it, and no one has ever approached the full possibilities of the medium - Ansel Adams