To Kill or not to Kill

[swagman]

Its been a very miled winter in Tasmania this year so miled infact that there is talk
the snakes havent hibonated this year. Its been a warm spring and lookes like its
going to be a hot summer. I got up thismorning and theres a tiger snake crossing my drive.
I dont mind snakes but i have two dogs. Alot of Aussies i know say to shoot them
what would you do?.
And yes i do know its elegal to kill a snake.

 

[Dougster]

If it's illegal, noone here will openly tell you to break the law. This is a pub discussion rather than a forum one.

 

[swagman]

If it's illegal, noone here will openly tell you to break the law. This is a pub discussion rather than a forum one.

Foxhunting with dogs is illegal in the uk but people still do it.

 

[david1]

Foxhunting with dogs is illegal in the uk but people still do it.

no they dont I think what happens is there out walking and a fox pops up...

 

[irishlostboy]

from my point of view, if you are not going to eat it, don't kill it. anything else is sport hunting, and something i feel is a pathetic expression of repressed masculinity. but thats just me. as regards the safety of your dogs, i think if your dogs are not trained/ too stupid to stay away from dangerous creatures, you need new dogs anyway. if your dog runs about in the roads, are you going to shoot the car that runs it over?
you cannot kill every dangerous creature. especially not in Tasmania! so instead, why not look to preventative measures to the problems caused by them?

as regards fox hunting; thats not even funny.

 

[david1]

guess you dont keep live stock

 

[pothunter]

Hi Swagman

I assume from your comments that a tiger snake is venomous and potentially lethal to dogs.

If so then my personal inclination would be to remove it by one means or another. Something to consider is that if they have not hibernated how will this effect their breeding this year, will they breed? Is this good or bad?

Irishlostboy, how is the world of vegan bunny huggers. How can killing be repressed it's the ultimate aggressive act however its the performed. As for being a 'masculine' act there are plenty of lady's out there that are very capable. Dog's are naturally inquisitive and very few are as 'stupid' as your comments.

Pothunter.

 

[irishlostboy]

guess you dont keep live stock

actually we keep chickens back home. free range. only once did we have a fox try get at the chickens. it was a cold miserable winter, and i guess he had no other choice. one chicken lost an eye. the chicken killed the fox though.
and as for sheep, any ewe will protect her lamb. if she doesn't odds are he is non-viable anyway.
at the end of the day though, you were not talking about hunting, or pest control, and we both know it. what you were talking about is cruel predatory behavior inflicted on a creature in its natural environment for thrills. its illegal for a reason, and its unfair to raise the subject here with the tone of justifyng it, and its unfair that my introduction to these forums is to have to point this out.

 

[Templar]

As a fellow Aussie all I will say is, if it is not an immediate threat to human life and limb leave it alone, unfortunately pets are not covered by this clause in the law and so snakes cannot legally be destroyed under this pretense.

I have a few dogs of my own and know how you feel on the matter, I woudn't want anything to happen to them either, but we can't just kill the snake because it is in the yard...

Cheers,

Karl

 

[John Fenna]

Although not a Vegan bunny hugger -( is that term meant as ridicule? I find it more of a compliment) and quite happy to kill to eat, I find it offensive that creatures are killed for "sport"
I will quite happily kill a bunny for food, but will not kill a slug as it does me no harm.
As to slugs eating my produce, they can have what I am too dumb/lazy to protect (with non-poluting methods.
Not an ideal solution but we live in the real world.
I belive that all life has value (including vegetable life) and no life should be thoughtlessly destroyed.
Just my 2p worth.

 

[pothunter]

Hi John

I quite respect your comments and views, but resent being preached to by Irishlostboy who's now wishing to become some kind of moral police his comment 'its illegal for a reason, and its unfair to raise the subject here with the tone of justifyng it, and its unfair that my introduction to these forums is to have to point this out.' I have just reread Swagmans post and he is posing a question, a question that deserves constructive comment and helpful suggestions not condemnation.

As for killing for sport I enjoy hunting, I don't always kill what I hunt preferring to be selective and none of what I kill goes to waste and I enjoy what I do, does this make me a bad person. The alternative is to delegate the responsibility to others in slaughter houses who rarely care about what they do and some of the practices I find quite disgusting.

Non of this has however has addressed the situation regarding the tiger snake, what do you suggest.

Pothunter.

 

[commandocal]

just prod it away with a big stick, but if its going to endanger you and your dogs and its hovering about just run it over

 

[pierre girard]

Growing up on the farm, we shot lots of things we didn't eat. This was no hobby farm, it wqs our livelyhood. Fox, hawks, bears, wolves, owls, gophers, badgers, mink, skunks, weasels. If you only had fox get after your chickens once - you didn't have many fox around. Shot a lot of dogs too. Get a dog that likes to kill sheep and it will kill all of them - and never eat a one. We'd shoot dogs that chased deer too. The law here says (my paraphrase) "You SHALL shoot dogs chasing deer."

 

[British Red]

I'm with pierre on this one. Shooting vermin is normal farming practice (well shooting, trapping and poisoning to be honest). Vermin covers anything thats injurious to health or livelihood.

Anyone who thinks badly of this wants to consider what they would do if a wasp made a nest in a living room or there were rats in their house. Same thing for us country folk. Vermin need to be erradicated quickly, cleanly and efficiently. I don't eat rats but I do shoot them.

As for the poisonous snakes - if it was just passing through then I'd let it go. On the other hand if a large number of them made there home and were harming my animals (as some snakes do by taking eggs for example) I'd deal with them - legally of course

Red

 

[C_Claycomb]

Irishboy, David1 and Pothunter.
Please knock it off.
It never ceases to amaze me what people can start kicking off over. Swagman posts a question about how to deal with venemous snakes in Tasmania, and the next thing is that people are going off about the ethics and practicalities of fox hunting in the UK and sport hunting/varmint control.

I am no expert, but I believe that the law here says that you cannot use dogs to kill any wild animal. The loop hole that is used in the case of foxes is that the law does permit dogs to be used to flush game from cover where it is then killed with a gun, or bird of prey. It would probably be best NOT to get into the whole UK fox hunting business any more than can be helped since it is the kind of topic that will just go round in circles and get everyone annoyed with each other...and probably get the thread locked.

Swagman.
Dougster is spot on. Most of us aren't going to know the particulars of your local laws, as you are not completely familiar with ours, but you say that it is illegal to kill snakes, so, what do you want from us here? To tell you that its okay to break your local laws? That isn't a discussion for this forum. On top of that, we have so few snakes in the UK that I would expect that any advice you get from the British contingent should be taken under advisement.

Is there anything that you can do to keep the number of snake prey items down on your property?

 

[John Fenna]

OK - fair enough -
Pothunter, if you eat what you kill and dont always kill what you hunt that seems totally logical to me your "sport" being what I would call getting your own food on the one hand and nature watching on the other - not killing for sport, which in my terms of reference means killing for the sake of killing and making no use of the death of a living thing. I am sure you try to kill what you take as cleanly as possible, sometyhing most eaters of clingfilm wrapped, supermarket meat do not even thing about on a regular basis.
As to controlling the numbers of creatures that can cause me and mine imediate harm - if there is no reasonable way to avoid the situation then yes, with a heavy heart, I would kill the living thing endangering me and mine, be it a fox or dog taking my sheep, a wasp in my living-room or a bacterium in my hospital. I have killed my share of rats, but hated having to do it, and have tried not leathal methods of keeping them away from where they can cause me problems (ultra-sonic deterents work to a degree but over a very short range).
It is destroying life wastefully or for the pleasure of killing that I find offensive.
As to the snake, if possible avoid killing it, if it is a real and present danger and cannot be avoided then kill it cleanly and do not cause it suffering. If we kill things because they MAY pose a danger at some time then most of the worlds creatures would already be extinct....
I am not out to judge anyone, but I do not condone taking any life without there being a better reason than it being fun or totally without any thought at all.
John

 

[Cairodel]

as regards the safety of your dogs, i think if your dogs are not trained/ too stupid to stay away from dangerous creatures, you need new dogs anyway.

I'm not going to get into the general discussion on hunting/killing etc, but I think you
should drop the "Irish" from your forum name...
Your comment about dogs, as I think somebody else has mentioned, is just plain silly....
If something moves, a dog is going to have a look. How the flump do you train them to
stay away from snakes...????

I placed a thread on here some time ago after a camping trip in Sinai...
SWMBO and I were sitting playing cards when Skye, our German Shepherd jumped up

(Skye)

and moved toward the front of our tarp shelter. When I saw something move, I called her
back, which she did, and I saw this little saw-scaled viper,

which, when I traced its tracks back, had slithered unnoticed between SWMBO's flip-flop
clad tootsies on his way through...
Saw-scaled viper venom is deadly, but I got him (I think) into a tupperware-type box, and
carried him about 100m away, where I released him amongst some bushes.
To answer Swagman, my view is that we were camping in HIS home, and as such, he had
every right to be there...
HOWSOVERYEVER, the bedouin in Sinai will kill any viper they see... but.... it is also
THEIR home, and if you are bitten by one of these chappies and are more than 30min
from a hospital, you are in very serious trouble, so I can appreciate their point of view as
well if they find one in or around their homes.
About 10 minutes later, after SWMBO had decided to zip herself up inside the tent,
This little chappie came in for a visit, and suffered the same fate as
the viper, but in a different direction.....

As I said, when out-and-about, we're invading somebody/something's territory, and should
accept that there may be things that could harm us, but that we should not neccessarily
harm them, as generally they will only do so if WE provoke THEM...

Edited to say that BTW, "illegal" depends entirely on your location, and I have no idea of the laws in
Tasmania, but there is no such consideration here...

 

[swagman]

Thanks to all the people who gave a constructive comment.

I knew this thread would be looked down on by some, but as someone who spends a lot of time reading on this forum where else would I go for advice or an opinion? I am not a cruel person hence the reason that I did not and have not killed a snake. The reason that I asked the question is that I do worry about my dogs. I have tried to take every precaution to protect them whilst they are in their pen, but I do worry abut them when they are running around the main garden. If anybody has any other ideas about what snakes maybe don't like, to help protect my dogs in the main garden, please let me know.

I do not want to kill a snake but it is my responsibility to protect my dogs. It is a difficult position to be in.

 

[Cairodel]

Swagman, I believe there are certain plants that are supposed to be repellant to snakes,
that could be planted around the area your dogs are in, but you'd have to do a "search"...

 

[irishlostboy]

but I think you
should drop the "Irish" from your forum name...

***? i am irish. is that a problem? where are you coming from with this?