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RE: A question for Dr. Tim Friede
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Anonymous post on May 7, 2005
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king cobra fan--
because I happen to be one with knowledge and experience. Which makes it easy to pick out the ones that don't. Including yourself. What I said was not an insult but truth. So relax.
My point was that anyone can put anything on the internet. Mr. Friede obviously gave the impression somewhere on the internet that he was a DR.
He also implies that he is learned and experienced, which only those that are not tend to believe.
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RE: A question for Dr. Tim Friede
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by septithol on May 7, 2005
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Dear Larry: I appreciate the fact that snakes are fairly asocial. I agree it would be very difficult to make an actively 'friendly' snake (like Balyaev's foxes), but I think making one which was less aggressive in the sense that it did not bite people ought to be possible. (I have heard of somewhat 'friendly' garter snakes and boas, though) Sea snakes, for instance, although highly poisonous, apparently bite people so infrequently that fishermen who catch them in their nets generally think nothing of simply grabbing them and tossing them back in the water. It is obvious that a wild sea-snake has been eating on it's own, so I think this is good evidence that the instinct to 'bite prey' and the instinct to 'bite for defense' are two seperate behaviors. A snake bred to have less of the 'bite for defense' instinct would not necessarily lack the 'bite prey' instinct and have to be forcefed.
Regarding the selective breeding of a Naja species to be MORE aggressive, which someone mentioned, this strikes me as being highly dangerous, far more so than doing the opposite. I appreciate that a more docile snake might make serpentarium workers 'complacent', however any increased danger because of that would be due to human foolishness, if the caution of people were equal around both, a snake bred for docility would be safer to work with.
Other than that, would you have a particular problem with non-poisonous species in the pet trade, such as red-tail boas and corn snakes being bred for desirable behaviors like docility or willingness to eat a variety of foods, including pre-killed animals? I do not think that 'complacency' of an owner around a non-poison snake (except a very large constrictor) would cause very much danger to him.
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RE: A question for Dr. Tim Friede
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by Chance on May 8, 2005
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Like it has already been stated a few times, you have to keep in mind here, when comparing the fox experiment to a snake (or any other reptile for that matter) one, the generic "intelligence" levels of the animals must be considered. You can bottle raise a fox kit and make it quite socialized and somewhat "tame" (though I hate using that word to describe a wild animal). You can't bottle raise or even very well socialize a snake. There is just a huge difference between how much each animal relies on pure instinct, compared to learned behaviors. That being said, I have seen footage, probably on the Discovery Channel, of that fox experiment. At least, it was something similar to it. They took some wild foxes being bred at a fur production place somewhere in Russia or Canada I believe, and picked out the most naturally docile kits, those who acted the most docile without any undue amount of human interaction. Over several generations, not only were they very nearly domesticated, but also numerous color anomalies appeared. Very interesting stuff. However, I don't believe the same thing is very applicable to snakes or other reptiles because of the above factor: instinct. Snakes are born/hatched knowing fully well what to do to survive. Foxes and other mammals are not. There's just a lot more room to work with when it comes to mammals. That's my spiel.
-Chance
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