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Python Killed at St. Bernadette Festival
For approximately 10 years, the community has enjoyed the petting zoo at the St. Bernadette festival. The purpose of the petting zoo is to raise awareness of proper pet care by answering husbandry and veterinary questions for the public, as well as providing an opportunity for people to handle exotic pets. The reception has always been positive and the community eagerly anticipates this annual event. Usually there are a variety of different animals, including reptiles, skunks, ferrets, rabbits, and goats. For the past two years, Scott Braunstein from the House of Reptiles in Florence, Kentucky has been assisting All Creatures in providing a large variety of snakes, lizards, and even an alligator for visitors to handle and observe at the St. Bernadette festival. All of these animals have proven to be docile creatures (except for the snapping turtle and alligator!)
Scott’s business is to educate people about reptiles and his goal is for people to learn to appreciate rather than fear the reptiles that share this planet with us. He discusses what reptiles make the best pets and which ones should be kept wild. Scott spends most of his time encouraging people to appreciate the beauty and unique design of reptiles rather than fear them. He tries to educate young people so they do not grow up believing reptiles are slimy or should be killed indiscriminately. All of Scott’s reptiles have very mild, predictable personalities, and they get handled frequently to keep them that way. One 10-foot long, two-year-old albino Burmese python named Popcorn was particularly docile and earned the honor of attending the St. Bernadette festival. Popcorn lazed around Sunday afternoon in the lawn at St. Bernadette while kids gathered around and petted the impressive creature. Adult spectators, while waiting in line for the chicken dinner, laughed and pointed at the snake stretched out in the grass, enjoying the mid-afternoon sun.
Toward the end of Popcorn’s lazy eight hour shift at the petting zoo, Scott noticed a young boy near Popcorn’s head, standing with his foot raised. Scott asked the boy to back away, but the boy replied, “I hate snakes.” Scott said that was fine and again asked him to leave the snake alone and pointed out that this snake was not bothering anyone. He asked the boy to go somewhere else since he did not like snakes. Instead of heeding Scott’s pleas, the boy stomped his foot down on the snake’s head with enough force to sever Popcorn’s spine from the base of his skull. Popcorn rolled and convulsed before expelling his last breath. The boy’s father, obviously embarrassed, grabbed the boy’s hand and pulled him back into the festival crowd. The only words he spoke were, “That’s why I can’t take you anywhere.”
The father and his son were not seen again anywhere near the petting zoo. Scott, saddened and disgusted, loaded his deceased snake into a box and packed up his remaining reptiles for the long drive back to Florence.
It seems ironic that Scott’s and the House of Reptiles’ weekend of voluntarily educating the public about the myths of snakes and benefits of reptiles had ended with a child’s willful killing of a creature he knew nothing about. To this boy, snakes were only something to be killed - a belief the boy had to have learned from somebody. The child may never know what was wrong with what he did, other than the embarrassment expressed by his father. The father may have felt guilty about his son’s behavior but did not have the decency to offer Scott and the rest of the festival crowd his condolences, restitution, or even a simple apology for the senseless death of a harmless reptile who served as an educator to so many people.
It disturbs me that before Scott had an opportunity to educate this boy on why this animal should not be feared, the boy’s close-minded, conditioned response was to kill the snake, despite other people enjoying this beautiful creature and certainly not being harmed by it. What was the point? What was the child thinking?
Hundreds of individuals who were at the festival Friday, Saturday or Sunday may remember handling or touching Popcorn. May his death be a testimonial for an animal that gave his life for no other reason than trying to educate the ignorant? The truth is that reptiles are a beautiful, unique, and interesting group of animals, and they do serve a very important purpose in the circle of life. They have occupied our planet for longer than any mammal, evolving with incredibly unique adaptations for survival. They continue to survive despite our population increases in the last 100 years. Many have been driven to near extinction, even in Ohio, threatened by habitat destruction and population explosion. Species like the Kirtland’s water snake, native to the hills of Clifton, and the Massasuaga rattlesnake in the bogs of central Ohio are being threatened to extinction. In less developed countries, less protection exists for reptiles, so extinction is a huge problem. Some species will now exist only in zoos and private collections; others have been wiped out completely. The same is true of many wild animals, but reptiles have it the worst because man has always been afraid of them, largely due to their misfortune of having been portrayed as creatures to be feared in the bible, folklore and myths from around the world.
I don’t know what kind trouble I would have gotten into as a child if I didn’t have reptiles to occupy my boyish energy. I collected snakes, studied them at the zoo and in my basement, and was always intrigued by how perfectly designed they are for what they do. I met other reptile lovers and we formed the Greater Cincinnati Herpetological Society (GCHS), whose purpose is to promote public education on reptiles and to protect them.
In the balance of nature and humans occupying a finite planet, we continually fail to heed the natural laws and take much more than we need. While in Africa, I witnessed prides of lions relaxing as the zebra, and gazelles grazed around them. The herbivores knew that the lions would not be hungry for at least three days, and they were safe. Man does not seem to understand the rules of nature and we break them as we seek to satisfy our personal needs. Perhaps we have not evolved enough as a species to understand the balances that other species, which have been on the planet longer, seem to know. Senseless killing of wildlife really disturbs me, and I have only seen it in Homo Sapiens. I have witnessed people driving out of their way to run over a live snake on the road. I have heard sick people describe the funny “popping” sound they hear when they purposefully run their car over box turtles crossing our highways. Think hard before you tell your kids clichés like, “the only good snake is a dead snake,” or “mean as a snake”. Instead, take them to the zoo or the House of Reptiles and educate them on the beauty of wildlife, and the purpose that all God’s animals have on this planet. Attend a Greater Cincinnati Herpetological Society meeting and become absorbed in this variable and unequalled group of animals. Don’t cut all of your grass, leave some high; this gives critters a place to hide. Teach your children to appreciate the beauty in nature, because they are all a part of it. Remember that reptiles were here first, and we are the ones destroying their habitats.
All wild animals and especially reptiles deserve our respect. We need to protect them and educate our children about them. It is my hope that the readers of this story will think of Popcorn and be an example to a child the next time they see a snake on the road, stopping their car to let it pass. Maybe someone who held Popcorn and witnessed no aggression will stop someone before they reach for the hoe to kill a defenseless garter snake in their garden. Perhaps a child, who admired Popcorn’s strength and beauty, will pass on to other children the importance of protecting reptiles from needless harm. Reptiles need our help to survive for our future generations to enjoy and see God’s nature through their beauty.
Dr. Dan Meakin - All Creatures Animal Hospital, Amelia
All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful,
The Lord God made them all.
