jeetsukumaran
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 p.4 #2 · Snakes & landscape shooting in TX | |
DGC1 wrote:
Bad advice is bad advice regardless of the source.
I agree! And good advice is good advice and middling advice is middling advice and all other truisms are true.
The issue here is the characterization of one particular advice as foolish based on ... what, exactly?
I am completely open to your experiences leading you to believe rattlesnakes behave in a particular way that is counter to what I am describing. But for you to characterize what not just what I, but other folks on this thread, are saying as "foolish" because your understanding is different really reflects badly both on your manners, intellectual maturity, as well as your capacity for engaging in mutually-beneficial/educational discussion.
Let's get back to some fact-checkable statements, shall we?
DGC1 wrote:
"Rattlesnakes are pit vipers and as such, strike when they sense heat. It doesn't matter if the heat is generated by prey or enemy, they will strike at the heat source. This has been well documented.
They indeed can sense heat, but in contrast to your statement, it does matter whether the heat is generated by prey or "enemy" (I assume you mean some sort of threat), whether or not they will strike, and, furthermore, whether or not that strike is "wet" or "dry". This is fact. In fact, most studies clearly distinguish between predatory strikes and defensive strikes. In fact, the experimental design of each (in experiment-based studies) are so completely different, that it is unusual to find papers that discuss both.
Here is a pretty decent list of work on snake strikes:
http://public.wsu.edu/~kkardong/htm/Ref_strike.htm
Here are some links to more popular/general info of interest:
http://www.esi.utexas.edu/k-12-a-the-community/hot-science-cool-talks/lecture-archives/the-striking-behavior-of-rattlesnakes
I do not expect to convince you of any of this, and, in any case, I am confident that if you were to do a Google Scholar search yourself or, indeed, talk to anyone who actually works/handles rattlesnakes regularly and professionally, either a herpetologist or, e.g., a reptile curator at a zoo, you will find that your perspective can only be improved. But regardless of where you go in your search for understanding, I do hope to show by response to your (incorrect) assertions of rattlesnake behavior, how it would be more beneficial to everyone in the community if we were to engage in a discussion based on facts/evidence and knowledge, with opinions being accepted on the merit of their substance, and without degenerating the discussion into name-calling or tough-guy posturing.
As an aside, I routinely photograph pit-vipers of many varieties (including rattlesnakes) with a 100mm f/2.8 and sometimes even with a 50mm. They are one of the more photogenic snakes, not just in coloration but also posture. They definitely have a "automatic strike zone" where they will lash out at you if you come in too close. Stay outside this zone, and you can shoot all day and night, heat source or not, and you will be fine. Come in too close, and, depending on their (species or individual) temper, there is a good probability that they will strike. So, your other statement about rattlesnakes striking even if they are not actually stepped on is one I agree with completely: if someone startles/scares a rattlesnake within that knee-jerk response zone (I know: rattlesnakes have no knees!) , bad things can happen. And though I have anecdotal stories to the contrary too (colleague tracking GPS on turtle, belly-crawlng through thorny bush in Texas, sees Crotalus atrox 1 foot frame face; stays calm, and backs out very very very slow. No harm, no foul, but it could easily have gone the other way if, e.g., the snake's fear/threat level was already elevated), I would not go around suggesting that getting into a snake's face, so to speak, is advisable. For me, this constitutes antagonizing the snake and offering it a good target. As I have repeatedly asserted: do not antagonize the snake!
DGC1 wrote:
My, we are a bit testy, aren't we? ...hope you are able to get your nose back into joint...
Ah yes, the good old "claim-the-other-party-is-upset-and-this-is-an-indiction-that-one's-assertions-are-true" content-free pseudo-argument. A little more sophisticated than the "name-calling" argument which is the domain of 12-year olds, but perhaps not quite yet at "compare-and-relate-the-other-party's-position-to-something-Hitler-would-say/do" argument of high-school debate teams.
No, I do not have any real response to this one, except to say that alas for the efficacy of this approach to rational presentation of dissent/disagreement/argument in this discussion, my metaphorical nose, as my real one, is fine.
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