🐮 Lolcow Jeffrey Leibowitz / Not Dead Yet

[mindlessobserver]

This is not actually true, We have a lot of pythons, our largest land predator is a dog and ok in the rivers we have crocs and bullsharks but so does America. America also has plenty of deadly snakes, probably even more than Australia, you also have spiders and huge land animals like moose and deer which are comparable to kangaroos and probably more dangerous with their antlers.
And bears, you guys got bears and wolves and big cats and rabies.

Australia is safe with beautiful wild life, look at all our mammals and Lizards.

You forgot Mountain Lions. We got big cats too.

Also lol warning shot. Dude was pissing himself. That first shot was aimed to hit but he missed because his hand was shaking.

 

[There She Glows]

I don't own reptiles but I wouldn't want someone to seize my guns because some other shithead misused theirs.

The "guns don't kill people" argument doesn't really have the same ring to it if you replace "guns" with "dangerous wild animals that escape their enclosures".

 

[Squawking Macaw]

These hobbyists rarely, if ever have those australian/african/asian snake antivenin doses available, even the "responsible ones", and this makes me really MATI.

There comes a point where you need so many precautions to own an animal that owning it is just not worth it.

They don't have antivenin for non-native species because that shit is prohibitively expensive to most amateur snake keepers. We're talking about rare, dangerous and exotic species that are often illegal to import, so the venom can't be milked locally, it has to be imported, and that costs a pretty penny. Add onto that the fact that it has a very short shelf life and you end up having to pay a small fortune every month just to safely keep a cool snake.

The smart decide that owning the snake isn't worth it. The dumb go "antivenom is for pussies".

 

[LemonParty]

This is not actually true, We have a lot of pythons, our largest land predator is a dog and ok in the rivers we have crocs and bullsharks but so does America. America also has plenty of deadly snakes, probably even more than Australia, you also have spiders and huge land animals like moose and deer which are comparable to kangaroos and probably more dangerous with their antlers.
And bears, you guys got bears and wolves and big cats and rabies.

Australia is safe with beautiful wild life, look at all our mammals and Lizards.

I'm surely ignorant of Australian wildlife life, as you are of North American (specifically the US, there is a difference) wildlife.

Please correct me where I'm wrong as I correct you. This isn't a pissing contest, I'm genuinely curious about the Australia's back country.

As of snakes; 9 deadliest snakes from Britannica.com lists 4 snakes from Australia (I'm counting the sea krait). There are zero from North America but I'll give you a bone, the Coral Snake is our most venomous, but it's so docile as to not be a worry.

As for bears? In the lower 48 (that means not Alaska or Hawaii) we don't have a brown bear problem. They're functioningly extinct as are wolves. Black bears are still around but not dangerous because every American in the back country carries guns.

Moose? Truly terrifying. It's more of a Canadian problem though. Any American treaking during rut (mating season) will have a large caliber rifle.

Jaguars? You probably didn't know this but 100 years ago Jaguars were native to North America. Why not now? Guns.

I spend a lot of time in the mountains and there is one animal that scares me. It doesn't matter that I'm armed, it would get the jump on me.


These things terrify me...

 

[Marche]

I'm surely ignorant of Australian wildlife life, as you are of North American (specifically the US, there is a difference) wildlife.

Please correct me where I'm wrong as I correct you. This isn't a pissing contest, I'm genuinely curious about the Australia's back country.

As of snakes; 9 deadliest snakes from Britannica.com lists 4 snakes from Australia (I'm counting the sea krait). There are zero from North America but I'll give you a bone, the Coral Snake is our most venomous, but it's so docile as to not be a worry.

As for bears? In the lower 48 (that means not Alaska or Hawaii) we don't have a brown bear problem. They're functioningly extinct as are wolves. Black bears are still around but not dangerous because every American in the back country carries guns.

Moose? Truly terrifying. It's more of a Canadian problem though. Any American treaking during rut (mating season) will have a large caliber rifle.

Jaguars? You probably didn't know this but 100 years ago Jaguars were native to North America. Why not now? Guns.

I spend a lot of time in the mountains and there is one animal that scares me. It doesn't matter that I'm armed, it would get the jump on me.
View attachment 6416176

These things terrify me...

While we do technically have more venomous snakes like 99% of them are totally safe and only like 9 or so would be considered dangerous, When you say stuff like "x is only found in these states" you gotta remember how fucking HUGE Australia is and how little of it humans actually populate.
We just don't have many large animals beside a huge gay bird and Kangaroos that like to jump infront of cars like deers


In terms of threat to humans id say the mountain lion is probably about the same as our Salt water crocs, we seem to get more deaths from salties compared to lions simply because the Northern territory is packed full of both Salties and aboriginals being Rama rama.

 

[Riverfagg1599]

It's sad when people die. Even if it is their fault.

Depends on if they're evil or not IMHO.

The problem generally with snakes as pets is how fast they are able to bite. I've watched people handle snakes, and one time a guy got bit. It was so fast that no one watching actually realized it happened until he showed us the bite mark afterwards. They also sometimes will just refuse food for no reason, so you can't tell if they are terminally sick, or just being assholes.

Snakes are literally inherently designed to be dangerous to things that fuck with them. If you don't bother them they are perfectly chill, I've had a couple close encounters with wild Rattlesnakes, and they just mosey on out of the way when they see me coming.

If you want a snake-like pet get a skink. They are very silly creatures with funny little legs.

I have one tarantula two geckos and a western hognose snake. Snakes can actually be very very good pets but yes sometimes they are temperamental. But just like every other animal they have their own personalities. Same with the lizards. One of my lizards is an absolute asshole and tries to bite every time before he chills out. The other one has never bit me and is super sweet and always ready to crawl up on your hand and chill. They are also clutchmates and couldn't be more different.

I'm surely ignorant of Australian wildlife life, as you are of North American (specifically the US, there is a difference) wildlife.

Please correct me where I'm wrong as I correct you. This isn't a pissing contest, I'm genuinely curious about the Australia's back country.

As of snakes; 9 deadliest snakes from Britannica.com lists 4 snakes from Australia (I'm counting the sea krait). There are zero from North America but I'll give you a bone, the Coral Snake is our most venomous, but it's so docile as to not be a worry.

As for bears? In the lower 48 (that means not Alaska or Hawaii) we don't have a brown bear problem. They're functioningly extinct as are wolves. Black bears are still around but not dangerous because every American in the back country carries guns.

Moose? Truly terrifying. It's more of a Canadian problem though. Any American treaking during rut (mating season) will have a large caliber rifle.

Jaguars? You probably didn't know this but 100 years ago Jaguars were native to North America. Why not now? Guns.

I spend a lot of time in the mountains and there is one animal that scares me. It doesn't matter that I'm armed, it would get the jump on me.
View attachment 6416176

These things terrify me...

Well you'll be even more terrified to know that they are making a comeback and have been spotted semi-frequently recently in Alabama even. And cougars used to be native across the whole of North america. And honestly I hope they will be again because I find the fascinating. Best to keep your wits about you when you're out hiking far from civilization regardless of where you are there's always something that can take you out.

 

[Bucephalus]

a huge gay bird

Don't you have two? Or are cassowaries only in Melanesia?

And if we're going to talk about your terrifying native fauna, I can't not bring up your sea life. Marine stingers? Blue-ringed octopuses? Stonefish? Wobbegongs? Like, the worst thing we have on our coastline are probably... man o' wars? Which you guys have too, you just call them bluebottles. And stargazers, but you also have those.

 

[AnOminous]

America also has plenty of deadly snakes, probably even more than Australia, you also have spiders and huge land animals like moose and deer which are comparable to kangaroos and probably more dangerous with their antlers.

Most of our deadly snakes are polite enough to do things like have extremely bright colors warning you they're dangerous or rattles to tell you to back off. Meanwhile you have tons of snakes that are the color of dirt that you can't even see before they're biting you after you step on them. They're just asshole animals.

There comes a point where you need so many precautions to own an animal that owning it is just not worth it.

There are some animals so inherently dangerous that there should be such precautions, to limit the legal ownership of them to those with a legitimate, professional reason to have such dangerous animals.

Retards like (((Jeff))) are not in that category and should not own these animals.

 

[Marche]

Don't you have two? Or are cassowaries only in Melanesia?

Yea we have two but id say its such a low distribution in an already uninhabited part compared to the other countries that have them id hardly consider them ours.

I'll give you the blue ring and Stonefish, you guys got the lionfish but I dont think thats really comparable to Stonefish. The Wobbegong is just another normal shark, maybe responsible for some nips but almost all fatals come from Great white, Tiger or Bull shark but shark attacks are just normal in the end given how much of Australian culture is water based. like how most shark attacks in America are from Florida and Hawaii.

We also have the Irukandji jellyfish which is supposed to be pretty fucking nasty though.

Meanwhile you have tons of snakes that are the color of dirt that you can't even see before they're biting you after you step on them. T

Imagine being one of the most deadly snakes in the world and just being called the "Brown Snake".
They really did not put much effort into that name for sure.

 

[James done did it]

Notice how the venomous reptiles "hobbyists" try to conflate their niche hobby with keeping regular reptiles as pets, completly removing from the equation that they are breeding biological weapons of mass destruction?

Calling them biological weapons of mass destruction is hysterical. It's stupid but 99.9% of the time the person who owns the snake is the one who's going to get killed by it. I'm not aware of any studies of actual per capita casualty/bite rates of the people who own them but it's probably pretty low. That doesn't make owning them just for the sake of pokemon collection not stupid though.

 

[Bucephalus]

Calling them biological weapons of mass destruction is hysterical.

When you consider the fact that Burmese pythons and African rock pythons are wreaking havoc in the Everglades right now because of retarded mutts just like Jeff... no, it's really not. We need to send all of these sniggers the fuck back, and their owners with them.

 

[AnOminous]

Imagine being one of the most deadly snakes in the world and just being called the "Brown Snake".
They really did not put much effort into that name for sure.

At least we murrilards have the courtesy to call our deadly locations things like "Death Valley," you know, because you get death there, or the "this fucking snake will totally kill you" snake.

 

[Oddjob OTP]

When you consider the fact that Burmese pythons and African rock pythons are wreaking havoc in the Everglades right now because of retarded mutts just like Jeff... no, it's really not. We need to send all of these sniggers the fuck back, and their owners with them.

Those aren't poisonous snakes, you're conflating two different narratives.

 

[klarine]

Imagine being one of the most deadly snakes in the world and just being called the "Brown Snake".
They really did not put much effort into that name for sure.

A few years ago I was looking into participating in conservation efforts of a few birds in AUS but the brown snake, the coastal taipan and the irukandji jellyfish scared me out of the idea

 

[Hitchhiker]

Depends on if they're evil or not IMHO.

I have one tarantula two geckos and a western hognose snake. Snakes can actually be very very good pets but yes sometimes they are temperamental. But just like every other animal they have their own personalities. Same with the lizards. One of my lizards is an absolute asshole and tries to bite every time before he chills out. The other one has never bit me and is super sweet and always ready to crawl up on your hand and chill. They are also clutchmates and couldn't be more different.

I agree, the only problem with snakes is really when they have deadly venom. Even the friendliest animal can bite someone, sometimes accidentally. During feeding especially a reptile can go a bit bite happy. The thing is with most lizards, when they bite it kinda just feels someone put your finger in a small vice, a venomous snake is going to kill you.

All animals that have venom deadly to humans, or could fuck you up worse than a large dog should be limited to zoos and laboratories.

 

[James done did it]

When you consider the fact that Burmese pythons and African rock pythons are wreaking havoc in the Everglades right now because of retarded mutts just like Jeff... no, it's really not. We need to send all of these sniggers the fuck back, and their owners with them.

1. Neither of those are venomous.

2. There is a lot of hullabaloo over invasives from the pet trade "destroying" Florida. I don't want to get too far into the weeds here but the reality is a lot more complex. Invasive species typically have far, far greater chances of success in an environment that has already lost keystone species, namely one that has been heavily impacted by human development which reduced the size of the everglades by over half, heavily altered the hydrological system that has resulted in saltwater intrusion in coastal areas and nutrient imbalances further inland caused by agriculture (particularly the heavily subsidized sugar industry). Apex predators tend to require the largest contiguous ranges so of course their populations were the most heavily impacted by this, with the florida panther critically endangered and the alligator having been in sharp decline, only having stabilized in the 1980s, around the same time burmese pythons likely established breeding populations. It's also worth noting that non-native pythons and other reptiles have probably been present at some level for at least 100 years. Somehow they only became a huge problem in the last few decades, when Florida has added over 12 million people, roughly doubling its 1990 population by the present.

Some of the ways we measure the impacts of invasive pythons are also inherently flawed. Like the harsh declines in small mammalian populations, which had skyrocketed far beyond their historical levels due impact of human development and artificial suppression of apex predator populations. So of course when you add a new apex predator to the mix, their populations will crash. There are some invasive species that are kind of a problem in and of themselves (mostly generalists like piggers) but most of them are really just a side effect of anthrogenic environmental degredation. If not exotic reptiles, it would have been something else eventually trying to fill that vacated niche. Similar to how coyotes 'naturally' spread across all 49 continental states after whites killed all of the wolves, and how opossums also spread 'naturally' across much of the eastern seaboard as predator populations were culled, and out west due to the early 20th century pet trade.

I think it's just easier to agitate stupid people and blame a snake for destroying the everglades when the snake is just a symptom of the larger problem. It's like seeing someone pissing in an alley in Detroit and claiming that he's the reason the city is a shithole.

 

[Scarlett Johansson]

If only they covered this in Kill Bill.

 

[Bucephalus]

Those aren't poisonous snakes, you're conflating two different narratives.

1. Neither of those are venomous.

My narrative is total snigger death. It doesn't matter if it's a boa constrictor or a taipan. If it doesn't belong here, I do not want it in my country.

If you want an example of a venomous snake being an ecological WMD, look into Guam and their brown tree snake problem. It's not a phenomenon exclusive to constrictors; any species that gets introduced to a suitable environment with nothing that can threaten it is inevitably going to become a major problem.

Apex predators tend to require the largest contiguous ranges so of course their populations were the most heavily impacted by this, with the florida panther critically endangered and the alligator having been in sharp decline, only having stabilized in the 1980s, around the same time burmese pythons likely established breeding populations. [...]
Some of the ways we measure the impacts of invasive pythons are also inherently flawed. Like the harsh declines in small mammalian populations, which had skyrocketed far beyond their historical levels due impact of human development and artificial suppression of apex predator populations. So of course when you add a new apex predator to the mix, their populations will crash. There are some invasive species that are kind of a problem in and of themselves (mostly generalists like piggers) but most of them are really just a side effect of anthrogenic environmental degredation. If not exotic reptiles, it would have been something else eventually trying to fill that vacated niche.

In a world with no snigger-lovers, it probably would've been Florida panthers. Eventually, the population would bounce back, and they would return to their usual role in the ecosystem.

They can't now, one, because Burmese pythons are eating their entire food supply (small- to medium-sized mammals), two, because they're k-selected species whereas the pythons can shit out 50 eggs a clutch every year like it's nothing. Now there's no scenario that doesn't end with the rest of the Florida panther population getting KARA BOĞA'd by the pythons, and as the pythons take over the "apex predator" niche, the small- to medium-sized mammal population will be completely wiped out in turn. And then the pythons starve, and then you get total trophic collapse.

It's also worth noting that non-native pythons and other reptiles have probably been present at some level for at least 100 years. Somehow they only became a huge problem in the last few decades, when Florida has added over 12 million people, roughly doubling its 1990 population by the present.

I mean... you know the story there, right? Hurricane Andrew smashes into a python breeding facility in 1992, releases a ready-made breeding population into the Everglades, and they've been tearing it up ever since? I'm sure there were isolated cases of released pets before then, sure, but Andrew was the catalyst for this. That was what allowed them to successfully establish themselves. The anthropogenic environmental degradation might've been the match, but the breeding industry's failure to contain their "pets" was the spark that lit it.

I don't think I fundamentally disagree with you about the situation in the Everglades, though. It's regrettable that the Florida panther population got to the point it's at right now, and if the ecosystem was stable, I don't think the Burmese pythons would've been nearly as successful in establishing themselves. But it isn't, and they are.

 

[Culled]

Very defensive, very hissy, very snippy. Really not tolerant of people at all.

I do wonder if it's a case of being around, being fed and handled by humans since birth though, since that does impact the behavior of other wild animals.

---

Edit:
In his latest stream Jeff announces that he is done with venomous reptiles.
Will it last? Will he move on to the next exotic pet or will he actually stick to regular cats and dogs? Only time will tell.

 

[TractorGirl]

The good thing about Australia being huge is that we have lots of bitey killey things, but they’re (mostly) spread out. Like where I live, there's only a few things like red backs, brown snakes, red belly black snakes (rarely). Never seen a crocodile in my life, it’s at least a 5 hour drive to anywhere with a jelly fish, a shark or any killer bastard that lives in the water. Dingos are at least 700 kilometres away. Only a few Roos around here too, they’re more populated an hour or so from here. So yeah we do have a few things that will kill you, but they’re not all waiting at your front door.