How can people relax ?

[30-6]

After watching ' Snakes in the city ' filmed in Africa and episodes of pest control filmed in Australia.

How do people relax and go about their daily lives ?

Mamba's in beds and Black Widows in shoes, come on, that's seriously scary.

[enfieldspares]

My wife is Nigerian. Born and bred in Benin City in 1978. Came to France in 2002. Says she can't remember the last time she saw a snake. 

[ditchman]

spent nearly 20 years in central africa......saw maybe 10 snakes in that time...........

spent 18mths working in florida near the everglades and okeechobee.....bloody snakes every-bloody-where...place is rotten with them......ground rattlers were nasty  and ofcoarse them bloody nasty cotton mouths...the list goes on

saw a biiiigggggg cotton mouth attack a police car......cop emptyied his revolver 4 times in it.....his car was covered in deep dents where the snake was sricking at it

[Houseplant]

It depends where you live in Aussie. I have urban living friends over there who have never seen a snake. For my own part, I have a strong snake phobia, so living there would prove a challenge.

[Robden]

I have been to and stayed in many countries all over the world and not seen/noticed any snakes. However, here in Blighty I've seen 6 or 7.......and I don't mean the ones in government. 

[Rim Fire]

Used to love catching snakes i kept them as kid had two out of the three that found in the UK. When i was on safari in Kenya i visited a snake farm well the sign said snake farm but it was a guys back garden  he had most of the snakes you find in Kenya i find them fascinating.While we was there a guy dropped off a monkey i ask where he got it from and said roadkill he feeds them to the Pythons 

[Walker570]

There is litle doubt that snakes are fantastic creatures.  I have spent a fair bit of time in Texas where it is said everyhting wants to bite, sting or stick you. The thorns out there make a bramble patch a breeze.  The small coral snakes where the worst...locals called them one steps...because that would probably all you would take, add to those various rattle snakes and copper heads you learmed to spend a bit of time watching the ground as much as looking for likely trophies. I used to ask clients to keep and eye left and right as I would be checking where would be stepping next.  Saw a lot of rattlers and have ones skin hanging alongside my fireplace.  The black widows where nothing compared with brown recluse where pussy cats.  Get bit by a brown recluse and the area around the bite starts to rot. Our ranch foreman had a fist sized hole in his thigh where ine got between his chaps and his leg when out herding cattle through the mesquite...mow mesquite with thorns like darning needles are nothing compared to prickly pear cactus. Prickly pear have two types of thorn. Th large ones  are not so bad but they have a bunch of very small1/4 inch fine needle thorns which once in/under your skin take some getting out.

The tarantulas where no problem, leave them alone and they will leave you alone. Not many in our part of Texas. We saw more in Florida and California.

Edited November 7, 2022 by Walker570

[islandgun]

Worked in a banana plantation in W Australia, on my first day trimming the dead leaves, had a very large Tarantula type spider fall down the open neck of my shirt, turned out harmless when i later asked. drove tractors for an Agric contractor in the south quite a few venomous snakes under sheets of tin that lay around or sometimes see them crossing the road. In answer to the op everyone just gets on with their life,  I was quite wary swimming in the sea and avoided the sharks

[Rim Fire]

6 minutes ago, Walker570 said:

The black widows where nothing compared with brown recluse where pussy cats.  Get bit by a brown recluse and the area around the bite starts to rot. Our ranch foreman had a fist sized hole in his thigh where ine got between his chaps and his leg when out herding cattle through the mesquite...mow mesquite with thorns like darning needles are nothing compared to prickly pear cactus. Prickly pear have two types of thorn. Th large ones  are not so bad but they have a bunch of very small1/4 inch fine needle thorns which once in/under your skin take some getting out

Can't stand spiders they are the one thing i hate you see them on wildlife programs where people are checking there boots befor they put them on no  no  no  

[oldypigeonpopper]

1 hour ago, Robden said:

I have been to and stayed in many countries all over the world and not seen/noticed any snakes. However, here in Blighty I've seen 6 or 7.......and I don't mean the ones in government. 

🤔😁

[London Best]

Had a friend from Alabama who always checked his boots for something every morning, even in U.K.

[Bigbob]

My daughter and her mate did a year in a aids orphanage in Jo'berg and the wife and son spent a month out there to see her she said dad its funny watching mum check her bed every night LOL 

[London Best]

Once, whilst in Africa, I watched a heron flying and carrying a snake about five feet long. The snake appeared to be still very much alive. The bird landed and by the time I got to it it had half swallowed the snake and flew off  still dangling half a snake. I don’t know what make that snake was but on other occasions I have seen Boomslang and Night Adders in the same area.

[Walker570]

3 hours ago, London Best said:

Had a friend from Alabama who always checked his boots for something every morning, even in U.K.

Yep, we left most of our hunting gear at the ranch for our next trip over and ALWAY checked out and sprayed inside our boots and gave clothes a serious shake. One of our team decided it was not necessary and got bit by a brown recluse resulting in a quick 25 mile trip to see the Doctor and a very sore foot for a week or so.  We also had mud dauber wasps, big black inch long jobs which would fill your rifle barrel up with mud in quick time. Always put a bullet in the muzzle to stop access. never killed one of these because they ate all the nasty ones.  Then of course we had scorpions as well, fortunately not the fatal type but if you have been stung by a wasp then double the effect. Ask me how I know.

Edited November 7, 2022 by Walker570

[Vince Green]

When my best friend lived in Australia in the 70s his job every morning was to check the swimming pool for snakes before his younger brothers and sister were allowed to use it.

 

[udderlyoffroad]

15 hours ago, 30-6 said:

How do people relax and go about their daily lives ?

Assuming this was an actual question rather than rhetoric:

It's what you're used to.  If you've never known anything else, why would you not relax?

Nature being, for the most part entirely harmless to us* is an almost unique situation in the world.  Even mainland Europe has bears roaming the forests.

Incidentally, without exception, all the people from Africa I've met are far more worried about their fellow humans wanting to beat, rob and murder them than anything nature can throw at them.

Conversely, there's an awful lot of things that we in the UK 'put up with' that even our nearest neighbours across the channel would never tolerate, but to us seems totally normal.  Just on the domestic side, people from elsewhere in the world are usually baffled that we'll pay hundreds of thousands for a house that SHARES WALLS with your neighbours.  How could you possibly relax in that?  Then there's the lack of window shutters or bars (this one ensures people from RSA have a few sleepless nights when they first get here).  Completely crazy.   Don't even get them started on washing machines in the kitchen or electrical outlets in bathrooms being limited to toothbrush chargers...and the lack of mixer taps?  Not remotely relaxing at all.  The fact most people in the UK treat heating houses as some sort of modern, unnecessary luxury?  And let's not even start on the tiny roads.  And the coffee.  Christ alive, the coffee.  Instant mud, these uncivilised savages in the UK consider it to be some sort of unnecessary affectation to serve real coffee.

Where did this soapbox I appear to be stood on come from?**

*save for perhaps deer during the rut and the odd adder

**The English language's seeming insistence on hanging on to idioms that are completely dated is another one too...

[Scully]

Watched a programme once on Australias ‘deadly’ flora and fauna. It concluded that as venomous and as diverse their native animals were, the biggest killer of Australians was …..the motor car. 🙂

[30-6]

Well I must be a wuss. Used to play with slowworms when we were kids and tickle spiders out their hole with a piece of grass, and catch wasps in jam jars, pick up frogs and toads, all bare hands mind. But that's about as dangerous as it got. I did grab a rabbit by his head out of the entrance of his burrow when he stopped at the net and a ferret not far behind him. Now, that's quite brave in it ? No gloves still bare hand.

I have it seems led a very sheltered life compared to you lot.

Having the possibility of a mamba snuggle up to you in bed or a black widow wandering around inside a boot doesn't appeal to me at all.

[1Ab]

I grew up in South Africa, snakes and spiders are just a part of normal life you get used to it.

Thinking back now I don't know how I did not get bitten I was absolutely fascinated by them as a young lad and could not resist messing around with them. 

Whenever a snake came in the house or garden I was the first one out with an air rifle or shovel to kill and skin it. 

I generally don't have a problem with them I just don't like them on my body or in my bed. 

A few months after my grandad passed my grandmother told family members she thinks she is loosing the plot because she cold hear my grandad breathing at night. This went on for ages until they eventually discovered a huge puff adder had made a nest under her bed and was puffing when my nan moved in the bed. Not the ghost of my grandad breathing.

[Scully]

One of my cousins in Krugersdorf just outside Jo’berg, told me that as a kid he used to catch scorpions by their tail. He had quite a collection at one time apparently. 🤷‍♂️

[Houseplant]

5 hours ago, udderlyoffroad said:

The fact most people in the UK treat heating houses as some sort of modern, unnecessary luxury?

Is that really true? 

[Vince Green]

7 hours ago, Scully said:

Watched a programme once on Australias ‘deadly’ flora and fauna. It concluded that as venomous and as diverse their native animals were, the biggest killer of Australians was …..the motor car. 🙂

Probably drink is as big killer in Australia. There is a big drinking culture

 

[Houseplant]

Most dangerous thing in Australia is Australians 😀

[39TDS]

I've seen redback spiders in Australia, what struck me most about them is just how aggressive they are.

In UK spiders generally scurry away, redbacks don't they seem to dance about looking for a way to attack you. That was my impression anyway.

What struck the redback the most was a hammer. 🤣

 

Also seen several brown snakes out there too, they are ok unless it is hot was my take on them. Rightly or wrongly I shot one of them but mostly steered clear and let them be.