Since I’m in a mood, I’ll make another controversial post.
I have mixed feelings about Steve Irwin (RIP). Don’t get me wrong, loved the show as a kid, loved the Google Doodle, seemed like a nice guy, nice family, etc. But I think he (unintentionally?) promoted a lot of bullshit that stresses animals. See, I have this personal/professional beef with herpetologists. Too many of them are in the habit of handling herps way more than is necessary, and I’m not for it. I’ve literally gotten into arguments with people about it. Birders can similarly stress birds, especially the ones that use playback incessantly during the breeding season, but I do think our harm has this natural ceiling of knowing that if we stress a bird too much, it’s gonna fly away. And nobody wants the bird to fly away before they can get their photo.
But herps? Can’t fly. Some don’t even have legs! So you have people stomping through otherwise pristine mountain streams, tossing river rocks everywhere, and snatching up poor salamanders, then passing them around like it’s slimy show-and-tell. (And we all know sunscreen, bugspray, and all the bullshit on our skin is bad for amphibians!)
One time back when I was a tech, a coworker had another herper friend come visit. During a car ride, this guy saw some “rare” snake color morph (honestly just looked like a melanistic version of one of the regular snakes that are everywhere), and we pulled the car over so this guy could go hog wild chasing this poor animal down so he could pose it like a doll. Then he put it down, watched it slither away, then went after it again because he decided he wanted more photos! By that point the snake was visibly stressed, and honestly the whole thing was unnecessary. If you search my blog, you’ll notice that in 100% of my wild snake photos, the snakes are on the ground. This is because I am tired of them musking on me and getting covered in snake shit respect wildlife and always give them their space! But some herpers have these toxic, macho attitudes. I’ve heard more than one insinuate that not picking up the snake is somehow evidence of cowardice. Like, I’ve been with groups of them, and everybody has to pass around the hissing, biting, shitting coachwhip, or else you’re clearly afraid of snakes and have no business being there. It’s ridiculous, it’s immature, and ultimately it’s irresponsible.
