Please read!!! This is awful!!! This guy is a sicko!!!

[RebelOne]

Received this from one of my animal rescue groups. This is disgusting. He says he doesn't want to hear any lectures. I'd like to give him more than a lecture. I would like to feed him to his snake.

From: Katie Walter
> To: Undisclosed-Recipient:;
> Sent: Saturday, March 05, 2005 3:51 PM
> Subject: CA. - PLEASE READ NOW!! " I'm looking for old and/or unwanted Dachshunds - I just need to feed my snake".

Please write to this sicko, with your comments, and perhaps also we can find out who this "Carl" is, and have his ISP server shut down!

Here is this sicko's reply address for craigslist:
Reply to: [e-mail]

Date: 2005-03-05, 10:52AM PST
I'm looking for old and/or unwanted Dachshunds for cheep. I have a 13
foot boa and cant afford to buy rabbits or geenie pigs. Im not cruel, but I just need to feed my snake and the shape of these dogs make them go down easy. Please no cheewawas.
>> Please do not emale me UNLESS you have weener dogs for cheep. I dont wanna hear any lectures. I love my snake.
>> Carl

[e-mail]
this is in or around Burbank Glendale, CA.
:grr:

[auburngrad82]

1. This has to be a joke.

I can't believe that it is in any way serious. It's too far out in left field to be true.

[Beaverhausen]

2. I just checked craigslist and didn't see a listing

I really hope it was a sick joke.

[China_cat]

8. Totally agree

I've had snakes. One that big would only eat twice a year at the very most and more likely once every 10 to 18 months. I'm sure saving the money for a feeder piglet in that time wouldn't be that much of a hardship. And anyone who really knows snakes would know this.

[fudge stripe cookays]

3. The spelling and tone...

suggest a joke.

FSC

[Lorien]

4. America is chock full of animal hating sickos

just look at the thread about hunters wanting an open season on domestic cats in GD; there are even many DUers who would gladly shoot any of our pets if they wandered onto their sacred "property", or would kill them just for a cheap thrill. Contempt for all life-human and animal-is spreading like wildfire in this country. It's absolutely stomach turning.

[Digit]

5. nobody would do this, would they?

If so, I just became a snake hater.
I normally love reptiles.

[RebelOne]

7. I wouldn't put it past them.

At one time, I had two boa constrictors and fed them live mice and rats. I tried raw chicken, but that didn't work. Finally, I just couldn't stomach it anymore and gave the snakes away. I am now a vegetarian and PETA supporter and I wonder how I could have ever been that cruel to animals.

[China_cat]

9. What is cruel about

providing the closest to a natural diet available? I do not understand how people can get all warm and fuzzy about some animals, hate predators and then go on about environmentalism, etc.

Predators are necessary. As anyone who has ever gotten rid of them all have found out. Or have introduced a species that has no natural predators.

Despite the ick factor, the cruel thing would have been NOT to feed the snakes. And snakes do not like dead food.

[Lorien]

10. Um, it's the feeding an intelligent companion animal

to the snake that is disturbing. No, meat is not just meat; we don't feed aborted fetuses to animals either because as a society we have ethics and morals which are governed by rules that have little to do with science and biology. The English consider eating horse immoral, the French do not. Here in America we do not feed cats and dogs to other animals because of their place in our society.

[China_cat]

11. I'm sorry I was unclear

I wasn't talking about the feeding of domestic companions to a predator (although I would consider it a price you pay if you allow a companion animal to roam free and a predator took it) but about the seeming inability of people to have any kind of empathy or regard for predators as a group.

The lion is a mighty beast and a beautiful one but people get outraged when they see one take down a zebra or a gazelle. The wolf is beautiful...until it eats a rabbit. The snake is one that very few even accept but nobody looks at it as keeping down the rodent population that would otherwise overwhelm us.

And in it's native state, a boa would not be eating dogs. It would be eating mice, rats, other small mammals OR it would be eating birds and/or eggs. (Boas in the wild are known to have a preference for either fur or feathers)

[Lorien]

12. I don't see anyone here

who has taken the position that you are suggesting. I sure as hell have never been "outraged" that lion's kill ungulates. I've hand fed Barbary lions raw meat, so it obviously isn't disturbing to me (fascinating to feel a lion break through bone like a trisket, believe me). The absence of wolves in the West has caused a gross imbalance in the ecosystem, as anyone who has contributed to the nonprofit "defenders of wildlife" is well aware. I've actively searched for a native brown rat snake that is willing to take up residence under my home's crawl space, which is currently occupied by Norway rats and southern cotton mice ( dangerous to the electrical system, and they've already eaten through a few water lines). I'm well aware of the dietary needs of boas, especially since I relocated a rare Indigo boa down here in Florida just a few years ago. So please, show me the "outrage" against predators here.

[China_cat]

13. I do not understand why

you are constantly twisting what I say.

Trying to clarify by citing the GENERAL objection to predators (otherwise they wouldn't have just passed legislation allowing the killing of more wolves in the west) you twist it to make it look like I was accusing someone here of that.

My original post was about the 'cruelty' of feeding mice to snakes. When you 'called' me on that I thought you had merely misunderstood.

Excuse me for not realizing that it was deliberate.

[Cadence]

6. I think people that assume things like this

are always a joke are why people get away with so much. If something falls out of the range of normal behavior or is so despicable it's hard to take in, the average person will deny the reality of whatever it is they find disturbing. That's why so many criminals can do whatever outrageous acts they want, and even post it on the internet because there will always be people that will write it off as a joke and do nothing.

[u4ic]

14. So they can spell Daschund but not guinea pig?

I think it's a joke. Look at the info I found:

Please take note that adult rabbits or guinea pigs are no suitable boa food! While they may overcome such a large prey item, it is an exertion for the digestive tract and a blow for the system. Fatty liver is frequently diagnosed in animals where such feedings have been applied.

Somebody is having a good laugh at the other end of that email.