Sedgwick County Genealogy' Trails Kansas

POISONOUS SNAKE THREAT DEFANGED AS CONTROVERSY SLITHERING DOWN

Two Wichita pet stores emptied their pens of poisonous snakes Thursday, while the argument over whether some of the reptiles were poisonous remained unsettled.

The Giant Pet Center No. 1, Inc. destroyed the contrversial vine and guarder snakes. Taylor'd Pet Center (formely) Docktor's Pet Center) operators gave the controverisal snakes in that store to a Wichita State University biologist.

Both pet centers are owned by Taylor's Pet Inc., Des Moines, Iowa.

Sedgwick County Zoo Director Ron Blakely said Thursday that South American reptiles "are poisonous. Maybe if they bit a grown man his hand would just swell up, but a small child is different."

Dr. Gerald D. Gurss, Kansas livestock commissioner, asked Gary Ferguson, head of the biology department at Kansas State University for his opinion.

Ferguson said the snakes are not poisonous and probably would cause less than a mild sting if a human were bitten.

Taylor'd Pet Center gave the snakes to Dr. J. S. Mittelstaedt. Mittelstaedt said the snakes technically are poisonous, but basically their venom is toxic only to cold blodded animals.

Mittelstaedt said he didn't really know yet what he would do with the snakes, but that he probably would research their habits while in captivity.

Both pet stores got rid of all poisonous snakes early Thursday afternoon. The snakes include a vine and guarder snakes, a rattlesnake at the Giant store, and a water moccasin, copperhead and rattlesnake at The Mall.

Ted Dittman, of the environmental services division of Wichita-Sedgwick County Department of Community Health, said he presented each store with a note asking operators to dispose of all poisonous snakes and to quit selling them.

"It was just a request to the store operators," Dittman said, "If we have to go any further through legal means we'll do so, but I don't think we'll have to."

Don Soderberg, manager of the Mall store, said Lowell Hampton, manager of the Giant, said all poisonous snakes had been taken off the premises before the health department request was issued.

Gurss, as livestock commissioner, has had responsibility under a law passed in 1972 to prohibit the sale or gift of animals or exotic pets if there is a hazard to human health or safety.

The commissioner said Thursday he planned to take no action on the particular snakes in question, but that he may review the "entire situation of the sale of poisonous snakes."

Taylor said he didn't know the stores were sellling the two snakes in question, and that all poisonous snakes should have been for display only.

Soderberg said the other poisonous snakes at his store were for display only. A rattlesnake at the Giant store had been priced for $20.

"We did not know what exact type snakes these (guarder and vine) were," Soderberg said. "We received them in a box marked "sorted Snakes." If we hadn't had someone here who knows about snakes, we would have had no idea that they had fangs."

The snakes were received by the stores from a Miami, Florida supplying firm. (Wichita Eagle - November 16, 1973)