Totally crazy wild cobra catching video!!!...

[1staburmthenaconda]

This has got to be one of the craziest, coolest, ballsiest, yet most dangerous, and controversial little videos I've seen in a while...It is totally unreal...I want to know several things about this guy: 1) is he sane...
2) how experienced is he
3) how did he START learning to catch hots by hand
4) what's the exact species
5) exact location
6) how/why his crew is so confident/nonchalant about him and the incident...
Mostly... 7) is the second attempt on the same day...


...Please give your opinions about the video and any of my questions... :) ...
...TOTALLY UNREAL... :icon_hea: :087: :075: ...

...dialup warning on the video...It's like 8mb because it's 4.5 minutes long...
http://media.ebaumsworld.com/cobrabite.wmv

[1staburmthenaconda]

you really ought to check out these two also well your at it...I promise neither will let you down in humor or at least shock value and both involve extremely large, potentially dangerous mammals... :shocked: :twisted: ...

...Gorilla just chillin...
http://media.ebaumsworld.com/gorillarecycling.wmv

...Dog all up in lion...
http://media.ebaumsworld.com/liondog.wmv

...hehehehehe... :icon_thu: ...

[RhacBreeder]

1.) Sane but stupid and asking to get bitten.

2.) He is from South Africa and has worked with herps/hots most of his life.

3.) I think it is how herpetologists handle hots in the old world, as well as Aussie.

4.) Naja annulifera (Species)

5.) Not sure, somewhere in South Africa, here is a link to where they are
found http://mzone.mweb.co.za/residents/net12980/venomrst.html

6.) They are better to stay calm so to not panic him further, and so they can handle the situation better. The faster you go after getting tagged, the faster the venom courses through the veins.

7.) Supposedly it is the same day. I saw the original airing on the Animal Planet and he said is was later that day.

*MY* opinion...He deserved it. He tries to make a drama series on the deadliest snakes in the world (lancehead, retic, edb rattler, king cobra etc...) When he finds a snake in the wild he aggravates it for the sake of photography as he was doing to the snouted cobra. He got the cobra to hood up and said "that's the picture I want..." Anybody who tries to glorify the danger of snakes with no educational content, and aggravates a snake to get a pic deserves to get tagged. This is MHO.

[RhacBreeder]

http://animal.discovery.com/fansites/austinstevens/austinstevens.html
P.S. His name is Austin Stevens

[gbo]

that guys an idiot, watch his other shows.

[1staburmthenaconda]

Ok...so that's Austin Stevens...I wasn't sure, but now I've got a face for the name...Kinda crazy guy, huh?...

[liljerzeedevil]

OK, Its ONE thing to be fooled & shown to beleive false things. Its QUITE another to do so when the truth is apparent 2 anyone with eyes, ears, and a brain that is full of deductive reasoning. We all know these shows are fake or staged. How excited can u get? Besides, didn't we already have this discussion about fake shows somewhere else in this forum? I ,
and this is my humbled opinion, cant stand this guy celebrating this form of animal cruelty.
It is, and u know it. Does't anyone feel for the HOT? Think of the stress its going thru. You know it was snake-handled way before the tape started rolling, just so this idiot could show off and boost his EGO! Thats what is all about! Its amazing how the public feeds into these images. Were all guilty of it, at least once, but its bad info. Think about the average HOT keeper. Say the HOT escapes. Who gets called in, snakehandler, zoo keep, vet, whatever. The escapee is caught and everyone is safe, hopefully. But we dont know about it. It happens everyday. Theres no camerman, or news crews, or 40 minute segment on Animal Planet. Its
usually kept quiet. As It should be. There isnt any EGO boosting, or publicity stunts. I just think that if u want education that is paramount- watch MarkoShea and Venom ER. If you want brain candy watch Jerry Springer. Whatever, just stop feeding into all these EGOs. DUH!!!! :076:

[Sherry Howell]

I just watched that and my thought is this Steve Austin is an absolute ass. He totally deserved to get bit by the cobra. He had stressed the snake and aggravated the snake. The cobra was only trying to defend itself and, also, try to escape this sorry sonofabitch.

[1staburmthenaconda]

Yes, I have to admit that that must have been an extremely stressful situation for the snake... :blackeye: ...
...Come on guys...no comments about the other two videos?...they are even better than the cobra one... :lol: :twisted: ...

[PadraigC]

Number one Austin Stevens is a photographer from Namibia. What makes this even more spectacularly retarded is that it wa spart of his 10 most dangerous snakes of Africa. The Idiocy didnt stop there in that episode he got tagged by a sidewinding viper in the episode first off the bat.....handled a Rinkhalss cobra while it was playing dead..... oh yea and went diving in the water after a monster gaboon viper............... MORON thank god its staged or hed be dead thirty times over in one episode.

[JERICO]

Cant look at the video's as i'm at work but Austin Steven's eh, he's a prize plum, in one episode he gets tagged trying to take a photo of a pissed off cobra, goes to hospital, comes out a couple of hours later and goes back to find it again.

Another episode he jumps out of a tree holding a bci and then in the same episode he 'indiana jones' dives out of a tree into a river, swims after an adult anna, drags it up the bank and then falls on it.

He needs a slap :roll:

[KLG]

He needs a slap :roll:

ROFLMAO!!!!! That's putting it politely!

:D

K~

[sidneydawson]

This guy is something else. I laughed watching him coax a retic into getting angry...the other guy on AP is much better IMO...Jeff Corwin I think is the name. But, I suppose it doesnt take much to beat old Austin. Great vids!

[liasisguy]

I'd really be interested in knowing what NERD thought about Austin Stevens on the Retic episode, but my wife and I always root for the snakes when he is molesting them! Mark O'Shea and Jeff Corwin are much better

[CJReptile]

Well, austin handled that situation very well, great video
The gorilla thing was just nasty
the dog vid is hilarious

[Adam]

I told you guys he was dumb!! did he die from that??...just wondering :roll: :roll:

[EZE]

That snake was a venomoid! I was told this by a very reliable source. I won't tell who told me but it pretty much came from the horses mouth.

E

[ssjenny1]

You can't watch Austin Stevens without wanting to see someone get bit by a HOT. The way he handles animals of all kinds shouldn't even be allowed on tv. I think someone mentioned it earlier, he does all this to take PICTURES of the snakes!!!! That's a sorry excuse for a television show and for the stress caused to these animals. I get angry just watching the commercials. I used to think Steve Irwin was ridiculous, but at least you can tell he has a geniune concern for his animals and the responsibility to educate people about them.

[Hennek]

I don't think anyone necessarily deserves to get bit...but he was being an idiot. All shows like that do is instill irrational fear into people about snakes when, as we all know, most snakes would rather turn and run than attack a human. They also encourage people who have never kept (and probably never should) hot snakes before to go out and buy one. I myself would love to own a Gaboon Viper because I think they are BEAUTIFUL, but I never will because I don't want to get bitten and I'm not a fan of venemoids.

The dog one had me crying I was laughing so hard...but I question how smart it was to put a dog that size in with a cat that big...he wouldn't even be a full meal...he'd be an hor'dourve.

Matt