Title – Snakes
Date – August 1994
Location - Bangkok - Thailand
Many people consider snakes amongst their biggest phobias. Some people even go so far as avoiding whole countries because they have heard the horror stories about the number of venomous snakes that inhabit them. Australia for example has over 140 species of snake of which about 100 are venomous. Yet Australia suffers only about 1 or 2 deaths a year from snakebite out of a population of 21 million!
Admittedly the estimates for the world read a little differently, with somewhere in the region of 100,000 deaths thought to be as a result of snake bite occurring each year; but as the Australian figure suggests, the vast majority of these deaths occur in remote and agricultural areas where people are bitten while working in places like rice fields, where they are bare footed. In ‘developed’ countries like Australia where people wear good modern footwear and no longer have the need to do manual labour without suitable equipment, the death by snakebite rate, is almost non existent.
So by following a few simple rules no one really has anything to fear from snakes. I know how rarely snakes are seen, because as a snake enthusiast I go out looking for them and rarely come across them; even when I turn over branches and stones looking.
Beyond The Blue offer workshops to help you gain the skills and information needed to take a trip to wherever in the world your plans take you. Our Gap Year and Independent Travel Safety & Awareness workshop provides you with the facts and allows you to get past the myths that are out there; we are interested in providing you with the content and not the headlines.
Please visit our website at www.safegapyear.com
Image – ©Peter Mayhew
Date – August 1994
Location - Bangkok - Thailand
Many people consider snakes amongst their biggest phobias. Some people even go so far as avoiding whole countries because they have heard the horror stories about the number of venomous snakes that inhabit them. Australia for example has over 140 species of snake of which about 100 are venomous. Yet Australia suffers only about 1 or 2 deaths a year from snakebite out of a population of 21 million!
Admittedly the estimates for the world read a little differently, with somewhere in the region of 100,000 deaths thought to be as a result of snake bite occurring each year; but as the Australian figure suggests, the vast majority of these deaths occur in remote and agricultural areas where people are bitten while working in places like rice fields, where they are bare footed. In ‘developed’ countries like Australia where people wear good modern footwear and no longer have the need to do manual labour without suitable equipment, the death by snakebite rate, is almost non existent.
So by following a few simple rules no one really has anything to fear from snakes. I know how rarely snakes are seen, because as a snake enthusiast I go out looking for them and rarely come across them; even when I turn over branches and stones looking.
Beyond The Blue offer workshops to help you gain the skills and information needed to take a trip to wherever in the world your plans take you. Our Gap Year and Independent Travel Safety & Awareness workshop provides you with the facts and allows you to get past the myths that are out there; we are interested in providing you with the content and not the headlines.
Please visit our website at www.safegapyear.com
Image – ©Peter Mayhew
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