Vipers are critically important components of the ecological communities from which they come.

 


Vipers are critically important components of the ecological communities from which they come. 

For a balanced and healthy wildlife community, these snakes need to be present. Further, they often feed on rodents, which can be associated with a wide variety of human pathogens. 

Vipers may well serve as components of a control mechanism of rodent populations.  By consuming rodents, and the parasites on them, vipers may also be part of a control mechanism of tick-vectored illnesses, including lyme disease.

Many more people are sickened/killed every year by diseases associated with rodents, and the parasites that feed on them/spread disease, than are injured or killed by venomous snakes in the US annually.  Lyme disease alone inflicts over 300,000 people in the US per year.  Rodents often serve as hosts for the bacterium. 

For example, forty to ninety percent of white-footed mice in a given population carry the bacterium that causes lyme disease (Borrelia burgdorferi).  Many of the ticks that deliver the disease to humans first feed on infected rodents and are, in turn, infected themselves. 

Again, vipers may serve as a component of control mechanisms of rodent populations and inadvertently eat the ticks feeding on the rodents, thereby also potentially serving as controls of the ticks.  

However, I know there are many people out there that need a pragmatic, more immediate and personal argument for why wildlife is important, particularly a venomous snake. Let me start with this: my personal belief system doesn't include a given species needing to have value to humans to want to keep it around – but play along for a minute here. 

The study of viper venoms has produced some important medications and is a hot topic of study. For example, the study of the venom of a related species to the Fer-de-Lance, a Brazilian viper (Bothrops jararaca), produced ACE inhibitors.

Know anyone who has used the blood pressure medicines Captopril, Lotensis, Capoten, Vasotec, Monopril, Prinivil, Zestril, Univasc, Aceon, Accupril, Altace, or Mavik? I bet you do… and they owe the medicine, the control of their blood pressure, and probably their lives to snake venom. 

Know anyone who took the blood clot medicine Aggrastat  or Integrilin– perhaps in combination with heparin? Aggrastat  came from the venom of a Saw-scale Viper (Echis sp.) and Integrilin (Eptifibatide) is from the Pygmy Rattlesnake (Sistrurus miliarius). 

How might the venom of other vipers be used in human medicine? Possibly in the treatment of breast cancer tumors (Southern Copperhead Venom), as anti-tumor medications (Horned Viper), and as an anti-cancer treatment (South American Rattlesnake). 


These are just several of the actual and potential uses of venom components as human medications.  No snakes means no medical advancements. 

I sure hope the woman who posted this, and the unbelievably uneducated posters that followed, never need any of the medications above... should they use them, they may well owe their lives to viper venom.

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