Australians should stop milking spiders

[Marue]

Heard that they were urging people to catch more spiders to milk for anti venom, the average spider gets milked 100 times before being killed!

It just seems very inhumane to do that these days, surely with modern technology they should synthesise this?

My specialism is reptiles, rather than spiders, but I shouldn't think anti-venom technology varies much.

"Natural" anti-venom has a much, much higher success rate than anything we've come up with synthetically.

Would you take the chance on a much less effective synthetic alternative for you or your family?

1. I really can't get het up about spider welfare
2. if you live in a country where a spider bite can kill you then an anti venom is something that you want to have access to

I know nothing about this. Does it hurt the spider?

Addb - is that just because the natural solution is out there and people aren't bothering to invest into research into making a synthetic one?

I hate the additiude that only cute animals welfare is important.

I know nothing about this. Does it hurt the spider?

Would you like to be locked up in a lab for months while giants milked you?

I've seen it done on TV. I don't think the spider is all that bothered, or has the brain capacity to be bothered actually. OP move to Australia and then tell us what you think.

Well no. But it was a genuine question. I know nothing of how it works, the process, how the spider is allowed to live etc.

There are various snakes and spiders that you can be bitten by, and you need to be administered the correct one as not all the venom is the same.

I am sure that Anchor will confirm, but I don't think that is snake is harmed when being milked, possibility that they are uncomfortable but not injured.

So what do you suggest? I don't like hurting animals, however as we don't have any decent alternatives I can't see another option.

To be honest, does it matter if the spider is hurt?

If its bite is deadly, and synthetic antivenom is less effective, then stocks of antivenom need to be collected. They wouldn't go to these lengths just for the fun of it!
www.smh.com.au/environment/nsw-reminded-to-help-catch-funnel-web-spiders-to-help-with-antivenom-stocks-20151010-gk5wbj.html

No. The Australian Reptile Park, for example, regularly milks 300 spiders and 500 snakes throughout a year.

They inject small amounts of venom into animals, rabbits for spiders and horses for snakes, typically. The snake/rabbit produces antibodies to fight the venom. After 12 months of this, a small amount of blood is taken from the animal, and the plasma extracted. This plasma is injected into bite victims and helps their body to fight the venom.

Neither animal is hurt and most provide this service throughout their lives. There's an argument that the spiders/snakes can be a bit stressed, depending on their personality.

Sorry pressed enter too soon. So I assume its the same for spiders.

meh who cares.
Even speaking as someone who doesn't kill indoor spiders, I still find it hard to find a fuck to give on this one.

Thanks for the link and anchor for your post. It doesn't sound like a major problem to me then as long as the animals are being treated well in these places.

And on further reading... spider and other venoms are also being used for cures, chlamydia, cancers, etc. So I am sure that the burgeoning synthetic studies will continue.

YABU because there most certainly is a lot of research into synthetic anti venoms of all sorts!

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3195042/
www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0041010111000079

What an odd question. If the spider in question bites you, you have 15 minutes before you are dead. If this happened to me or my family I wouldn't give a crap about spider welfare, I'd want the anti-venom there and then. I wouldn't want to be told that it will take time to produce something synthetic and that anti-venom had run out because someone thought it was cruel to milk the spiders

Besides, what the original report was saying was that instead of killing the spiders (nasty nasty people killing cute little lethal spiders ), people should catch them and hand them in, so some good can come if it.

Caring about the 'poor ickle spiders' is rather down my list of priorities.

Funnel-web bites can kill. If a few spiders have to live in a lab and give up their venom in order to save lives, then I don't really have any issue.

Having been bitten by a redback spider, and grown up around funnel webs, I'll err on the 'staying alive' side.

Can you share where you got the stats on hundreds of times from? The reporting I saw suggested that NSW were seeking 300 spiders to be milked a total of 3000 times - so 10 times each.

I'm Australian. I live in Australia. I fucking hate spiders and couldn't care less.

If the end result is that they die, well that's ok with me!

They aren't usually kept in labs. They are in labs whilst they are milked, for safety, but they are kept in a natural style environment. The lab needs to remain somewhat unusual to make the milking process easier.

Most venom and anti-venom comes from places like the Australia Reptile Park, where the spiders and snakes are well cared for in exhibits, and can reproduce and live in a normal way. Depending on your position on zoos, that might not help how you feel, but they aren't neglected. It is in everyone's interests that they live good, long lives.

The only spiders routinely bought forward from the public are Funnel Web Spiders, because finding males can be difficult and there is often a shortage of anti-venom for these spiders.

I thought it was a bit of a myth, the killer spider bite thing - how often do people actually die from spider bites each year?

Thanks for the links, going off to read them now :)

Its a spider

If it could possibly kill me, then yeah, I'll do whatever I have to in order to stop that happening. If that means the spider dies, I'm cool with that.
Anything with more than 4 legs that encroaches on my house faces imminent death

Our neighbours dog was bitten by a boomslang. I don't think there is an English name for that snake, but in any case, they are common here and very venomous. But they didn't realise until a while later that he had been bitten until they saw the snake again in the creepers over their veranda. The dog started bleeding, and by the time they rushed him to the vet, it was too late. He died from internal bleeding. And this was a 30kg dog.

It is what happens, the anti venom is needed and plenty of research has gone into this. And the same goes with spiders. Just because you only found out about it now OP, doesn't mean that its a new thing.

Thanks for that info Anchor. Are you in Australia?