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?

As another vegan I am pleased to hear that there are places that care about animal welfare even if they are the minions of Satan

I never even realised that spider milking was a thing

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

I had no idea how anti-venom was made so this was very interesting. However, I'm prompted to ask why we can't use human survivors of snake bites to produce anti-venom. Surely they have produced the necessary antibodies too?

This has to be a joke

I would say an example of a non-cute animal is a naked mole rat or one of those hideous bald chinese dogs, not a spider.

I would not say a spider counts for much the same reason I don't think a flea counts.

I hate spiders. I avoid killing them and just put them outside as I recognise my fear is irrational but if someone is trying to work on a solution to help out people who get bitten by dangerous ones then sorry but I think that's more important. Really can't get worked up about it.

This is fascinating! I'm pretty far from vegan but do think the way we treat other animals (even the scarier ones) is important, surely nobody is a fan of needless cruelty (such as testing makeup on animals)? But if the last death was in 1979 then it's all in a good cause!

Having been bit by a tiny spider smaller than a grain of rice, in the UK which made made me had and elbow swell up, the bite become a big hot infected mound and unable to use my hand for several days, I'm all for antivenom, I'm terrified of being bitten again, especially if it was a dangerous venomous spider in Australia!!!

Sorry, yes you're right Marue.

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

That's a rather teenage attitude.

I feel the same about these spiders as I do about all animals involved in life saving science, it's unpleasant but necessary.

It's not as if they are testing make up on them.

I bet you need a very low stool.

I just saw the alien post.

Sorry but analogies like that just don't work.

Here's another, Imagine one of your family members was bitten by a poisonous spider and were about to die because there simply wasn't enough proper anti-venom to save them.

My analogy is an actual possibility if Australians stopped milking spiders.

You can milk spiders? Well, I never...
It's a lot more humane than what I do to them spider, meet the vacuum cleaner

It's not as if they are testing make up on them.

Like mascara on poor Itsy and Bitsy?

I much prefer those fluffy ones with make-up.

:o

I think poor Bitsy is actually testing some false eyelashes there.

JAYSUS!!

Is that real?!

A Funnel web from Sydney. Shudder

OMG. WARNING!

DON'T google funnel web spider bite. Gruesome.

at low stool

You learn something new every day.

Why the feck would anyone google that?! :o

So, Marue, out of interest, if a mosquito lands on you, what do you do? What about if you were in a place where the mosquitos carry malaria?

If there are aphids or slugs all over your vegetable crop, what do you do?

I have no difficulty with the concept of trying to tread as lightly as possible on the earth, but perhaps a little perspective is needed, here.

if a mosquito lands on you, what do you do? What about if you were in a place where the mosquitos carry malaria?

If there are aphids or slugs all over your vegetable crop, what do you do?

Another vegan here, so I'll answer that one.

If I was in a malaria zone, I'd be hopped up on quinine (or whatever it is) before I got there and make heavy use of mosquito nets. If the bugger landed on me then I would smack it because I may be vegan but I don't have a death wish.

We had aphids all over our crops this year and I let DS blast them with the hose - a relatively non-lethal deterrent. They've got a right to live as well. I would be a lot less forgiving if I had to subsist on those crops alone though, tbf.

I carefully picked the baby snails off the sorrel leaves before I put them into dinner yesterday, but that was entirely sensible; who wants to eat snail?

When they 'milk' snakes, they just get them to bite something and use the venom produced that way. They don't attach them to a mini-milking machine, the snake just does what it does naturally.

I imagine it's the same for spiders, so no cruelty involved, just getting a naturally bitey creature to do what it likes to do.

If I was in a malaria zone, I'd be hopped up on quinine (or whatever it is) before I got there and make heavy use of mosquito nets. If the bugger landed on me then I would smack it because I may be vegan but I don't have a death wish

Antimalarials are tested on animals, though...