Snake Keeper Feeding His Short Tempered King Cobra

I am too curious about what's wrong with his style.

Are you overly curious or are you also curious?

I am overly curious so I did a google search and found some criticism.

"You have the right to endanger your own life, but posting pictures of you doing so with venomous snakes could endanger the dreamers who may intend to copy. Which is why I am against it."

-ViperLover

I do not understand why people like Al so much as a keeper. I think he is a nice guy but some of his videos show him free handling green mambas while they eat and I feel that he has terrible practices when it comes to handling. It seems like he can get away with murder but when I posted a video of tube feeding 6" diammondback rattlesnakes and executing it perfectly and without incident, my video was bashed because I was wearing socks (the last thing I am worried about while pinning a neonate snake is my feet). I just see a lot of hypocrisy with the way we (the venomous community) moderates itself. If everyone wants to ridicule someone handling a tiny crotalid in socks that is fine but do not turn a blind eye to a much more publicly visible figure mishandling his mambas simply because he is "respected" (which I believe is only true because he has a nice collection).

-ChrisR

"And he is putting a lot of people into potential danger by playing with a snake that statistically kills over 90% of the people it bites. if that snake bites him and it were to be an unlucky bite to a vein or artery, he may become paralyzed in less than a few minutes. Then there is a deadly snake loose in a room that someone else has to find, then wrangle, all the while BEFORE paramedics or anyone else could help him. Also, mambas are probably one of the most unpredictable snakes, showing a higher level of intelligence than most snakes, not to mention it's the fastest snake in the world... Not exactly a snake you should ever think you can predict how it's going to act 100% of the time."

-andyoconnor83

I grabbed these from this 2011 discussion. It seems to me that the criticism largely centers on a belief that he is endangering more than himself by working with his snakes in this way (and filming it). A portion of the criticism appears to be motivated by envy, e.g. "Why does he have so many subscribers" but most of the criticism seems pretty genuine, and a few people make pretty good points.

/r/videos Thread Parent Link - youtube.com