Do you kill on sight

[Once Bitten]

Yesterday my dogs cornered a large black scorpion in the garden , I managed to catch it before they had dispatched it to scorpion heaven .

 

Every one around me ( relatives / neighbors ) were of the opinion that it should be killed right away , personally I just wanted to take a photograph of it and let it go well away from the house .

 

I know some creatures can be harmful and best avoided , but in the end I let it go , may be I did the right thing or not , but I could just not see the point in killing this wonderful looking creature , when all it wanted to do was run far away as possible .

 

 

So I was wondering what you do when you are in the situation to kill or release some thing like a scorpion. Do you show compassion or just kill no matter what it is .

 

 

Edited February 23, 2017 by Once Bitten

[connda]

Thais are an interesting lot.  They'll refuse to euthanize a suffering dog or cat, but they'll jump on the bandwagon to kill a scorpion or snake.  If we can catch it at our home, we remove critters to outside of our walled yard into the forest beyond.  Obviously I'm not a Thai, although I am a Buddhist so I respect life.  Thai Buddhists seem to be different creatures in regards to what life forms they are willing to kill without a thought. 

[tutsiwarrior]

centipedes definitely as they are venomous and horrible...flying insects as they are a nuisance...ants and cockroaches as they compromise the cleanliness of my beloved kitchen...as a lifelong arachnophobe I useta kill the huntsmen spiders but then realised that they are our friends and serve a purpose and that realisation turned my head around completely with regard to my phobia...

 

what goes around comes around...I had sprayed my kitchen floor with Chaindrite to kill an infestation of baby centipedes and the spray is an oily substance...I later trod upon the sprayed surface, slipped as on ice and broke my leg in 3 places requiring surgery...

 

bad karma...

 

 

Edited February 27, 2017 by tutsiwarrior

[cooked]

This isn't a Thai problem. Living in the country anywhere will bring you up against the "if you can eat it, kill it, if you can't eat it, kill it because it is useless" mentality. I have a set of tongs used for picking up litter near the front door, gets used mostly for scorpions and the occasional snake. The beasts go over the garden wall.

My wife didn't believe me when I said I'd seen a snake about 3 metres long last year until it later turned up in the village shop. It was sold and  eaten in Bangkok.

I agree about centipedes though,  mosquitoes, ants and ticks (and head lice, leeches.....) have to go. I am a great believer in spraying before the small problem becomes a big one, building a garden wall recently I constantly had a spray nearby and the Thai helping me didn't hesitate to use it when necessary.

[dick dasterdly]

I kill mossies and ticks.  Reluctantly, as they're only trying to survive - but dengue doesn't bear thinking about and ticks can cause equally serious problems for my dogs.  Plus of course, ticks multiply rapidly unless killed.

 

Many years ago I sprayed some ants in the kitchen, but watching them die was so horrifying that nowadays just ensure there is never any food 'lying around'.

 

I wouldn't consider killing a snake as (quite apart from hating to kill any living being) I'm not brave enough to get that close!  On the 2 occasions a snake has come into the house (and I had no idea whether or not it was dangerous) it was a case of 'panic stations' - terrified and desperately trying to chase/sweep it outside whilst keeping my distance .  It would have made a v funny video!

 

The only other time, I was pretty sure it was a Golden Tree snake so wasn't too bothered - but still made sure it had escape routes/encouraged it to take these routes back outside and kept an eye on it until it left.

 

I'm more frightened of centipedes and killed one (the first I'd seen, that was on the path next to the house) with a spade.  That too was horrifying  - they're tough, and it took a few blows for the poor thing to die.  Not something I'd be keen to repeat.  Fortunately, I've only seen a few since and they've been under pots or in pot-plant soil - so I move pots v cautiously ,aware that there may be a centipede underneath and use a trowel to remove soil from pots, whilst wearing leather gloves .

 

Weirdly, I've never seen a scorpion here - but when/if I do, I'll adopt the same approach as with centipedes - let them scurry away and hide somewhere else.