\n Data compiled by Born Free, which works to stop the exploitation and suffering of wild animals, indicates that a number of dangerous wild animals are licensed to live in the county.\n<\/p>\n
\n Among these is a western diamondback rattlesnake – a large, aggressive, venomous and highly-dangerous pit viper.\n<\/p>\n
\n This type of snake, which usually lives in North America, is second only to the eastern diamondback among rattlesnakes with regard to size and fatalities delivered by its bite.\n<\/p>\n
\n The Born Free data also indicates that other venomous snakes are living in South Gloucestershire.\n<\/p>\n
\n Data suggests the county is home to one horned viper, one banded rock rattlesnake and two eyelash vipers.\n<\/p>\n
\n In addition, it contains one Chinese alligator and one ostrich, the data indicates.\n<\/p>\n
\n Born Free said the data may represent the maximum number allowed on a licence, the minimum number or the number in possession at the time of the data request.\u202f\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\n Western diamondbacks have triangular heads, short tails and diamond-shaped scale patterning.\n<\/p>\n
\n They are known for their aggressive nature and their willingness to bite those who threaten them.\n<\/p>\n
\n A western diamondback\u2019s bite can deliver as much as 800 mg of\u00a0venom\u00a0to its victim.\n<\/p>\n
\n This can cause pain, swelling, and\u00a0the death of body tissue\u00a0at the site of the bite, as well as kidney damage and issues with blood\u00a0coagulation.\n<\/p>\n
\n Some 10 to 20 per cent of untreated bites are fatal.\n<\/p>\n
\n The snakes typically live in arid and semiarid scrublands in North America, from southern California to western Arkansas in the US and south to northern Mexico.\n<\/p>\n
\n The majority of western diamondbacks average between 1.2 and 1.8 meters in length.\n<\/p>\n
\n A 2023 survey by Born Free said that more than 2,700\u202fdangerous wild animals are licensed to be kept privately in Great Britain.\n<\/p>\n
\n However, Born Free said many more may be kept without a licence.\n<\/p>\n
\n It added that 187\u202fprivate addresses across 126\u202flocal authorities have licences to keep animals like tigers, lions, crocodilians and venomous reptiles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Data compiled by Born Free, which works to stop the exploitation and suffering of wild animals, indicates that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":148543,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":{"0":"post-148542","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-uk","10":"tag-united-kingdom","11":"tag-unitedkingdom","12":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148542\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/148543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}