Talk:Snake Shyam

Latest comment: 17 years ago by Pratheepps

Snake Shyam is not an herpetologist. He is just a local snake charmer who is rescueing snakes. He has absolutely no scietific knowledge whatsoever. So how come he has his name this herpetologist list. It is shameful for all the other herpetologists too. May be nowadays he is reading some snake facts and proving it to Head of Dept. of zoology of some university.But I think that doesnot make him herpetologist. Please Admin make sure of proper facts or just remove the scrupulous documents, like this one. —Preceding unsigned comment added by AVINASH (talkcontribs)

Unfortunately the term "herpetologist" isn't always applied to someone who has a degree in the field. Steve Irwin for example. I can't imagine anyone would say he wasn't a herpetologist, he has dedicated his life to reptiles. Generally for use in Wikipedia, the commonly accepted understanding of what a word means is used. In this particular case, a man who makes a living working with reptiles is a herpetologist. Could the article use improvement, most certainly. WP:BOLD! but also be WP:NPOV. -Dawson 07:49, 7 April 2006 (UTC)Reply
It's quoted in the main article "Professionally he’s not a trained herpetologist. But he could easily identify the 3 dozen odd species of snakes in the area.". Looks like that make it factual. More than being a herpetologist, is is of practical help to the people in the city(Mysore).He is available 24x7 when there is a snake emergncy. That's free of cost (though people pay as a goodwill).His phone number is listed in the local telephone directory, just under the emergency numbers of Fire,Police,Ambulance Pratheepps 16:18, 24 May 2006 (UTC)Reply