When your fishing and you hook one;
I'm pretty sure it's the moist poisonous newt. Usually only if ingested, and people have died. The average adult Rough-skinned newt has enough toxins in its skin to kill 13 healthy adult humans. Only one animal (the common garter) is resistant to its toxin.
The toxin is secreted thru the skin when played with. It is water soluble and will get over everything. It stinks to me, something horrible, but most people don't notice (?). I'm not saying you will die if you touch it. I'm saying you will get it on your rod/reel/bait/line and the fish won't like it. Like I said its water soluble and will foul the area around your bait.
Whenever I hook one I cut the leader off and set it aside until I'm done fishing and I release them all at the same time. I used to use rubber gloves and was burning thru them one day I decided they were getting the time out bucket.
They are fine to handle and play with, just don't eat one, or fish with them. People have died actually.
This is an insert from a newspaper "Berkley daily planet"
"That fatality took place in 1979, when a 29-year-old college student in Coos Bay, Oregon got newt-swallowing drunk and ingested a rough-skinned newt on a dare. (I have spent time in Coos Bay, a dismal little lumber town, and can understand how the place might be conducive to extreme behavior). Within 10 minutes the victim’s lips began to tingle; numbness and weakness followed, then cardiopulmonary arrest. In another incident, a scientist who got newt toxin into a puncture wound on his index finger survived, but the affected arm went numb up to the shoulder for half an hour. "
It's a defense mechanism to avoid predation. Like being eaten by fish. And it works, they know it, and fish know it... for a reason. So think twice fellas....
FRC
I'm pretty sure it's the moist poisonous newt. Usually only if ingested, and people have died. The average adult Rough-skinned newt has enough toxins in its skin to kill 13 healthy adult humans. Only one animal (the common garter) is resistant to its toxin.
The toxin is secreted thru the skin when played with. It is water soluble and will get over everything. It stinks to me, something horrible, but most people don't notice (?). I'm not saying you will die if you touch it. I'm saying you will get it on your rod/reel/bait/line and the fish won't like it. Like I said its water soluble and will foul the area around your bait.
Whenever I hook one I cut the leader off and set it aside until I'm done fishing and I release them all at the same time. I used to use rubber gloves and was burning thru them one day I decided they were getting the time out bucket.
They are fine to handle and play with, just don't eat one, or fish with them. People have died actually.
This is an insert from a newspaper "Berkley daily planet"
"That fatality took place in 1979, when a 29-year-old college student in Coos Bay, Oregon got newt-swallowing drunk and ingested a rough-skinned newt on a dare. (I have spent time in Coos Bay, a dismal little lumber town, and can understand how the place might be conducive to extreme behavior). Within 10 minutes the victim’s lips began to tingle; numbness and weakness followed, then cardiopulmonary arrest. In another incident, a scientist who got newt toxin into a puncture wound on his index finger survived, but the affected arm went numb up to the shoulder for half an hour. "
It's a defense mechanism to avoid predation. Like being eaten by fish. And it works, they know it, and fish know it... for a reason. So think twice fellas....
FRC
