Help! My niece found a black widow spider in some grapes.

[Darth_Kitten]

No fooling. She still HAS the thing. ALIVE.

It was on the local news. Yikes.

She's such a softie, she apparently doesn't want to kill it. What does she do with it, or is there some organization that can take it. :(

[AlabamaLibrul]

1. Put it in a... something (I always use dixie cups) and put it outside.

Make sure it doesn't just run back toward the hosue.

[Darth_Kitten]

4. In Canada? In November?

:(

[Capn Sunshine]

27. Exactly

Let nature be the ultimate arbiter
That thing is dangerous. It's like carrying a swine flu sample around.

[grasswire]

2. call the zoo

and call animal control

[nolabear]

3. I'm sure you can Google what they eat. Just don't let it out.

Don't know who'd want it unless there's a school or a safety program somewhere that might like an example of how they look. Was it shipped in or are they native to your area?

[Darth_Kitten]

5. Southern Manitoba, so no....it was in a shipment...

:(

[Brickbat]

6. I'd kill it. Gah.

[Darth_Kitten]

7. No...I like how she is such a sweetheart...

won't kill it.

Whenever I find a spider in my apartment, I release it outside, but there aren't black widows. :(

[Brickbat]

9. I leave my spiders be too, but they're not about to bite me.

[siligut]

8. Let her know, she would really rather be free.

Help her take the spider to a place she can let it go, honestly, any spider would prefer freedom.

[Darth_Kitten]

10. Don't think black widow spiders care for snow.

Snow's in the forecast where we live. :(

[Lyric]

18. It snows in West Virginia (and gets pretty cold in the winter)

and we have tons of black widow spiders. Tell your niece to put her outside--she'll find a safe place to winter. :)

[SteppingRazor]

11. I understand being a softie about animals, but if an animal is a serious danger to you...

and is in your house, it's time to act like an animal yourself. Fight of flight. You're already in your home, so flight is not an option. She may not want to hear this, but the best thing -- the safest thing -- for her is to just squish the little bugger. A black widow bite won't kill a healthy adult, but it is still a very serious thing -- if she's bitten, she'll suffer agonizing cramps through her entire body, probably get nausea and perhaps vomit, and then there's the uncontrollable shaking. Even if she's a healthy adult, she may need medical assistance. There is no reason at all to keep that thing alive if it's in your house.

[Darth_Kitten]

16. It's in a jar....

they are looking at options for it. :)

Last thing they were doing were making some videos. :rofl:

[struggle4progress]

12. They're not very aggressive, and fatality rate from bites is below 1%

I'd release the poor thing go outside myself

We used to find them under the sinks or behind the toilets in the bunkhouse when I worked on a ranch in California. The general attitude was: "Oh, look. That looks like a black widow. Let's get a closer look. Yep. It's a black widow. Say, everybody, there's a black widow here. I think I'll just leave it alone." I don't remember anyone being bitten. If there had been small kids around, I suppose we would have removed the spiders or killed them

[Capn Sunshine]

28. But the damage rate from bites is HUGE

Permanent scars, sick for days, gangrene, all kinds of bad shit.

[struggle4progress]

29. Are you confusing black widow with brown recluse?

Black widow venom is a neurotoxin; brown recluse venom produces tissue destruction

[foxfeet]

13. Let it go outside.

Black widows are common in the Eastern U.S., where it snows during winter (they're often found outdoors in woodpiles, etc.)

[struggle4progress]

14. Black Widow Spider Bite

http://www.emedicinehealth.com/black_widow_spider_bite/article_em.htm

[NewJeffCT]

15. There are some species of black widow that live in Canada

Is there a university/college around that can tell you if it can survive in the cold.

The following widow spiders are indigenous to North America:

Latrodectus bishopi, the red widow, Florida, USA
Latrodectus hesperus, the Western black widow, western Canada, United States, and Mexico.
Latrodectus mactans, the black widow spider (sometimes called the Southern black widow), warm regions of the USA.
Latrodectus variolus, the Northern black widow, from the extreme southeastern part of Canada and south to northern Florida, with frequency higher in the northern part of this range.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latrodectus

[marzipanni]

17. After reading someone's post on DU about looking in your back yard with a flashlight

and seeing many little spider eyes glowing, I tried it.
For a couple of weeks, in July 2009, each evening after dark I looked around the back yard with a flashlight and found a black widow, or two, almost always at about 18" off the ground, or lower. Without the flashlight I'd have walked right into black widows suspended in the middle of their strong strand of web stretched across my path. I dropped a brick on 13 of them in those two weeks- I didn't want them muliplying. They hang out at my dog's nose level, and my family's leg level.

I never kill spiders or flies in the house, just scoop them up with a glass and a thin piece of cardboard and put them outside. I do smoosh mosquitoes, and the very rare tick, and kill fleas with Advantage® on our dog.

[NNadir]

19. I got bit a few years back by a Brown Recluse Spider. It was horrible.

I was chopping wood when it happened.

My hand swelled up to twice its size and the pain was incredible.

Apparently, from what I read afterwards, I was actually lucky that this was all that happened.

I generally don't like to kill insects and/or arthropods, particularly predators, but if I saw a Brown Recluse again, I would definitely kill it.

[ncrainbowgrrl]

25. I also got bitten by a brown recluse

have a scar on my shoulder from where the darn thing got me... had to go to ER for treatnent after the initial treatment by PCP failed...and I had a ulcerating mess with a fever... never mind. TMI for first returning to DU after a LONG time gone...

[struggle4progress]

30. Hey! Long time no see!

Hope you're doing well!

[ncrainbowgrrl]

31. Hey there!!

Glad to see you- so many new faces...

Doing MUCH better than when I had to take a break from DU. Think I have the health thing on the mend ... and I can now afford to take the energy to getting back to being a political junkie!!

[struggle4progress]

35. We should get the usual suspects together again some evening

[Gormy Cuss]

20. PM mike_c because he's an entomologist

or call the local university and ask to speak to one of their entomologists.

[jmowreader]

21. I recommend squishing the thing.

Any organization she calls is going to tell her to squish it. So just squish it.

[FarLeftRage]

22. Were the grapes imported from Chile?

I remember awhile back, like a few years ago, there was a problem with the grapes that were imported from Chile. Almost, if not all of the grapes had a few black widow spiders found in them. I'd kill it no matter what the circumstances may be... they are dangerous critters to have around.

[quakerboy]

23. Put it in a little jar

Take the lid off, and hold it against the web between your thumb and forefinger.

Its a handy little thing that I did. Cept I grabbed a padlock in a dark doorway, rather than a jar against the hand. Gives you super powers.

Or at least the ability to take your pulse in the new giant artery in the web between finger and thumb. Preceded by some not feeling good times.

[Lasher]

24. Don't release it.

I might not be a native species, particularly if the grape shipment originated outside Canada.

[Art_from_Ark]

26. I found a black widow on some pants that I had brought inside

after leaving them on the clothesline overnight. I squished it right away.

There is no need for soul-searching when a poisonous critter is in the house.

[realisticphish]

32. If she really wants to keep it

check your local laws. Sometimes hot animals are much more restricted. If it's non-native, you could theoretically get in trouble for releasing it (in the US, at least), but I doubt this would be an invasive risk, since its by itself.

Look for an exotic animal dealer in the area. There are tarantula dealers I've met who would buy wild-caught spiders like that; I don't know what the Black Widow demand would be.

[Kali]

33. put it in a gallon jar or get a terrarium from the pet store

black widows like secluded places so put some wadded up newspapers and some twigs in there - a paper cup or a small (opened and emptied) food can on its side

they like some humidity so a small lid with a piece of sponge in it can be moistened pretty easily without making a big mess or needing to stick a hand in the container - just drip some water from a baster or equivalent onto the sponge from above

the can be fed crickets (also available at the pet store or hand caught)

they aren't particularly aggressive so can be kept as a pet easily

[realisticphish]

34. if she gets a terrarium

she should look up scorpion-proofing, and do that with this. Not an animal you'd particularly want escaping

[struggle4progress]

36. I'd thumbs-down this suggestion. It's in the category of pet grizzly, rattlesnake, piranha, and such

The fact that the spiders are usually not terribly aggressive and that the bite is seldom fatal to adults doesn't mean it's a good idea to cultivate them casually indoors

If somebody wants a pet spider, I'd suggest a tarantula