Skrelp are extremely poisonous pokemon, and the venom which defends them so adeptly in the wild often causes their trainers trouble, for they poison everything they touch. In the oceans they call home, they are a hazard to swimmers, divers, and water pokemon, but the water soon washes away any contamination on non-living things; handling them is no more difficult than finding them and keeping one's distance, for Skrelp do not attack bigger creatures unless they perceive them as threats. On land, where their poison lingers, they are far more dangerous.
A typical trainer's first difficulty with their new Skrelp often comes when they handle its poke ball for the first time and fall victim to a case of Skrelp poisoning, which in severe cases can require hospitalization or even lead to death. The poke ball, which is capable of shielding even a Weezing or Garbodor's toxins and sealing beasts the size of Steelix, is incapable of stopping a Skrelp's venom from leaking – or perhaps, as many Silph Corporation representatives have suggested when defending against lawsuits, the poison comes from when the Skrelp touches the outside of the ball while being caught or summoned to battle.
Skrelp trainers are advised to wear special gloves to protect their hands – a habit which has become surprisingly popular in the rest of the pokemon world, initially to feign that one is carrying a Skrelp or Dragalge on one's team, then as a fashion which spread from the trend-setting city of Lumiose to the rest of the pokemon world. Care must also be taken when feeding Skrelp, to ensure that neither the food nor the container is contaminated and spreads to one's other pokemon, and the grass on these pokemon's battlefields often dies off from poison and must be replanted after every match.