I seldom ever kill a snake. They're just too valuable (I hate rats and mice!). And, I've never really understood the utter hatred many folks have for them. A LOT of people indiscriminately kill all snakes regardless if they're poisonous or not. Poisonous snakes found near the house are simply handled with a garden hoe/rake or a snake stick, dropped in a 5 gallon bucket and transported to a more appropriate habitat (usually deep in the woods far from any houses). Most non-poisonous snakes I come across I'll catch, play with for a few minutes, and release. Some get to come to the house and spend a few days in a nice comfortable terrarium where the boys can get more familiar with them. I can easily and immediately tell the difference between the harmless and dangerous snakes that I'm likely to encounter. I want my boys to be able to do the same. It might mean the difference between life and death some time (both for the snake and for my boys
).
My wife even understands the benefit of snakes. If she comes across a non-poisonous snake (and, yes, she can identify them too) while mowing grass or working in the yard, she'll usually just shoo them away while she gets on with whatever she's doing. She does draw the line at having poisonous snakes in the house.
Whenever a copperhead comes home for the terrarium, the terrarium has to remain outside on the porch. And then, only for a couple of days.
As with most things, education is the key. Get to know the snakes in your area. Knowing them well might save you from hurting yourself trying to get away from a harmless, beneficial non-poisonous snake. And, by the way, I haven't been able to locate a source for the statistics, but I recall reading somewhere that most people bitten by poisonous snakes were trying to kill the snake when bitten. If they'd just left the snake alone, they likely wouldn't have been bitten.
I grew up out in the sticks. As a kid with no internet, no video games, and only 3 TV channels, catching frogs, lizards, snakes, scorpions, and spiders was what my cousins and I did for entertainment. My dad was bitten on the bottom of his foot by a copperhead as a kid. He was going down to the spring to get a jug of milk that was there being "refrigerated" by the cool spring water. He was barefooted and saw the snake too late to avoid stepping on it. Can't blame the snake. It was just minding its own business down in the woods nowhere near any houses. So, my dad made it a point to educate me early on to be able to identify them (and other dangerous critters).
Sorry for the long post. This is just one of my pet peeves. I tend to go into rant mode when discussing the needless killing of snakes.
Later,
BR
