I have a question regarding the likelihood that a given snake found in a house in south-eastern Florida (between Miami and Orlando on the eastern side, if that matters) would be a venomous Coral Snake or any one of the innocuous snakes that are colored very similarly.
I don’t want to get into “what color touches what” because the issue at hand is not identifying a specific snake by cool observation, but rather countering the assertions of phobic people who kill every colored snake they find, and assert things like:
edit: Does that quote sound possible? There can’t be so many Coral Snakes people are tripping over them several times a week, can there? That’s got to be a lot of innocuous snakes misidentified, right?
I know that the distribution of Eastern Coral Snakes puts them in the area, and I now that it’s possible that people encounter them. But what is the population density of true Coral Snakes relative to Milk Snakes and other lookalikes? Isn’t it likely that these people are seeing a lot of similar-looking snakes and declaring them all Coral Snakes (probably because no one is interested when you find a Milk Snake)?
I am trying to convey that:
no, not every red/black/yellow snake is a Coral Snake
Coral Snakes are not aggressive and should be left alone if possible, not hunted down or messed with
killing every snake you see out of fear or a misplaced desire to be a hero is senselessly destructive – and a good way to start seeing rats around your property.
It would be useful to have some rough idea of the ratio of non-venomous Coral Snake look-alikes to true Coral Snakes in terms of individuals encountered – i.e., not “there are 5 non-venomous species and only one Coral Snake species in FL” but more like “You’ll probably encounter 20 non-venomous colored snakes of various species for every one Coral Snake” or something similar.
Is there a web resource I can direct snake-fearing people to that might help calm them on this issue?
I recognize that some people will take the “kill 'em all and let God or Colibri sort 'em out” approach to “make sure” to get the venomous snakes. But I’d like to be on as solid a factual ground as I can when talking to the more open-minded folks about not just killing everything they see in nature (or wandering out of nature and into their den).
I have lived in Florida off and on for about 25 years, both in the country and in the suburbs, and I have never seen a coral snake in the wild. I have seen quite a few rattlers and water moccasins, though, and have known people who have been bitten by rattlesnakes.
Robert Norris, a snake venom expert and chief of emergency medicine at Stanford University in California, said he suspects Hernandez is the first coral snake fatality on record in the United States since the discovery of anti-venin 40 years ago. Since the 1960s, he said, no deaths from coral snake bites have been reported to the American Association of Poison Control Centers.
I wasn’t able to find statistics about the chances of running across a coral snake in Florida, but obviously there are only two kinds of snakes in the state that could be identified as such: the coral snake and the king snake. Killing any other kind of snake because it might be a coral snake is, IMO, irresponsible.
I can only provide anecdotal evidence as well, I’ve been in Florida over 40 years and never seen a coral snake in the wild. I did see one dead one killed by my boss’s cat, I think he treated it with the anti-venin even though the cat didn’t have a mark on it. This was in a Gulf Beach city. I have seen and identified countless corpses of king snakes people have brought to us to ID, unfortunately it was too late for a proper ID to save them.
I hate to see beneficial snakes killed needlessly but I can at least understand the fear of corals and their look-alikes. The one that bugs me most are when people kill black racers. There is no native poisonous black snake around here (and not likely that someone’s pet mamba has escaped) so there is no need to kill these beautiful snakes.
Coral snakes are pretty common here in Texas, and they’ve occasionally been spotted near my son’s day care center… but getting a read on the population is tough, because as snakes go, they’re fairly shy and reclusive. They’re usually hiding in burrows, or in hollow logs, or under rocks, which means it’s hard to find them unless you’re looking for them.
The only time they tend to be spotted is when it’s rained heavily, and they get washed out of their holes. Meaning that if a colored snake is out and about on a sunny day, it PROBABLY is not a coral snake. That’s just not their nature.
I heard an interesting number on a TV show about Texas snakes. Somebody volunteered that 85% of Texas snakes are not poisonous. Which means that 15% are–sounds like a good reason to wear high boots in the country. Or stay here in the city. And avoid wading during one of our famous Houston floods; that’s supposedly when the water moccasins come out to play.
Still, coral snakes would be a very small percentage of that 15%. And, due to their small size & lack of fangs, would not be much of a threat. Red & Yellow, Kill a Fellow!
Who sees any snakes two or three times a week unless they work at the Reptile House? I don’t live in Florida, but the last time I saw a snake at all was months ago, and it was a poor headless black snake somebody had murdered with a hoe and dumped in the gutter. I couldn’t tell you the last time before that that I saw a snake outside.