Garter snakes were the only snakes around my former hometown – though there were some areas with rattler populations a number of miles away.
But North Carolina has been an education to me. In 2000 the market research group I was working for was besieged by a youthful copperhead, who took up residence immediately outside the door leading outside from our office. Eventually the group leader and I tackled and disposed of him using miscellaneous equipment from the office – I can state with authority that a sheet of Owens Corning hard foamed plastic pressed firmly down on a copperhead’s body will restrain him, and that leftover pieces of defunct dot-matrix printer with sharp edges will serve to behead one.
A few days later, visiting our son’s mother and her family down the road, we made the acquaintance of the Black Rat Snake in residence there. These are large snakes – the one we met was approximately 6’6" long; Brandon identified it as being “ginormous” – but non-venomous and well-loved by locals unless they menace and interfere with human efforts, because they are among the finest of vermin control creatures.
Garters definitely aren’t any harm to you or anyone else in your household. At worse, you’ll get a tiny scratch if one should be so bold as to bite you and that is extremely rare. Only time I could see it happening is if you or some one else tries to pick it up. Chances that you would walk onto or stumble on one are also quite unlikely as they are quite fast and good at keeping away from you
I believe that garter snakes are more insectivorous than they eat rodents, from what I’ve read on them and from those whom I know keep them as pets.
If you want a perfectly natural and hassle free way to keep insect pests down around the house, you already have it with the garters! Keep them around, they are actually more beneficial than harmful.
Here on the Bayou Teche in southern Louisiana, we’ve become very familiar with what water moccasins look like. When you see one gliding across the bayou with its head a foot above the water, you’ll probably never mistake them for anything else.
By the way, how did the garter snake get its name?
Basically, my dad always said you’re okay if you try to keep your grass very short, try to avoid having large clumps of plants where they can hide, etc.
Which I’m hoping is all true-because I’m severely ophidiophobic, to the point where I can’t stand to think about snakes for longer than a few minutes or I start getting freaked out.
(A friend’s little brother once brought a garter into her house when I was there. A few of our other friends were just down the street and STILL were able to hear me scream.)
Doc Imagine my surprise when I found one in my yard! (IIRC, it was a Mountain Rattler)
In New Jersey, it’s illegal not only to harm one, but to even touch one. But I have kids, so… my BIL and I got it into a garbage can with a hockey stick, and drove it to a new home near the reservoir, which is fenced and posted.
Well, how about importing a mongoose? You can name it Rikki.
Seriously, what natural predators are there of garter snakes and the like? And could you use something like a mongoose against a poisonous North American snake? And is it just me, or does “The Mongoose” vs. “The Rattler” sound like something I should be watching on WWF?
Total WAG- It’s derived from the German ‘garten’. The garter snake is a common snake, you’re likely to stumble across in your lawn. It’s your garden variety snake. Either the garten somehow became garter or the current name is a shortened form of gartener.
I’d just like to add that garter snakes are, in fact, extremely dangerous… if you happen to be a small rodent or large insect.
Quoth Ilsssssa_Lund:
I’d even go further than that: Just leave it alone, period. If it’s venomous, you want to leave it alone because it’d be dangerous to you to try to deal with it. And if it’s not, then you should still leave it alone, since it’s probably doing a good job and you shouldn’t interfere.
As for the possibility of bites, garter snakes are probably safer than squirrels. Both of them would much prefer to not be that close to you in the first place, and squirrels have the possibility of rabies (which can’t be spread by cold-blooded creatures). So unless squirrels in your yard would bother you, too, I wouldn’t worry.
Some birds such as some hawks and kites. The swallow-tailed kite (found only in Florida, the SE Gulf coast, and the SE Atlantic coast) eats lizards, snakes, and small birds. The wide-spread northern harrier eats mice, rats, birds, snakes, frogs, and other small animals. The red-shouldered hawk eats small mammals, snakes, lizards, frogs, insects, and a few birds. The borad-winged hawk eats mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians. The latter two hawks are wide-spread in the eastern US. Swainson’s hawk eat some mammals, lizards, frogs, and birds. Ferruginous hawk eats some mammals, reptiles, and insects. (A snake is a lizard and not a reptile, so I don’t know about this one.) Ther merlin feeds, in addition to birds in the air, rodents, lizards, snakes, and insects. The latter three are wide-spread in the western US, but the merlin is also found along the Gulf coast and Atlantic seaside in the US.
[source: Stokes Field Guide to Birds, Eastern Region, 1996]
Rattlesnakes are probably widespread in the US, contrary to some comments heretofore posted. Here in SC, there are several types of rattlesnakes, including the very large canebreak
