lieu, I wore a mask at the lab when I handled any of the spitting species of cobras. When the mamba flew by I was wearing a T-shirt and shorts, no head gear. When we extracted, any gloves strong enough to withstand fangs would have resulted in too much loss of dexterity. We worked with hooks and bare hands. We’d manipulate and pin the snake with the hook, then grasp its head and slide the hook out.
In the field and at the lab, I usually wore sneakers. I valued nimbleness more than any imaginary protection from the boots advertised as snake-proof.
I wish I had been with you when you saw the big eastern diamondback. I have only seen a few in the wild, and each one was memorable. The coral snake’s behavior surprised me too. I had thought they were pretty docile, but that one was not.
Crotalus, I envy you. I’ve always wanted to learn how to handle fast and venomous snakes – not as some thrillseeking macho thing, mind you. Rather, it’s so that I wouild know what to do in the event of a snake emergency.
Many years ago I was supervising an archaeological survey of a large piece of rural property in eastern San Diego County. The property had everything from a mountain (San Miguel Peak) to oak woodland to an old olive grove. Early one morning I dropped the crew off near the top of the mountain and had them hike down to the flats below, surveying as they went. Being as I was in charge, I took the company truck and waited at the bottom.
Then I began feeling guilty that I was relaxing in the truck while my crew was struggling down the heavily chapparelled mountain. So I decided to survey a large flat grassy area while I waited. It was still morning and the ~6 inch high grass was still a little moist with dew. I walked purposely across the field scanning the ground and not seeing much of anything but grass. I came to a stop and as I was putting my left foot down I happened to see a baby rattlesnake coiled next to my right foot and just about where my left foot was about to touch down. :eek:
As lieu says, time seemed to slow down and my senses became acute as I levitated straight up into the air about 3 feet and hovered sideways about 6 feet hitting the ground running. I didn’t stop until I got to a patch of bare earth where I could see if anything dangerous was nearby. My crew found me winded and shaking, leaning up against the truck. They wanted to know why I was so tired! :smack:
I was very fortunate to get the opportunity I had given my interests and situation. I grew up in Baltimore. The only wildlife in my neighborhood was birds and squirrels. I somehow became fascinated by reptiles and amphibians at a young age, but could only look at them in books or at the zoo. Our family vacations were always at the beach, so I didn’t walk in a forest for the first time until I joined Boy Scouts at age eleven. I caught my first copperhead on my first camping trip that year. When I was able to drive, I started taking day trips to the mountains of western Maryland to see my first rattlesnakes. After I graduated from high school, I met a guy who had traveled a lot more than I had on snake-hunting trips, and we started going on trips together. It turned out he was the head snake-handler at a company called Biologicals Unlimited, the venom lab I’ve mentioned. It was the only lab of its kind in the country, and it was three miles from my house. Suddenly I had the opportunity to work with snakes from all over the world. It was amazing.
Gah. Ack! <opens eyes a crack to read> After reading this thread, I’m never going outside again. Or in the forest, and certainly NOT into high grass. Or to Africa or San Diego or Baltimore or in the ocean…
There is a bunch of snakes that hang out on the back steps of my parent’s house on Cape Cod (their house backs onto a large wood), but I have it on good authority–my mother, who likes snakes and used to date a guy who collected them–that they are harmless grass snakes. They look cute, but I don’t bother them and they don’t bother me. I like it that way.
I respect snakes and certainly don’t wish them harm, but the fear is visceral and deep and I’ve had it for 45 years. At least now I can look at pictures of them–I used to be quite phobic.
lieu I envy you your powers of flight. Perhaps NASA would be interested?
I’ve had to kill a couple of copperheads because they were too aggressive. I ran into them in the garden (separate incidents) and they kept coming when I was backing off. On the other hand, there are a lot of copperheads out here, so maybe shyness is why I’ve only seen a handful in the last several years. The neighbors say the bite shouldn’t kill you, but that it hurts. We run into cottonmouths on float trips; it’s freaky to see them swimming on top of the water like that. My biggest snake surprise was one morning a few years ago. I was walking into the kitchen to make some coffee and saw something odd on the floor. I focused…a 4-5 foot black rat snake. So, I delayed my coffee-making, as I propped the kitchen door open, then walked back past the snake and started stomping on the floor. The snake decided to move away from the ruckus and promptly headed out the door. It always amazes me how fast snakes move.
I grew up in Lousiana which can produce great examples of the worst creepies of all types to be found in the U.S.
When I was about 8 years old, my father called me over next to our muscadine vines and pointed next to the woods and ask me what I saw. I didn’t see a damned thing. He asked again. Nothing. I was getting a little frustrated by this point and stared harder. Nothing. I wasn’t a patient child so I just took off running to the place 20 feet or so away that he was pointing. That is when I learned my magical powers of levitation. It came from my father freaking out, picking me up and throwing me backwards.
He was armed at the time like he usually was with his .44 Magnum on his side. It didn’t take long before he took the shot and killed a beautiful 7 1/2 diamondback rattlesnake. I never claimed I was good at that game and he never played it with me again.
Don’t even get me started on Water Moccasins. I indirectly made a canoe levitate once when my best friend and I were fishing and one charged the boat. I gentle cast let me hook it in its side and pull it partially out of the water before I even realized what I was doing. Those are crazy, vicious little fuckers and we both freaked before I had enough sense to cut the line. Water Moccasins are easily within my top 5 most frightening animals. If there was a job description called “Water Moccasin Killer (Shotgun Skills Necessary)”, that would be the job for me. I have small with all kinds of beats including alligators and water moccasins are by far the worst in my mind.
When I was a kid in Texas my kid buddies and I believed that cottonmouths couldn’t bite while in the water. Why we believed that, I have no idea. We thought it was great fun to grab one, toss it onto the bank and tease it into biting a stick----a long stick. I guess we were lucky to survive.
One of my cousins and a couple of his friends collected and milked rattlesnakes until one of the guys was bitten. He survived but it was the first inkling their parents had that they were involved with rattlers. The involvement ceased. I think they were around thirteen or so when it happened.
Like lieu, I once flew over a rattlesnake. I landed on my feet and never looked back.
