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Just two mice or rats can reproduce themselves to become thousands in less than a year. One snake may eat several rodents a week during peak conditions. That adds up to a lot of mice that aren't pooping in your Cheerios.
More people die every year from rodent-borne illnesses than are ever hospitalized for snakebite. Hantavirus is deadly to humans and there is currently no known cure. Wild rodents can carry a huge number of germs and diseases right into your home, including this one.
Many nonvenomous snakes are docile to humans and harmless even if picked up, but they are voracious and aggressive towards venomous snakes and will prey on them relentlessly. If you kill that indigo or king snake that was living under your shed because you mistakenly believe a good snake is a dead snake, you have removed the best possible natural control on venomous snakes in your backyard. The harmless snake was on guard duty 24/7, eating several of litters of rattlers or copperheads a year, seeking out and devouring them as soon as they entered his territory. Your foolishness in killing him means that your dog or your child may be be bitten this year by a wandering copperhead that the snake you killed would have sniffed out and destroyed had you left him alone.
The vast majority of snakes people kill in their yards and seek identification for are species that your kid would have been able to buy in a pet store. They are harmless, and because you mistakenly believed they were venomous or that the only good snake is a dead snake, you are now at risk of having an actually venomous snake move into the ecological niche you just created by removing a top level predator. Messing with Mother Nature has consequences.
Some folks who ran a game bird farm decided to dynamite all the snake dens in their area to really get rid of the snake population. They succeeded. The next year they were absolutely overrun with rodents devouring bird nests, eggs, babies, and sometimes the adults too, not to mention gnawing holes in the grain bins. Rodents are pretty hard to keep out of barns and coops. They are small, but some species can really do some damage.
Some ranchers in another area thought the same thing, since they generally lost two or three head of livestock a year to rattlesnake bite. A year after dynamiting all the dens, they started losing two or three hundred head a year. The prairie dog population exploded to the point that their pastures were honeycombed with burrows and the hoofstock kept stepping through and breaking legs, and they were extremely difficult and expensive to eradicate.
Most snakes including venomous ones are human docile and easy to move using safety tools (a broom and a trash can specifically) if you go slow and gentle and do not scare them. If you are aggressive and attack a wild animal, of course it will defend itself. But you'd be surprised how gently they go if you simply ask them to with soft touches and pushing with a soft instrument such as a broom. Most snakes in North America, venomous or nonvenomous, I can usually have gentled to handling on professional tools in a matter of minutes. The nonvenomous ones I pick up and gentle with my hands, and many species are commonly kept as pets because they are so naturally docile. Very few wild animals can be tamed to handling as quickly or as thoroughly as snakes.
Over 80% of snakebites in North America occur because the person deliberately attacked the snake. Less than 15% of bites are truly accidental, and of that 15%, almost 100% could have been prevented by wearing calf-high boots and gloves when stepping or reaching into tall grass, wood piles, crevices, etc, in wildlife areas. The most common snakebite victim presenting at the ER is male, 17-26, and intoxicated. It is actually much more difficult to be bitten by a snake than most people think it is.
If you know anyone who has breast cancer, has had a bypass heart operation, type 2 diabetes, or any of the neurologically degenerative disorders, they are likely to have venom research to thank for extending their lives. Killing venomous snakes is a terrible medical waste. There are labs that want them badly, and that will use them to give sick people hope for life. Snake venom can be highly variable by geographical area and sometimes even by individuals in a litter, so folks who do "venom mining" are always looking for more components that may be useful in medical research. A lot of potential cures and good medicines are still to be found from natural sources, and snake venom is one of the most potently bioactive and rich in research possibilities. Did you just kill your own grandmother's best hope for more good years with the family? You'll never know. Think harder before reaching for the stick or the shotgun, and consider calling a local herpetologist instead.
Just two mice or rats can reproduce themselves to become thousands in less than a year. One snake may eat several rodents a week during peak conditions. That adds up to a lot of mice that aren't pooping in your Cheerios.
More people die every year from rodent-borne illnesses than are ever hospitalized for snakebite. Hantavirus is deadly to humans and there is currently no known cure. Wild rodents can carry a huge number of germs and diseases right into your home, including this one.
Many nonvenomous snakes are docile to humans and harmless even if picked up, but they are voracious and aggressive towards venomous snakes and will prey on them relentlessly. If you kill that indigo or king snake that was living under your shed because you mistakenly believe a good snake is a dead snake, you have removed the best possible natural control on venomous snakes in your backyard. The harmless snake was on guard duty 24/7, eating several of litters of rattlers or copperheads a year, seeking out and devouring them as soon as they entered his territory. Your foolishness in killing him means that your dog or your child may be be bitten this year by a wandering copperhead that the snake you killed would have sniffed out and destroyed had you left him alone.
The vast majority of snakes people kill in their yards and seek identification for are species that your kid would have been able to buy in a pet store. They are harmless, and because you mistakenly believed they were venomous or that the only good snake is a dead snake, you are now at risk of having an actually venomous snake move into the ecological niche you just created by removing a top level predator. Messing with Mother Nature has consequences.
Some folks who ran a game bird farm decided to dynamite all the snake dens in their area to really get rid of the snake population. They succeeded. The next year they were absolutely overrun with rodents devouring bird nests, eggs, babies, and sometimes the adults too, not to mention gnawing holes in the grain bins. Rodents are pretty hard to keep out of barns and coops. They are small, but some species can really do some damage.
Some ranchers in another area thought the same thing, since they generally lost two or three head of livestock a year to rattlesnake bite. A year after dynamiting all the dens, they started losing two or three hundred head a year. The prairie dog population exploded to the point that their pastures were honeycombed with burrows and the hoofstock kept stepping through and breaking legs, and they were extremely difficult and expensive to eradicate.
Most snakes including venomous ones are human docile and easy to move using safety tools (a broom and a trash can specifically) if you go slow and gentle and do not scare them. If you are aggressive and attack a wild animal, of course it will defend itself. But you'd be surprised how gently they go if you simply ask them to with soft touches and pushing with a soft instrument such as a broom. Most snakes in North America, venomous or nonvenomous, I can usually have gentled to handling on professional tools in a matter of minutes. The nonvenomous ones I pick up and gentle with my hands, and many species are commonly kept as pets because they are so naturally docile. Very few wild animals can be tamed to handling as quickly or as thoroughly as snakes.
Over 80% of snakebites in North America occur because the person deliberately attacked the snake. Less than 15% of bites are truly accidental, and of that 15%, almost 100% could have been prevented by wearing calf-high boots and gloves when stepping or reaching into tall grass, wood piles, crevices, etc, in wildlife areas. The most common snakebite victim presenting at the ER is male, 17-26, and intoxicated. It is actually much more difficult to be bitten by a snake than most people think it is.
If you know anyone who has breast cancer, has had a bypass heart operation, type 2 diabetes, or any of the neurologically degenerative disorders, they are likely to have venom research to thank for extending their lives. Killing venomous snakes is a terrible medical waste. There are labs that want them badly, and that will use them to give sick people hope for life. Snake venom can be highly variable by geographical area and sometimes even by individuals in a litter, so folks who do "venom mining" are always looking for more components that may be useful in medical research. A lot of potential cures and good medicines are still to be found from natural sources, and snake venom is one of the most potently bioactive and rich in research possibilities. Did you just kill your own grandmother's best hope for more good years with the family? You'll never know. Think harder before reaching for the stick or the shotgun, and consider calling a local herpetologist instead.
