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LadyNTrainer -> RE: Snakes? (6/10/2010 8:52:14 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Level
Yeah, there are a lot of snakes that hang out in/near water, most are harmless, but these were moccasins; thick, dark, smelly, with the "cotton" mouths. I may have been wrong on the copperhead, but I would not have taken a chance.
Nerodia are dead-bang on lookalikes and do exude musk as well. As to "taking a chance", let's go ahead and examine what your chances really are. Up to 85% of snake bites in North America are the result of the human deliberately attacking or approaching the snake; very few are accidental. Of the accidental bites, the vast majority of those involved preventable behavior such as stepping or reaching where you cannot see with bare hands or bare/sandaled feet. The heavy bodied Agkistrodon genus in particular and really most North American crotalids in general do not inflict bites to humans higher than the ankle or low calf, though a few Crotalus can reach mid-calf. Boots solve this problem and would eliminate the majority of the genuinely accidental bite percentage.
Not being a giant dick and attempting to kill snakes on purpose would basically eliminate around 85% of bites to humans in North America. Removing one or two immediately visible snakes from a clearly extant population is unlikely to remove the population itself, and mostly what you've done by attempting this is to risk putting yourself in that 85% category of folks who show up to the hospital being very sorry that they didn't just leave the snake alone. If you never approach or attack snakes in the first place, your chances of being bitten are extremely low. If you wear calf high boots and do not stick your unprotected hands into crevices, your chances start to approach zero even if you are in a snake-dense area. The snake you see is not the one that's likely to bite you, not if you aren't aggressive and stupid towards it.
I've voluntarily entered the water with Agkistrodon piscivorus. I don't necessarily recommend everyone go chasing them in a murky swamp, but if you happen to do that, they just aren't all that much of a muchness to be around as long as you are not aggressively attacking them. Of the three subspecies conanti is a gentle pussycat, piscivorus piscivorus isn't bad, and leucostoma can be a bit of a bugger but still not anywhere near as bad as people make them out to be. The one thing they do that most other snakes don't to this degree is form rapid and long lasting behavioral associations, so if force or violence is used to catch one, that's not a snake anyone is going to enjoy working with for the next year or so. Treat them softly from their first sight of humans, get them over the initial nervousness, and they'll generally be acting like a kid's pet corn snake inside of a few hours. Annoyingly enough when you breed and raise them in captivity, you don't get the same docility, and I have no idea why. It's one of the few species where a wild caught adult genuinely makes for an easier handling situation than a CB/CR. They are fascinating animals and have the highest neural density of any species yet studied, and their behavior is a lot more complex than most people realize.
Thing is, if you approach any wild animal with scared/threatening body language, you'll probably get a defensive response. I mean, duuuh. It just gets worse if you start attacking them without provocation. And that's all that most people ever do with them. People who are scared of snakes will report them as "aggressive" or "mean" because they are triggering these behaviors. People who actually know jack shit about snakes and who are not being giant dicks around them rarely trigger or escalate a defensive response in the animals, and have a much different experience. They are neither aggressive nor mean, but they can certainly be defensive if you choose to be the attacker.
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