I may be in the minority with this opinion, but I like snakes. I don’t know why some people are so terrified of them. Given a choice between dealing with a snake and dealing with some humans I could name, I’ll take the snake every time.
I’m not unreasonable. I do understand that some people have a negative visceral reaction to snakes. It can be a phobia, like being afraid of heights or a childhood memory or a conviction that the serpent in the Garden of Eden is responsible for all the evils, which have befallen humanity ever since. In these cases, a fear or dislike of snakes is understandable.
And I wouldn’t want to discover a copperhead in my pillowcase. That would be inconvenient, to say the least.
But I have dealt all my life with venomous and non-venomous snakes, and I have never found them arbitrary or irrational. It’s been my experience that if you don’t make them feel threatened, if you leave them alone, they will leave you alone, too.
First of all, the idea that snakes are slimy is ridiculous. Unless it has been floating about sunbathing in a warm pool of water with sunblock slathered all over it, a snake is generally very dry to the touch. Their scales feel leathery or even feathery rather than clammy, and the way they propel themselves forward through the grass or along the sand is actually incredibly elegant and graceful.
For a good portion of my life, I have lived near forests, so snakes have been — well, not a daily occurrence, but certainly not an unknown presence in my life. When I was a kid back in the 1960s, the boys in the neighborhood would come across a snake, catch it in a bucket, and then try to freak out the girls by uncovering it and shoving the bucket into their faces. The young nitwits would obligingly scream and run away, leaving the boys feeling oh so superior and triumphant.
When they shoved the bucket in my face — and if the snake was harmless — I would reach into the bucket, grab the snake behind the head, lift it out, pet it, and say, “Oh, it’s just a black king snake. Isn’t it a beauty!”
I enjoyed frustrating their little male mind games that way.
I will always stop my car to get a snake out of the road, just as I will with a turtle or any other creature I can save from getting squashed. If it’s a copperhead or rattler, I will herd it out of the way from a safe distance, or catch it behind the head with a forked stick, pick it up, and carry it to safety. If it is non-venomous, I will forego the forked stick and just take it in hand. It’s really not a big deal.
We had a harmless snake in our basement a few weeks ago, and after a few abortive attempts, my sons were able to capture it and take it out to safety. Chips off the old block!
I guess I inherited this approach from my parents. They never could understand people who killed creatures — mice, rats, snakes, possums, groundhogs, skunks — on sight. If they encountered such critters in inconvenient places (window-wells, basements, garages) they would do their best to catch the poor little thing and take it where it could be safe and happy, but out of the way.
I remember Mom driving to the C&O Canal so that Dad could release the 3-foot-long black snake he was holding out the car window back into the wilds. All in a day’s work. In our household, instead of setting mouse traps, we got Dad to chase mice through the house with his trout-fishing net and take them outdoors (where they undoubtedly snuck right back into the house.) He accidentally killed one once, and the entire family gathered for the garden funeral, where Dad unironically played a Scottish dirge for the poor little thing on his bagpipes.
As kids, we rescued baby birds, snakes, rabbits — you name it, if it was injured or orphaned, it showed up in a box in the corner of the kitchen and was fawned over and nurtured until it could survive on its own. An archaeologist digging up the backyard of any house I’ve ever lived in will discover the ceremoniously buried remains of pet dogs, gerbils, bunnies, squirrels, fish, newts, salamanders and any other fauna unfortunate enough to meet its maker while in our care. We never flushed our beloveds down the drain or threw them in the trash. They got State Funerals, every one.
I have tried to instill in my sons the same reverence for wildlife. After all, when you think about it, the wildlife was here first. We may feel as if they are encroaching on our personal space, but the truth is, it’s the other way around. So they deserve to be treated with compassion and respect, and to be cared for and preserved whenever possible.
Their habitat needs to be protected, not just because our habitat depends on it, but because they deserve that sort of treatment. Humans grow selfish and entitled, to our own detriment, and to the destruction of the world, which we now share, but which originally belonged to the wild.
Humans need to remember that. If possession is nine-tenths of the law, then the entire planet should be under the supervision of the animal kingdom, because they were the ones originally in possession. We stole it away.
I think the planet would be much better off if we’d give most of it back.