Snakes!

This is not a subject that I am especially fond of, but due to the recent events at my house, I thought I'd share some information.   My son and husband were in the yard throwing the baseball around and my son looked in our birdhouse to see if we had any baby birds.  Baby birds are not what he found!  We had a nice little snake.  After he and my husband got it out, they realized it was quite large ... about 4ft!  Being that it is illegal to kill snakes in Tennessee, they relocated it to a field near our house.  The next week, at the same tree, there was another one, this time not quite as big, only about 1 1/2ft.  He decided to shimmy up the tree to sun a little bit.  A few days later, there was a small one that had been hit in front of our house. Now, the most recent one was found in our garage.  YUCK!  Once again, my son and husband captured it, put it in a bucket and relocated it.  This one was about 4 ft, also.  It appeared that he had just had him a nice little snack, seeing how he had a lump about midway.  He was relocated as well.

My husband emailed Lisa Powers with Froghaven Farms (www.froghavenfarm.com). She is a Biologist/Herpetologist. She is a Biologist/Herpertologist. She identified the snake as Gray Ratsnake/Pantherophis Siploiddes. She said he is perfectly harmless.  We asked why we had seen so many recently.  Her response was the, due to the mild winter and all of the changes we had been experiencing with the weather the snakes are "out more".  We have seen several more in our neighborhood either dead in the road or slithering across the road.  Every time I see them slither, it gives me the shivers!

I posted the picture on my facebook page.  I have a friend that is very animal friendly.  She told me that if they had round eyes, they were good and if they had "cat eyes" they were NOT good.  I told her I was not going to look dreamily into the eyes to see if they were round or not.  Some other responses I received were: 

"Tastes like chicken."

"Looks like a mouse eater."

"Never coming to your house again, EVER!"

"In my book, a dead snake is a good snake."

"It's a snake, which means it is terrifying.  Period."

A friend of mine's husband teaches Science.  She told me that her husband did his Thesis on snakes and that if he sees one in the road, he will pull over and move it so it doesn't get hit.  

I know that snakes are one of God's creatures and they they have a purpose.  I don't have a problem with them if I don't see them and I do appreciate the job they do ... as long as I don't see them.  I looked up Tennessee snakes.  On the website, tennsnakes.org, they say that "Snakes are important to the environment and help to keep nature in balance."  While I know this is true, I still don't like them very much.   In Tennessee, there are 32 species of snakes.  Only 4 of these are venomous.

They also had a message posted from the TWRA:

In Tennessee, it is illegal to harm, kill, remove from the wild, or possess native snakes taken from the wild without the proper permits.

Please help the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA) to protect our native snakes. Do not remove snakes from the wild or release snakes that have been captive into the wild.

Once-captive snakes often don't survive in the wild and can introduce harmful diseases and parasites into the wild.

So, while I hope we don't find any more snakes around our house, I do hope they keep doing their job of eating mice, bugs, and things of that nature.   

-Holly Hughes, RDA
www.smileteam4u.com