This is not directly at anyone... but come on.?ÿ We go into their habitat and then shot them??ÿ That's pathetic imo.?ÿ It would be different if it was at a urban home or something.?ÿ?ÿ
I taught Snake Training for all of LA County in the High Desert area in So Cal.?ÿ We have snakes and a very good amount of venomous including the Mojave Rattler, Southern Pacific, Sidewider, Speckled.?ÿ Everywhere.?ÿ More people get injured trying to bother a snake that just let it go off on it's own.?ÿ I have across several snakes in my field work.?ÿ I just let them slither away or use a tool to move them off 50 feet or so.?ÿ?ÿ
...I would have liked to have seen the look on the face of any Indian who may have been out hunting that day along the route.?ÿ
Reminds me of the WKRP Thanksgiving turkey giveaway from a helicopter..
"Ohhh, the humanity..."
I just let them slither away or use a tool to move them off 50 feet or so.?ÿ?ÿ
Mmmmm...no...you dont know where they are...
Texas just had a snake wrangler from the Rattlesnake Roundup die from being bit, may he rest in peace. The harvest of rattlesnakes has its benefits to the public safety and medical advances as well. Not a hobby I'd look to start. If I see, hear, or smell on of those animals that doesn't have shoulders, I'm either going to kill it, or evacuate the area immediately.
Those snakes cost me a half day of work and I don't even like them.
Good snake karma
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I have spent too much time in situations where the time between the snake bite and the time of seeing any kind of medical professional who MIGHT know what to do immediately is far too long a span of time.
Our water district had an employee who has spent his entire life around rattlesnakes get bit while reaching down to lift a meter box lid.?ÿ His co-worker also had similar life experiences.?ÿ They knew exactly which hospital to get to and how to position the bite area while in-transit.?ÿ He was already having convulsions when they arrived.?ÿ The total medical expense topped $400,000.?ÿ I saw the invoice.?ÿ Had he been alone, he might not have made it safely to the ER.?ÿ BTW, the hospital, which was the primary location for treating snake bites, has been closed for about three years.?ÿ I do not know which other hospital is now the go-to site.
@dmyhill?ÿ
I have not shot a snake with a .45 but feel confident at better than 20 yards at a snake sized target.?ÿ I wouldn't be terribly concerned about them even at that range.
Shooting snakes at 20 yds is hunting, not self defense.
Some day Alien Terrestrial Surveyors are going to visit our planet and shoot us with lasers... just because.?ÿ?ÿ
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my life plus the welfare of my wife & kids matters WAY more than a snake's - I'll gladly stand by that statement. We had a dam reconstruction project many years ago where the downstream side had a beaver pond that was impounded pretty heavily thanks to the beavers and full of water moccasins. The contractor, who was reworking the slopes (well outside of the wetlands), knew better than to come unprepared and by the end of the week over 2 dozen moccasins were put to rest. I saw several that charged a few of his laborers working along the silt fencing as they're very territorial critters. One of them had to be older/wiser and over 3" in diameter but he remained out of reach but slip up closer to the laborers from time to time. About the only guys who were safe were those in the excavators?ÿ
In Colombia we had a 22, but it did us no good, as the boy in the front of the canoe froze when he realized that the red eyes glowing on the creek bank (near midnight) were in fact not a caiman, but rather an anaconda....
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I actually did go snake hunting in a large pine forest in Jacksonville Florida back when I was in the Navy and shot a couple large unknown type snakes.?ÿ I cut the head off of one and for whatever reason, it sat in the junky bed of my truck in the Florida heat for a while.?ÿ There was a pizza box over top of it and I moved the pizza but, letting the sun hit that head and I kid you not the head started to move across the truck bed.?ÿ I was horrified.?ÿ A snake head slowly moving across the bed like a Ouija board.?ÿ After a while, I flipped it over with a stick only to see that the underside was completely covered in maggots and they were trying to escape the heat of the sun.?ÿ I also thought it would be funny to put the rest of that dead snake coiled up around the air cleaner of a Jeep of another guy from my ship while he was on duty.?ÿ I was right.?ÿ It was funny.
Well now.?ÿ the snakes are out here.?ÿ ?ÿYesterday my son saw a large king snake at his grandmothers, and this morning I was walking up the outside steps at her house, only to come face to face with a large copperhead.
