If you missed the announcement, it is World Snake Day. That’s right, there is an official World Snake Day. I think snakes are really cool animals and there is a lot of diversity and they are important to the ecosystem. Snakes are often seen as a pest and a threat so let’s slide into this topic.
There are almost 4,000 species of snakes that occur everywhere except Antarctica and some islands. There are also sea snakes that inhabit…. well, the sea. Apparently, there are five species of “flying snake” though they glide more than actually fly.
Snakes are not poisonous. They are venomous. You can argue with me all you want that it is merely semantics, I don’t care, I will be using the proper term. It's my blog. Only about 600 species of snakes are venomous and of those, only 200 or so could potentially kill a person. Note the "potentially". The CDC reports that up to 8,000 people a year in the US are bitten by venomous snakes while only about 5 people die per year. Worldwide, the WHO estimates up to 138,000 people die from venomous snake bites. Check out this awesome infographic:
That lead us to the common saying of, “the only good snake is a dead snake”. Hissterical, I'm laughing on the inside. Snakes are super beneficial because they prey on all kinds of smaller animals including rodents. Much of the prey snakes are after are serious pests to people. As mentioned above, most snakes are harmless to people.
People get all kinds of coiled up when snakes are near structures and I get it. It can be scary and if you have small children, small pets, or general idiots who say “watch this!”, customers don’t want them close by. There are many ways of removing snakes and many pest control and wildlife removal companies can do this safely and humanely. At a wildlife seminar a while back, one company used glue boards to remove snakes. Once the snake was on the glue board, they took it back to their office and (with the help of a little food oil) released the snakes into their back woods. They were only partially joking when they said they never had a rodent issue around their property.
It can happen with some snakes that they tolerate each other pretty well and will form “nests”. A few years ago a pest control company removed 150 snakes from a residential property and last year a den of snakes was removed from a home’s walls.
Then there are those snakes that are definitely a pest; the invasive species. People who have gotten snakes as a pet decide that the cute little 3 foot snake that is now a 12 foot behemoth can be let out the back door with no consequences. That’s why we have invasive pythons in the Everglades and Boa constrictors. In this case, I am fully in favor of the snake “round-ups” they do to try to eliminate some snakes and protect the ecosystem.
The other massive snake killing events serve no purpose other than eliminating a natural predator and increasing the number of rodents in an area. In some states, killing non-venomous snakes is illegal including my state of Georgia.
If snakes are near or somehow threaten a structure, sure, find a way of humanely removing them. Otherwise, let them do their thing. Often the same folks who are saying “ew, kill it, what kind of poisons can we use?” are the same ones saying “don’t spray any nasty pesticides”.
If you need to enhanssse your wildlife programs to make them more effective, contact us. We can do that for you.
Lagniappe - want to see a snake fly? Of course you do!
Urban pest consulting
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