Author: W. R. Shaw

I’ve been keeping this new little experimental blog fairly light and fun, but I think this is an issue that needs a more serious approach. I’ll likely offend a lot of people but I hope a few will actually hear me out and think about it.

I have occasional encounters with  self-described “herpers,” and it rarely goes well.  Today I contacted one online because he had posted a video of himself  harassing and abusing a gopher snake, repeatedly poking and grabbing at the terrified animal, and at one point grabbing her by the tail and swinging her around his body. It was pretty horrific. Yet the individual in question, a young man who was clearly an inexperienced handler, kept professing how “awesome” the snake was. He also described her as aggressive and claimed that her defensive behavior was “unprovoked.” I hate to let that sort of misinformation stand, so I commented on the video, noting that the defensive behavior was not unprovoked but a response to his sudden close approach, and that by dangling the snake  by her tail he was likely to cause  spinal or neurological injury to her.

Now, a guy who actually loved snakes might have reacted by saying something like, “I didn’t realize it could injure the snake. I won’t do that anymore.”  But this one didn’t. Instead, he threw a screaming tantrum in response, accusing me of having a messiah complex and saying that herpers have been handling snakes this way for years and no over-sensitive  YouTuber was going to stop it.

This one was clearly an extreme case, but he’s  not unique.  So many in the “herper” community do a lot of talking about conservation and about how much they love snakes, but they don’t  think twice about flipping substrate, and dragging terrified snakes out from under it to play with them. Every snake they see must be grabbed and tormented, or posed in the sun for photos until he’s  exhausted and dehydrated — abuse no one would tolerate if the animal in question were  anything but a snake. Imagine a whole community of people going around grabbing rabbits up by their ears and shaking them and playing with them as if they were toys!  When herpers treat snakes this way in videos intended to educate the public,  it adds insult to injury by modeling disrespectful and abusive behavior to the very people they’re trying to convince that snakes deserve to be respected.

I’m not sure what  the answer is.

There are a lot of “ass-butts,”  as one of my favorite fictional characters would call them.  That lot won’t change until they get cited for harassment.  Since, most wildlife departments simply turn a blind eye to abuse if the victim is a snake,  they’re probably a lost cause.

There are also a lot of well-meaning people who really do love snakes. They don’t mean any harm, but the harm is being done nonetheless. Unfortunately,  it’s hard to engage them on the subject without alienating them. They’re often defensive, but more often, they simply are not willing to put the welfare of the animals above their own desire to play with  them.

Then there are the handful of good ones. They’re primarily (though not entirely) older, college educated biologists and herpetologists who have matured enough to understand that, “I want to!” isn’t reason enough to endanger the life of an animal.  But there aren’t enough of them and when they reach that point, they tend to just quietly drift out of the “herper” community. They move on to research and real conservation work, get busy,  and their voices fall silent, leaving each incoming generation of herpers to learn from the marginally experienced — the ones experienced enough to find and handle the snakes but still immature enough to see the snakes as toys to be played with just because they want to.

It’s ironic really. Snakes today face two serious threats — the people  who  kill them out of hatred , and the people hell-bent on loving them to death.

The only hope  I can see is for those  mature ex-herpers to become more proactive. Instead of just saying, “Yeah I used to be one of them but I’m past that phase now,” I’d like to see more of them speaking up  when they witness abuse, whether in person or on social media. I’d like to see more of them making time to mentor that incoming generation, so that they come into the hobby with a strong sense of ethics and a healthy respect for the wild animals they profess to love. Herpers raised up this way could be a powerful force for conservation, and if ever we needed that force it’s now!

I witnessed a very interesting bit of behavior today at the artificial den.  I can’t really say what the snake was thinking, though it’s tempting to speculate.

A caretaker had to enter the small room that serves as access point for not only the den but also the other enclosures near it.  He spoke with me briefly in full view of the den, and then entered the access room. One of the snakes glanced in the direction of the door a couple of times, without moving from where he was hanging out with two of the younger snakes.

Then things got interesting. The caretaker left the access room and walked away in the opposite direction from the den, so that his departure was not visible. From the den’s perspective, the access room would have gone suddenly quiet, but the snakes  would not have seen him leave.  Immediately, the snake who had noticed him earlier went to the door and stood up as tall as he could get, examining the whole door repeatedly and then settled back a little and stayed there, fully focused on the door for nearly fifteen minutes.

Finally, I went looking for the caretaker and told him he should come back, because someone was waiting for him.  He returned with me and saw the snake still waiting. We again spoke briefly in full view of the den and the snake noticed him. The caretaker then left again, but this time, he left in the opposite direction, so that his departure was fully visible from the den.  The snake left the door and went back to what he’d been doing before it all started.

What a smart little rascal!

I stopped by the artificial den on the way to work today.  The snakes were just waking up. One yawned a couple of times and that got everyone else yawning. Sadly, my camera is very slow to focus in low light so I only caught one of them.

The guy with his head tilted up in the next photo was getting ready to yawn, but he faked me out. I focused on him when I saw he was getting ready, waited… and waited… and finally turned my camera on someone else and THEN he gave a big adorable yawn.  I think he was messing with me…

This week I took people with me on two separate occasions when I visited the educational den.  Another day, I was there on my own, and there was a fairly steady parade of people coming by for the first fifteen minutes. I witnessed the same phenomenon with all of them. Every time a snake moved, they perceived the movement as aggression.

One snake in the back stretched her neck out to get a better look at us. The snake was completely relaxed, draped over a ledge.  Nothing about her body language gave any hint of aggression, but the gentleman with me took a hasty step back and said, “Whoa! That one’s pissed. I can tell he’s the biggest bad-ass in the group!”

What is it about rattlesnakes that makes people assume that they’re murderously angry all the time?  I respect the fact that rattlesnakes have the capacity to harm me.  In fact, when I need to grab them hastily off a road to save their lives,  it’s  a big part of the equation. The snake on the road doesn’t know me. He has no idea that he’s in danger of being hit by a car. He only knows that some strange predator — me — is grabbing him and the only reason he knows for a predator to grab him is to kill him and eat him. So when my partners and I rescue rattlesnakes, we use proper equipment and safe handling techniques, not because the snake is inherently aggressive but because he’s a wild animal who has every reason to think we’ll harm him, and therefore every reason to react defensively. What’s truly surprising is how few of them actually behave defensively. In most cases, if we handle them gently and make  no really startling moves, they’re calm and cooperative —  far more so than I would be if a stranger put hands on me and tried to abduct me!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upwuOWFTmQw

If i see a snake crossing a trail, I don’t worry that he’ll suddenly turn into a monster and attack me for no reason any more than I worry that a rabbit will. He’s not a monster. He’s just a little animal going about his business. If I’m on a den and a snake approaches me in a calm, curious manner,  I don’t worry that he’s coming over to bite me. That’s not how his brain works.

The next time you see a snake, whether in the wild, or in captivity, try letting go of the idea that every movement is a threat. See if you can tell what the snake is really doing. Is his body tense, or relaxed?  Is he trying to make himself look bigger or more intimidating, or is he just moving closer to get a look at you? Is he frightened and defensive, or is he just going about the serious business of being a little snake in a big, scary world?

I stopped by to visit the the artificial den on the Friday before Christmas and all was quiet. The building was locked over Christmas so I wasn’t able to get back in until Tuesday. When I finally returned, I found a surprise.  While all the humans were away celebrating, the snakes had decorated their den for Christmas! Seven of them had shed, leaving the sheds draped artistically over the rocks of the den. It’s unusual for everyone to shed at once, but communal shedding is sometimes seen in the wild.

 

Wild snakes brumate (a state similar to hibernation) through the winter, so they only shed once or twice a year. These captive snakes are active and growing year-round, so may shed more often.