PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN (Colorado) 03 June 06 If you drink, don't handle rattlesnakes (Juan Espinosa)
The rattlesnakes of Pueblo County have more than a few folks rattled.
In recent days, reports of rattlesnake sightings and a couple of bites - one to a 17-year-old Jordan Dazzio, and a second to Minnie, a dachshund belonging to Chieftain reporter Gayle Perez - have people worried. Both received antivenin medication and are expected to make a full recovery.
Dazzio and Minnie live in the Regency Ridge neighborhood, but snakes have been sighted in essentially all areas of the county.
I've seen two rattlesnakes on my property in northern Pueblo County in the past month and was told about another small rattler that was found slithering through the halls of Centennial High School last week.
Coincidently, I already had been conducting my own survey of snakes over the past couple of weeks, when the rash of reports started.
Not very scientific, my methodology is simple. I have been studying the snakes killed on the eight mile stretch of Overton Road I drive a couple of times a day. Apparently, the snakes have a fatal attraction to sunbathing on the roadway where they are smashed under the tires of passing vehicles. Nonvenomous snakes greatly out-number poisonous ones.
By my count, there have been four bullsnakes, four red racers and two rattlers flattened on Overton Road in the past two weeks.
Unnerving is the fact that bullsnakes and rattlesnakes are similar in appearance. According to Tina Jackson, herptile coordinator for the state Division of Wildlife in Colorado Springs, the similarities are intentional - bullsnakes imitate the venomous rattlers.
"The bullsnake, is a great snake to have around," Jackson said. "They fill the same environmental niche as the rattlesnake, and if you have a large bullsnake in your area, the rattlesnakes will stay away."
The problem is, bullsnakes "puff up their heads" to look like rattlers, Jackson said. They also can create a convincing rattle with their breath or wiggle their tails in dry leaves and twigs to simulate a rattler's rattle.
Another problem in trying to separate the bulls from the rattlers is that rattlers sometimes lose their rattles. Ergo, it is probably prudent to treat hissing snakes as rattlers whether a rattle is heard, or not. Though the bullsnake is not venomous, it will strike and bite if threatened.
Jackson said the red snakes I've been seeing are likely coachwhip snakes, which in this area are reddish to gray in color. According to the CaliforniaHerps Web site, the coachwhip is related to the red racer - another nonpoisonous snake. Like the bullsnake, the red racer will bite and can move as fast as seven miles per hour.
Since the rattlesnake is potentially the most lethal, I take comfort in knowing that of the approximately 8,000 people each year who receive snakebites in this country, only 9 to 15 victims die.
According to several Web sites I visited, 25 percent of adult rattlesnake bites are dry, with no venom injected. Another handy fact is the knowledge that rattlesnakes can only strike a distance equal to half their own length.
Which brings me to a most interesting statistic - 40 percent of snakebite victims intentionally put themselves in harm's way by attempting to capture wild snakes or by carelessly handling their own dangerous pets. Of those bitten by rattlers, 40 percent had a blood alcohol level of 0.1 percent or more at the time.
That means four out of 10 people were snakebitten because they were attempting to handle a snake and at least one of them was legally drunk at the time.
The obvious conclusion to my research can be summarized as: Leave sleeping snakes lie; and stay at least a snake's-length way from any snake, especially if you've been drinking.
If you drink, don't handle rattlesnakes

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