"What if it was a different animal? Let´s say he had 400 rats that dug and clawed their way through his house every autumn to make his basement their home for the winter during which many of them died, making his basement a) smell awful b) be totally unuseable."

Of course I wouldn't want 400 rats in my house. Who would? It doesn't really make sense to compare a non-native, invasive rodent to a harmless snake. They do not smell bad, get into food, or destroy property like rats do. I would be overjoyed to have some perfectly harmless, native wildlife call my basement home.

In fact, I'm in a similar situation right now. Thousands of ladybugs hibernate under the shingles of the side of my house, and every year I enjoy watching them emerge. And while these insects are not native, they don't have a negative impact on the environment like common rats do.

And the guy in the article was killing the snakes (which, by the way, are a protected species in that state) BEFORE he even called any sort of organization to get them out! That, in my opinion, certainly makes him an ignorant hick. He thinks he can just kill native, protected wildlife just because he "doesn't like them".

I'm an animal biology major, and I don't feel that I (or any person for that matter) has any right to kill an animal unnecessarily. I'm fine with using animals for food and for research, but I am against the killing of animals "just because"... As was the case in the article. Seriously, it really isn't that hard to pick up a small snake and simply move it off your property if you don't want it around. Certainly much easier than killing them and having to deal with 50 dead, mangled snake bodies.
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- Natalie
(San Francisco Bay Area)

1.0.0 Banded California King
1.0.0 Mexican Black King
1.0.0 Bay of LA Rosy Boa
0.0.1 Kenyan Sand Boa
1.2.0 Rubber Boas

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