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ORLANDO SENTINEL (Florida) 05 June 06 Slithering into your community - As development cuts into their natural habitat in Central Florida, venomous snakes are having unwelcome encounters with humans more often, especially during the rainy season. Keep an eye out -- and do (Linda Florea)
More houses, shopping centers and pavement across Central Florida carry a downside for all kinds of wildlife. But when the habitat for snakes gets squeezed, the slithery reptiles are more likely to encounter one of us working in a shrub bed or stepping onto the pool deck.
And with the rainy season expected to arrive soon, snakes will be on the move to higher ground -- making them more likely to come into unwelcome contact with people and pets.
Whether you're a newcomer or a native, if you don't have a snake story yet, it's likely you soon will.
Bill Johnston of St. Cloud recently uncovered a deadly coral snake while working in his yard near Alligator Lake. Because he has children and pets, he put the snake in a bucket and took it to the nearby Reptile World Serpentarium.
"They're part of the landscape," said Johnston, the city's assistant fire chief. "We really don't have a lot of poisonous snakes. As you grow up in Florida, you learn from a distance which is what."
Douglas Bailey of Lake Mary had a far more painful run-in with a coral snake.
Bailey said he has handled snakes for 45 years and even had a diamondback rattler as a pet once. Nonetheless, Bailey was bitten three times by a coral snake March 31 -- and barely survived -- after handling what he mistakenly thought was a harmless king snake.
"It's not their fault they get run out of their habitat. I can't see killing something that hasn't done anything wrong; it's just protecting itself," Bailey said.
The state is home to 44 types of snakes, and six of them are deadly. Of those, four are found in Central Florida: the pygmy rattler, Eastern diamondback and cottonmouth (all pit vipers), and the coral snake, which is of the cobra family. The two other venomous snakes, the canebrake rattler and copperhead, have a limited range in the northern part of the state.
George VanHorn, founder of Reptile World in St. Cloud, "milks" venomous snakes to sell to make antivenin. People often bring him poisonous snakes they find in their yards, and he has seen a gradual increase in calls through the years.
"They are increasing and will continue for several years, until at some point when we've turned everything into a parking lot or golf course," VanHorn said.
In Bailey's case, he had fished the colorful snake out from under a truck. Because of its size, he thought it was a king snake and not the smaller, poisonous coral, whose colored bands are in a different sequence. He loosened his grip so the snake could crawl around on his hands, but it struck.
"After it bit, I knew what it was," said Bailey, 49. "I've never experienced that kind of burning. It felt like someone stuck a lighter under my skin."
Bailey spent 11 days on life support and required eight vials of antivenin to begin recovery. Weeks later, his hands were still partially numb, and he was using a walker to get around.
Carole Coleman, field supervisor for Seminole County's Animal Services Division, said she gets a couple of calls a day from people with snakes, mostly nonpoisonous, in their yard or house. She said coral snakes are the most prevalent venomous snakes, sometimes entering pool enclosures and homes in search of lizards.
"They love the mulch," she said. "Be extra careful when gardening."
Although there are no exact figures on snakebites, in 2000 the American Association of Poison Control Centers reported an annual average of 6,000 snakebites in the United States -- 2,000 by venomous snakes. They resulted in five or six deaths a year.
Last year, about 250 bites -- from all kinds of snakes as well as poisonous insects and other pests -- were reported to the Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Venom Response Unit. Of those, 92 were from poisonous snakes and needed antivenin treatment. The unit has the only bank of its kind of exotic antivenin in the nation. The facility stocks 43 types of antivenin, four for native species and the rest for exotic snakes, mostly kept by zoos, handlers and private collectors.
The typical snakebite victim is a "male between 17 and 27," the Massachusetts Medical Society wrote in 2002. "Ninety-eight percent of bites are on extremities, most often the hands or arms, and result from deliberate attempts to handle, harm or kill the snake."
Experts offer simple advice: If you see a snake, don't touch it.
"If we could keep the 14- to 45-year-old 'boys' from picking up snakes, we could drastically reduce snakebites," said Lt. Charles Seifert of the Miami-Dade Anti Venon Bank.
Experts say snakes typically strike only when threatened or startled.
"They're terrified because they can't eat you, but you can eat them. You're the predator," Seifert said. "There are no feet to kick or fists to punch -- they have to bite you."
But most snake stories do not end with a bite.
Bob Swanson, a retired police officer living in DeBary, has seen his share of snakes since he moved into his golf-course community in 1994. He lives between two stormwater ponds, and the snakes come out every spring, putting him and his neighbors on the "snake highway."
Swanson estimates he has killed about 25 water moccasins, a dozen coral snakes and two pygmy rattlers since he has been there.
"It's for the security and safety of the children in the neighborhood," Swanson said. "They're playing in the yards, and the snakes are deadly poisonous."
Slithering into your community

Mr. Bailey has handled snakes for 45 years & is 49 years old. Someone with that much experience ought to know that the coral is the largest (by far) of the three tri-colors. Stating that he thought it was a non-venomous snake because it was so big shows me that his experience with snakes may be long, but he has not learned an awful lot. You can pretty much bank on any tri-color over two feet being a coral.

Y'all stay safe. ~~Greg~~

The article's a bit vague. All the wild corals I've seen (with one possible exception) have been quite a bit SKINNIER than the photos I've seen of scarlet kings (though I've only ever seen one wild one in person). Perhaps that's what he meant.

More importantly, any who's seen a couple of corals in person would never mistake one for a scarlet. The colors are too different.

I suspect the reporter took some liberties in saying that the guy "has been handling snakes for 45 years". That doesn't fit well with "once owned *A* rattlesnake".