CHILLICOTHE GAZETTE (Ohio) 29 August 06 Don't kill those snakes (Richard Martin)
When I was a kid growing up in southern Ohio back in the late 1940s and 50s, I was very familiar with snakes.
Sometimes my friends and I would hunt them, especially after a good August drought that dried out the hills and drove snakes down into any pools in the creek bottoms.We all had single-shot .22s, and we'd roam the wet spots, sometimes seeing a dozen or more in a single good sized puddle.
We were wise enough to leave alone useful snakes, like black rat snakes that feed heavily on rats and mice, and we didn't bother the harmless kinds like milks, garters, queens, grass and others, but though I'm ashamed to admit it, we killed every copperhead and timber rattler we saw. I wouldn't do it today, but in those times we all knew someone who'd been bitten by poisonous snakes, and we wouldn't let them live.
Lots of people don't like snakes of any kind. In fact, most would rather not see one. And they're in luck these days, because snakes have become rare creatures.
In all my traveling in woods, fields, and lakes this year, I saw just one - a watersnake up along Lake Erie. No garters, or milk snakes, no black rats, no hognose. The reason, of course, is when most people see one, they kill it, so they're disappearing.
I taught biology for many years, and during those years I worked very hard to show students that snakes are harmless and should be left alive. We had a snake cage in the back of my room, usually with a dozen or more reptiles of various kinds, and now and then I'd get a few out and let them crawl around the room.
Any student who wanted to pick one up and play with it could do so, and it was always interesting to see a youngster touch one tentatively, then hold it a second, then get one out at every opportunity and let it crawl around their desk.
But the last year I taught, the snake cage was empty, and one student said, "Mr. Martin, we looked everywhere, but couldn't find even one."
They're just gone. The poisonous snakes have nearly gone, too. When I was attending college at Ohio University in the 60s, poisonous snakes were fairly common. I had two friends who were herpitology majors, and occasionally they'd invite me on a snake hunt.
One time we visited an old abandoned farm house about 10 miles outside of Athens, and hit the jackpot. It had a tin roof, grass knee to hip high, and old abandoned farm machinery in the yard - a perfect place for mice and snakes.
We found a dandy copperhead lying on the seat of the outhouse, and two more under a piece of tin in the yard. Then for a bonus, we flushed a small timber rattler out of an old, rusty mower. That was a good day, but it'll never happen again, because only tiny remnant populations of poisonous snakes are left in Ohio.
My grandfather knew the use of snakes and for years allowed a huge black rat snake to live in his barn. No one was allowed to touch that snake, and I've got to admit that I never saw a rat around his corn crib.
My mother would disagree. She was terrified of snakes since the day two of her brothers put a four footer down her blouse, so when she went picking blackberries, I always had to go along with a pocket full of rocks and check out the berry bushes by chunking a few inside.
And I had to check out the garden too, with my dog Febe, looking and sniffing for cucumber scent and killing any gold and brown intruders before the hoeing started.
But that's long past and the snakes long gone, so consider this an appeal, one I make from time to time to just let them alone. A 12-inch garter can't hurt a 200-pound man, and they have a right to live, too.
Give them that chance.
Don't kill those snakes