THE TIMES (Gainesville, Georgia) 09 September 07 15th annual Snake Day draws a crowd (Stephen Gurr)
Gainesville: Every time Snake Day is held at Elachee Nature Science Center at Chicopee Woods, folks pay close attention to Johnny Hester's collection of cottonmouths, diamondbacks, timber and canebreak rattlesnakes.
That's because while 35 of the 41 snakes native to Georgia and South Carolina aren't venomous, the kind Hester displayed Saturday can be quite dangerous.
"This gives people a good way to study these snakes at their own comfort level without looking at a picture in a book," Hester said, gesturing to the menacing reptiles coiled safely behind glass. "They get a lasting imprint, so if they do see a snake in the wild, they can go back to what they saw at Snake Day."
Hester, a snake enthusiast of 30 years from Braselton, was one of several members of the Georgia Herpetological Society who brought in their own snakes to augment the center's permanent collection in what has become Elachee's most popular public event.
Saturday's 15th annual Snake Day was expected to attract more than 1,200 children and parents. An hour into the three-hour event, throngs of children packed the lower-level exhibit, excitedly pointing at the snakes, salamanders and turtles on display.
Declan Weidner, 4, peered into a dry aquarium where a small Mexican milk snake, marked much like a coral snake with bands of red, black and yellow, wiggled up the glass.
"Mom, these snakes over here are cool!" Declan yelled. "Come see!"
Earlier Declan earned a "certificate of bravery" for touching a pale orange and white corn snake handled by Elachee Animal Curator Toni Hurst.
One woman declined an offer to touch the snake's soft leathery skin.
"I appreciate it, but I think I'll pass," she said. "I like to enjoy them at a distance."
Connor Dineen, 6, wasn't even sure what he touched was real.
"Where are the eyes on that snake?" he asked.
Greg Greer, a staff naturalist with International Expeditions Inc., gave a talk on Georgia's vanishing reptiles and amphibians, including the southern hognose, a small nonvenomous snake once common to woodland areas but now rarely seen.
"Habitat destruction is by far the biggest problem," Greer said. "Sometime we think leaving an area as greenspace is adequate, but it's not."
Some species, Greer said, "Need huge expanses of land to remain viable populations."
A love of snakes, lizards and other such critters "is not something that typically develops with age," Greer said. "You're either born with it or you're not."
Phillip Benham, 5, seemed to be born with it. Phillip watched with wonder as a crowd gathered around a boy handling an eastern kingsnake.
"I want to touch it!" he said.
Later, Phillip gave this assessment of Snake Day: "It's cool. I want to see it again."
15th annual Snake Day draws a crowd