I got this email from my father in law, a golfer. I just copied it below and erased all of the email crap. I left in the comments various people made.
I responded with the paragraphs below. If you'd like, copy my response and attach the photo to an email, and circulate it. People will want to see the snake, and we can give them a chance to protect them instead of beating them to death. Perhaps this snake didn't die in vain?
Dan, is this real?? Doesn't seem like timber rattlers get this big. Norm
Burley
No way in hell am I playing golf in Georgia.
Dick Miller
From the Desert
> I'm not a golfer. A friend who is sent this also added the comment below about the 2 iron.
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> Geo
> Not only did he have the guts to go after the snake, he had the presence of mind to use the otherwise useless 2 iron.
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> This is the golf course off Hartley Bridge Road in Macon.
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> This is a timber rattler killed last week-end. It is by far
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> the biggest rattle snake I have ever seen. Although diamond back
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> rattlers get this big and maybe even bigger, I did not know
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> those timber rattlers reached that size. I have not talked to Ollie
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> about how many rattles it had or it's actual size and length was,
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> but since he is about 5'9' the snake appears to be at least 8 feet
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> long if not longer, and is bigger around than his arms.
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> He killed the snake on number 8 at Oakview while looking for his
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> ball. He killed the snake with a 2 iron. The man holding the snake
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> is greens keeper.
My response, please feel free to forward:
My name is Dan Krull, and I am a snake expert and snake lover. I'm also the president of Small Scale Films Inc., an educational non-profit. We are currently working to purchase a den-site in Eastern Kansas to protect this very snake, Crotalus horridus, because they are threatened everywhere they occur. If you would like to find out more about our group, or make a donation to help conserve reptile populations, and educate people about snakes, you can go to our website at www.smallscalefilms.com The following email is a refutation of the claims made by the person who killed this snake, and sent this email.
This is a very common and widespread scam. Apparently, the only thing cooler than beating a snake to death with a golf club is pretending that you have killed some sort of monster, record length, scourge on humanity.
The technique simply involves holding the snake in the extreme foreground on a long pole or stick as far out in front of you as possible, making the subject, in this case a snake, seem as though it is the same height as the man holding it. It is an optical illusion. This same technique is used with large fish, deer, and other animals that people kill. If the snake is as long as you claim, why not photograph it next to a tape measure?
Timber rattlesnakes (Crotalus horridus) normally grow about three and a half or four feet long. Some exceptional specimens exceed five feet, and very rarely six feet. This is a quiet, retiring species that generally avoids trouble and is no danger to a person who has sense enough to leave it alone. MOST PEOPLE ARE BITTEN BY VENOMOUS SNAKES WHILE ATTEMPTING TO MOLEST OR KILL THEM.
My advice to the person who slew this snake, perpetrated this hoax, and distributed this misleading picture is this: Next time, take a picture of the live snake. Notice how beautifully marked it is. Marvel at the age the snake must be to have grown so much larger than its brethren. Then use your useless 2 Iron to move the snake out of harms way. Don't beat the life out of it. Some snake may live to 50 years old, and a snake that size could eat about a dozen rats a month. Surely, it is worth more alive than dead. Dead, it is as useless as your 2 Iron.
HOW BIG IS HUGE? The largest rattlesnake is the Eastern Diamond Back (Crotalus adamanteus) Though quite big, they rarely grow even six feet in length. The old record of eight feet is sketchy at best, and no one in recent time has found the elusive eight-footer.
If you have any questions about rattlesnakes, please feel free to write to me.
Dan Krull
President, Small Scale Films Inc.
nasicus@hotmail.com
That's my second favorite NA rattlesnake, behind the Lep...