TIMES-NEWS (Burlington, N Carolina) 19 July 08 Father and daughter bit by snake in Elon (Emily Hohenwarter)
Snakes really bite.
Shae Joyce of Elon knows this first-hand. Her husband, Mark, and their 3-year-old daughter, Abigail, both were bitten by a copperhead July 12 on the sidewalk in front of their home. Mark and Abigail were taken to Alamance Regional Medical Center for treatment.
Joyce said she's heard of other copperhead sightings and bites in the Elon area. A child of one of her friends was bitten on the playground behind the Joyces' house in May. She thinks there's a snake problem in her neighborhood this year.
It's hard to say if Elon in particular has had more snakes this summer, but in North Carolina snakes are on the move because of the state's dry spell.
Tracey Grayzer, a spokeswoman for Alamance Regional Medical Center, said the hospital has seen a few cases of snake bites this summer. She said a representative from the emergency department remembered treating two or three in the past month, and examined another Wednesday night.
``Anytime it's dry, we tend to get them,'' Grayzer said.
Jeff Hall agreed. Hall, a biologist with the North Carolina Wildlife Resource Commission, said he's gotten lots of calls about copperhead sightings all over the state.
``Animals like copperheads tend to hang around flowing water,'' Hall said. ``The water where they normally live may be dried up, so that gets them moving.''
The Joyces live near a lake which may be why there have been snakes moving through their area.
Hall also said many snake sightings are in new developments, which is expected because the snakes lived there before people came in.
``As we have more and more people move to North Carolina, more habitats are displaced and there is more human-animal contact,'' he said.
But Hall said most of the contact between snakes and people does not result in a bite. It's not in the snake's best interest to bite, he said, because it takes time for the snake to regenerate the lost venom. So, wasting venom on a human could mean losing a meal down the road. Copperheads feed infrequently so, ``if they lose one meal, it really could be life or death,'' Hall said.
About 40 percent of snake bites are ``dry bites,'' Hall said, which means the snake doesn't excrete any venom. But people who have been bitten by any snake, if they think it's poisonous or not, should always seek medical attention.
Hall said the best way to avoid a bite is to leave a snake alone.
``Statistically, there is a much better chance people will get bitten if they try to kill the snake than if they leave it alone,'' he said. ``Most bites that do happen are usually when people don't notice the snake and step on it.''
The key to living snake-free is to make an environment unattractive to reptiles like copperheads. Snakes go where there is water and a food supply. Hall said copperheads are generalists, which means they can live in a variety of habitats and eat different foods. But they prefer to eat rodents, so cleaning up trash piles and scrap heaps where rodents could live is a good way to keep snakes at bay.
``If you eliminate prey presence, you reduce the risk of having a snake,'' Hall said.
If there isn't food or water, most snakes will move on. In fact, Hall said it's almost impossible to capture a snake through an animal control service.
``A lot of times people say to come get a snake,'' Hall said. ``That's almost always impossible to do. Especially if there was a negative encounter (a bite), the snake wants to get out of there.''
Father and daughter bit by snake in Elon