POST-STAR (Glens Falls, New York) 28 September 13 A story about snakes ... and their handlers (Bob Henke)
Dr. Wifey has been agitating to go on a rattlesnake hike. I think it is too late to see any this fall, but an incident here at home has given her a contrary opinion, so I may find myself taking a long walk for no reason.
It is not that I dislike snakes in general or rattlesnakes in particular. I had many opportunities to deal with snakes of all sorts when I was a conservation officer, and these events were generally fun. I think the best one was when the law was passed that fully protected rattlesnakes and, in spite of the fact that officers had been taking all the calls for decades, the biologists suddenly felt the need to “train” us about snakes. The first session included all the guys from my zone and about 20 guys from another division.
At all training classes, my guys sat in the front row. It was assigned at first because we could not be trusted and then became a tradition we embraced. The rest of the class tended toward the back by the door.
The instructor, a blonde-haired lady from the central office, carried on at some length and then demonstrated the use of a snake hook (which looks like a golf club without the head). Finally, she reached into a bucket with the hook and withdrew a large, fairly agitated, light-colored, female rattlesnake. A snake hook works because the snake does not have sufficient depth perception to realize it could simply slide to the ground. Instead it crawls until it reaches the balance point and hangs there.
When the instructor asked if anyone knew why the snake did not simply crawl off the hook — as if any of us did not know — I allowed as how it probably because the snake was blonde. She smiled but clearly did not share the joke. She continued the lecture while she passed the snake hook around for us to examine, even though we all had one of our own in the patrol car. When the hook got to me, she kicked over the bucket sending the snake skittering off in the direction of the crowd and said that a real man would catch that snake. Those were not her exact words, but this is a family newspaper.
A couple of my guys lifted their feet until I got it safely on the hook but this steely calm did not extend to the back of the room where 20 people simultaneously went out through a single door in violation of several laws of physics. Exciting stuff.
A short while later I heard there had been an accident in which that same snake bit the instructor in an embarrassing place. Once I determined she was not going to have permanent damage, I sent a get-well card in which I wrote a nice poem about how a male snake never would have bitten her there. She apparently failed to see the humor in that, either.
I was reminded of this when a large garter snake made me jump by shooting across my feet as I stood in the walkway. This, however, was only part of the show. The first snake was very large, therefore probably a female. This seemed confirmed when a rather large group of smaller snakes followed at a rapid rate, all eagerly sniffing the ground with their tongues to follow her scent. I found this to be interesting, for it seemed much like mating behavior. However, garter snakes typically breed in early spring when they first emerge from their winter dens. It is then that large numbers of males pursue females, ultimately producing large “breeding balls” that look quite spectacular until the lady has had enough of that rowdy scene and flees.
This particular snake crawled up onto a large flat board and began to sun herself, but within minutes the horde of males interrupted her nap. She had no interest and after some harassment, she crawled out of their scaly grasp and escaped. In this case, she just traveled in a circle and returned to the board. By this time the males were off following her scent again, so she had several minutes in the sun before they found her again.
This apparently happens sometimes when a snake is brumating. This is a bit different than true hibernation because if conditions change slightly, such as the nice warm week we have been having, the snake can become active again almost immediately. Basically, if it is warm enough, they wake up, come out to bask in the sun and attempt to eat before heading back into the den for another nap. Since males are keyed to breed as soon as they emerge from the winter den, they sometimes jump the gun a bit.
This may also happen, but to a much lesser extent, when snakes are estivating. Estivation is when an animal goes into a den and enters a state of torpor to avoid environmental conditions other than cold, e.g. heat, dryness, scarcity of food. Garter snakes are capable of all three.
So, incidentally, are rattlesnakes — even the blonde ones.
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