LOS ALAMOS MONITOR (New Mexico) 02 April 04 Snake Awareness Month declared (Allison Majure)
Wildlife advocates told the county council that snakes were a misunderstood and under appreciated creature.
And the council responded by proclaiming April Snake Awareness Month and April 17 Snake Awareness Day at its Tuesday night meeting.
Jan Macek, who was instrumental in achieving local recognition of snakes, said the proclamation and the April 17 Snake Expo have been helped along by many organizations especially sponsor Bob Anderson of Fur and Feathers Rescue Critter Gitters.
There will be a free Snake Awareness Day Program on Saturday, April 17, with more than 100 snakes on display. The flyer touts the event as the "Biggest Snake Expo in New Mexico." It will be held at the Betty Ehart Senior Center from 1-4:30 p.m.
Snakes emerge from hibernation in April to seek food, water, shelter and mates. The advocates' proclamation urged residents to "render valuable aid by having unwanted snakes relocated or by having them rescued from harm by trained, experienced persons." It also highlighted the aid that snakes render to humans by "helping to control the rodent population and thereby reducing the occurrence of illnesses such as Hantavirus and plague."
Macek's daughter Stephanie will be showing the family's many pet snakes and Macek's husband Richard will be taking pictures of children who wish to hold the snakes.
And Stephanie, has created a snake list at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/snake_conservation/ for adults and children interested in hearing more about things herpetological.
"She is hoping to get a website going in the near future," Macek said.
In a study on aggressiveness of cottonmouth snakes done a few years ago by Whit Gibbons, a professor at the University of Georgia's Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, he found that most of the snakes, even when poked on the head three times with a human arm-shaped prod, did little to respond.
In another similar study at Stetson University in Florida using pygmy rattlesnakes, of 620 snakes poked and studied only 50 struck. Gibbons is now studying copperheads and expects to find a similar reticence.
"One conclusion I can make from my studies is you would be amazed at how hard it is to get a snake to strike you," Gibbons said in an interview with the Associated Press. "If a snake gets you, there's a large probability that you are doing everything for that to happen."
Most people reporting snakebites were either holding the snake or attempting to pick it up, according to a report posted at www.snakesandreptiles.com.
Endorsers of the local snake awareness effort include, Tom Wyant, who does snake awareness programs for Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Wildlife Center, and Bob and Cathy Anderson, who rescue and relocate snakes,
Participants in the Snake Expo will include representatives from the Los Alamos National Laboratory who will talk about the plague and Hantavirus which are carried by rodents; Bob Meyers, who owns the Rattlesnake Museum in Albuquerque and will bring some of his rattlesnakes; representatives from the New Mexico Herpetological Society; a representative from the Wildlife Center that rescues and rehabilitates wild critters, and Charles Lujan, from Los Alamos Animal Control who will be present since they get many calls about snakes and animal control.
Macek hopes to make snake awareness a statewide and a national imperative.
Snake Awareness Month declared