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THE OBSERVER (Fayetteville, N Carolina) 10 June 04 Selling Snake Tales (Justin Willett)
Gordon Smith teaches Special Forces soldiers everything they need to know about snakes. His lessons are about safety and food.
Smith said those in special operations need to know how to identify a snake as poisonous if they come across one in the field. They also need to know that snake meat is a potential source of food.
"It doesn't taste like chicken," he said, "but it's not bad, just kind of stringy."
Smith has taught primitive skills in the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School's Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape course for the last five years. He is a 53-year-old retired Special Forces command sergeant major.
Smith and Sgt. 1st Class Tim Jackson keep more than a dozen snakes - poisonous and nonpoisonous - at their Camp Mackall office, along with a few snapping turtles, a scorpion and a tarantula.
Smith said snakes are a good source of food because they are so prevalent. "Almost any country you go to, you can find snakes," he said.
Smith said it is important to be able to tell the difference between poisonous and nonpoisonous snakes. But he tells students to kill them first and identify them later.
He said the easiest way to kill a snake is to break its neck by smacking it with a long stick or pole just behind its head.
Once dead, it is important to cut off the head of a poisonous snake and bury it. The venom sacks are in the lumps at the back of a snake's head.
"A venomous snake can bite up to two hours after it's killed," Smith said. "Dead snakes have killed people."
The best way to prepare a snake is either to boil it or bake it. The meat might not win any culinary awards, but it will keep you alive, Smith said.
Identification of snakes is relatively easy, but it requires close study - which is a risky proposition.
Poisonous snakes have elliptical eyes, and many vipers have a "pit" between their nostrils and eyes.
Smith said there is a difference between bites, even with poisonous snakes. There are dry bites - no venom - and wet bites.
He said if a snake bites because it's startled, it often bites without ejecting venom. "When you pick up any snake you're likely to get a wet bite," Smith said.
The key to surviving a poisonous snake bite is to block the venom flow by squeezing above the bite site and suctioning out the venom.
Smith said a person should not try to suck the venom out of a bite because the poison would just seep into the bloodstream through the mouth.
Inexpensive snake bite kits include syringes for suctioning the wound.
Smith and Jackson also keep several nonpoisonous snakes, which the students handle to become familiar with them.
According to the two men, only one person has been bitten by the snakes in the past five years.
Outside the class, bites can be more common. Last year, a Special Forces candidate was bitten during a Robin Sage field exercise in the woods of central North Carolina.
Smith, who was in Special Forces for 27 years, is always seeking more knowledge about snakes. What started as a mild interest has turned into a second career.
Jackson is from Rhode Island and was "always out in the woods" as a child, looking for wildlife, he said.
"We're all avid hunters and fishermen," Jackson said. "I enjoy doing it."
Jackson, 38, said he has never been bitten by a poisonous snake. "Safety is number one," he said.
Avoiding bites is not only common sense but necessary to keep from getting ribbed by his colleagues.
"You have to live it down if you get bit," Jackson said.
Selling Snake Tales

Awsome post Wes. This pst brings up lots of good points. As a herper and a former member of Special Forces, we are placed in a position where I am a bit torn at times. I have been out in parts of southeast asian and have come across countless specimens. The herper in me would love to keep(specially the Hot stuff) many of the vipers, cobras, and kraits I have come across. Yet my hunger says "hmm meat", so it is obvious of what I did. Chow time. Plus in dark hazardous conditions proper identification come second to safety and food. Till next time, keep herping!
-Doc
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Swift, Silent, Deadly