Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Tell me if you've heard this story before. There is one really good herping spot in the county that provides most of my sightings for the year. Massive drainage area with waterfalls, wooded islands, rocky impoundments, trails along the stream. Last year I noticed a lot of the Nerodia were missing from their usual basking spots, hoping it wasn't me that scared em off. This year where there should be 25 I've seen just 7 or 8, and it's the big females that are absent. The loss of this site makes my Nerodia count for the year (and for snakes in general) nonexistent. Then an employee of the water treatment plant told me of their long history of killing snakes on sight, and the great abundance of sightings in the past few weeks. He described perhaps a dozen encounters with black rats, racers and large water snakes, the most recent of which was chopped while trying to eat a catfish. Sound familiar?

X

I do not sympathize w/ herp killers or buy into the "they're just un-informed or un-educated" crap. Idiots that kill snakes do so because they hate snakes. Your favorite herp spot may seem barren this year, but i bet the population is fine--water snakes, rat snakes, racers, and such are resilient animals and manage to survive despite unwarranted killing.
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2 tham radix
1 Chicago Tham s. semifasciatus
2 elaphe vulpina
1 gray tiger salamander
4 Aphonopelma hentzi
1 G rosea
1 Haplo minax
1 Brachy angustum
1 Brachy sabulosum
1 Brachy vagans
1 Cent. hentzi scorp

Like a lot of people this guy wasn't in disagreement with me (at least in his own mind). How many of us have had pleasant conversations from snake-killers who were interested in our knowledge or what we were doing? On Facebook there are photos of dead snakes in people's wildlife albums that they killed themselves. People who already know everything we would tell them, but "my child was nearby" or "it was in my garden".

Len

I've had the same happen to me, in a semi remote area. I've watched snakes for years there, one day they are all gone. I found out that some teenagers killed them with large rocks. I want to put up a sign not to harm reptiles, but I'm worried it would cause the opposite effect.
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Jeff Davis
0.1 Norm Royal Python(Rescue)
1.0 Albino Ball Python (high contrast)
2.0 Shi Tzus
1.0 Pug
0.1 Lovely Wife

...........always will....we cannot cange it...

even if we cut the ehads off of half of them and let them lay on the roadway as a reminder to the other half...

good luck....it seems the more people hate snakes, the more snakes they will see....

I see very very few in the wild....even while looking for them...

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........JY