GOOCHLAND GAZETTE (Virginia) 06 June 07 Woman kills near-record-length copperhead (Brad Franklin)

Photo at URL below: Crystal Dykers poses for a photo with the 46-inch copperhead snake that she encountered and killed on her property in Goochland.

Crystal Dykers had seen it before, but this time was different and she was determined to do something about it — even if that meant taking it down herself.

“I just couldn’t have it being that close to the parking lot and my dogs and everything,” she said.

The ‘it’ that Dykers is referring to is a near-record-sized northern copperhead snake.

The reptile, which Dykers killed with a hoe, measured in at 46 inches long, about a foot longer than the average copperhead.

The record length for that type of snake in Virginia is 48 inches. And the world record? Just a bit longer at 53 inches.

Dykers and her daughter, Sarah, had been working in the garden at Orapax Plantation on Memorial Day. With the heat, they decided to take a trip down to Licking Hole Creek for a swim.

While on their way back, riding ATVs and carrying their six dogs and gardening equipment, Dykers saw it again. This time, it was in the parking lot of the clubhouse.

“I had actually seen it before, but then it was away from everything and not bothering anything,” she recalled. “But this time, I couldn’t let it be around my dogs because it wouldn’t take much to kill any one of them.”

Operating the hunting preserve at Orapax, Dykers sees all kinds of wildlife and routinely does nothing to disturb it. In fact, she wouldn’t have done anything to this particular snake if it had been somewhere else or had been another kind, like a black snake. But leaving a huge copperhead that close to people and her pets just wasn’t an option.

“He was a giant,” she said of the snake. “I’ve never seen a copperhead that big before and I probably won’t ever see one anywhere close to that size.”

Apparently, few have, including the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fishery, which didn’t exactly believe Dykers’ account until they received photographical evidence. Then they did believe.

Even more interesting in this little tale is the fact that the snake wasn’t just large — it was also abnormal in that it had an additional fang.

“It’s one thing to find a copperhead that’s big, and it’s another to find one that’s 46-inches long,” Dykers recounted. “But to find one that long with three fangs — that’s something else.”

Though she’ll continue to walk the acreage at Orapax, Dyker said she figures she’ll see a snake here or there. But they’ll pale in comparison to the one she ran into, again, on Memorial Day 2007.

“That was definitely one unique specimen,” she added.
Woman kills near-record-length copperhead

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