Rattlesnake, You Can't Go Home Again. Or Can You?

When I relocated the rattlesnake last Saturday after it alarmed the guests in the cabin, the wife of the couple staying there asked me, "It won't come back, will it?"

"No," I said, "It won't." But what did I know? Especially when a day or two later, when M. was walking our dog on the county road, and encountered one of the neighbors, who told her how she and her husband had encountered a rattlesnake earlier along that road — and it was buzzing angrily.  (He had gone home for his gun, but on his return, the snake was gone.)

We drove "our" snake about a mile up that road when we relocated it to its new home. Do they come back? It was time to ask Mr. Google.

Mr. Google brought me to a guest-blog post by Erika Nowak, a herpetologist from Northern Arizona University.  (Her master's thesis was on the "biological effects and management effectiveness of nuisance rattlesnake translocation.")

She is no fan of translocation — it breaks up snake social groups — unless the alternative is death or habitat destruction. (See also the Advocates for Snake Preservation website.)

She writes that it is "best to relocate within 1 square kilometer (0.6 mile): Short-distance translocation is considered to be within the rattlesnake’s normal home range; a general rule of thumb in the southwestern U.S. that I use for larger species like western diamond-backed rattlesnakes is an average of 1 square kilometer."

And this: 

The reality is that in the short term, most adult rattlesnakes will try to home back to where they were moved from. This phase often results in higher than normal mortality rates from disease, predation, and being hit by cars.

Or death from a neighbor who has the usual Western "all snakes must die" outlook.

A hummingbird can fly from southern Mexico or wherever, start hovering at the spot where the feeder hung last year, and we think that is normal for birds. But cold-blooded reptiles never seem as clever as birds to me.

So now we are wondering, was that "our" rattlesnake coming home again? Or was it another member of its extended family, in which case this is not only a big mouse year but a big rattlesnake year.

On Being Ranger Rick, Or Not

Western rattlesnake (Idaho State University).

I was deep into an editing job, wondering as always why some people can earn a PhD without knowing how to write a References list, when the telephone rang.

The rental cabin was taken for a long weekend by a couple from somewhere in the Denverplex — Aurora, I think. It was the wife, and she sounded kind of shaky.

"I went out to my truck, and there's a SNAKE!"

"OK, "I said," I'll be right over."

I had a seen a bullsnake over there before. People are always mistaking them for rattlers and going all herpe-cidal. I got a five-gallon plastic bucket and a shovel and walked the couple hundred yards to the cabin.

Curled by the retaining wall that holds up the parking space  was a Western rattlesnake.* Well, hello, little guy, are you the reason that I have not been catching mice in my cabin traps?

The woman was inside the back door, practically chewing her knuckles. Her husband was on the steps with a big stick, but keeping his distance.

I scooped the snake and dropped it in the bucket. Look at me, I'm Ranger Rick!

I surely was not going to reach down and pick up the bucket's bail, so I tried to work the shovel blade undernearth it. And I knocked over the bucket, and the snake slithered out onto the lawn, heading for some thicker vegetation.

"X*%$," I thought, "Now I will have to kill it to keep them from panicking."

But the snake was so angry that when I prodded it again, it coiled up, and again I scooped it, dropped it in the bucket, and walked away with the bucket held by the shovel blade.

"Kill it!!!" she called through the window.

No, I said, I would relocate it. Perversely enough, my experience ten years ago makes me more tolerant of rattlesnakes. Maybe the venom changed my brain.

This rich Texan has bought up a lot of land around us, including a small ranch whose previous owner had decorated one area with signs proclaiming "RATTLESNAKE TEST AREA. KEEP OUT." (Works better than "No Trespassing," don't you think?)

Those signs are gone now, but we all remember them.

Once home, I dropped the bucket into an empty garbage can, snapped on the lid, and secured it with a bungie cord. Mr. or Ms. Snake had been buzzing the whole time and kept on buzzing while M. and I took it for a drive. That was one angry snake.

Where the county road parallels a creek in the former "test area," I tipped over the garbage can, spilled out the bucket, and then removed bucket and garbage can with the shovel. We left the snake there by the side of the road, still coiled and buzzing.

Now if I could just find a bull snake, I could relocate it down in the gully where I have been dumping all the mice that I live-trap in the garage and basement here at the house. There was even one in my study wastebasket earlier this week — it has been a huge mouse year.

       *It seemed two feet long, so it was probably 18 inches.

What Does and Does Not Happen on NOLS Planet

WMI instructor Amy Shambarger demonstrates creating a quick compression splint.

Last weekend was devoted to the two-day wilderness first aid class, taught by instructors from the Wilderness Medicine Institute, (WMI)  part of the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) in Lander, Wyoming.

It is an excellent course — the instructors are strong — and to quote the website, it is for "the needs of trip leaders, camp staff, outdoor enthusiasts and individuals working in remote locations."

I have taken it twice now, with two different sets of instructors, to keep on the two-year recertification for the fire department, thinking mainly in terms of accidents during wildland firefighting — I am not an EMT and don't want to be.

But there are some curious omissions and asumptions. I suspect that they derive from the NOLS model of a trip with designated leaders that goes into a designated park or wilderness area in North America.

It is assumed that Search & Rescue and/or a medical-evacuation helicoper will come. Of course, you can now be choppered off Mount Everest, for a fee.

One odd omission was our friend the rattlesnake. (I could have guest-lectured.) I do see that the advanced version of the course (five days instead of two) includes "bites, stings, and poisonings."

Likewise, does the five-day course include gunshot wounds? I know, I should have asked. But I was busy sorting gear. ;)  I am not thinking combat-medic stuff here so much as the unfortunate accidental discharge.

I suspect, however, that guns do not exist on NOLS Planet, but "individuals . . . in remote locations" maybe ought to know. Here again, some people are teaching "shooter self-care" classes, but not in my area, unfortunately. There's an opportunity for someone.

(If you think there was a golden age of safe gun-handling, read some of the accounts of mid-19th century wagon trains, for example.)

A Blanket of Stupidity Has Descended on Our County, Part 1

This is not a rattlesnake (Wikimedia Commons).

For an appetizer, consider this post from a Facebook page for residents of my little mountain county:

It's that time of year...rattlers are coming out of hibernation. Wherever you are please be watchfull. Listen to your pets, they know when something isn't right. My dog had this one pinned out in our yard this afternoon. She didn't go near it, but new [sic] it wasn't right. 

(Warn Uncle Joe, cuz he's a-moving kind of slow.)

The attached photo was a picture of a bullsnake, non-venomous and not a threat unless you are a mouse.

Although they have no rattles, bullsnakes will vibrate their tails as a threat display. This produces such reactions from Homo sapiens as this from the same Facebook post:

All Rattlesnakes I see gets to meet my 44 mag with snakeshot. I always like to say hi.

Thanks for sharing, Dave E.

There is more.

Under the Volcano (1)

Camera Trap Spring is going to look a lot different the next time that I visit.

I have "war gamed" this fire in my head a lot of times. Usually the scenario has me doing structure protection on a nearby county road, which is indeed what happened.

So I did not have time for more than a quick grab shot from the driveway of the house where I was stationed.

Always knew that that heavily timbered little valley, full of blown-down trees, would burn like a volcano when it finally did.

I doubt that the guardian of the spring would have survived a fire this hot.

Don't Tread on Me

Western rattlesnake (Crotalis viridis) peers from the oak brush at the spring.

Two snake posts in a row. I did not plan on that. M. and I decided to hike up to Camera Trap Spring, about 35 minutes from the house, to replace the batteries in the camera there. (Rechargeable C cells seem good for ten days maximum.)

We brought Fisher the Chesapeake Bay retriever with us, thus introducing the element of random anxiety and chaos that he always adds to any experience.

Once he disappeared into the brush and came back carrying some dog's squeaky toy. How did that get up on the ridge? Did a fox bring it up there?

At the spring, I was packing up the old batteries, etc., sitting on the ground, when M. started screaming at the dog.

I jumped up, saw that he was prancing around something by the spring, saw that it was a snake — I was moving toward him — thought it was a bull snake like the one yesterday — saw the rattles — somehow leapt around the snake and grabbed his collar.

We looked him over. He did not seem to have been bitten, nor had he yelped. So M. held him while I took pictures of the snake, well-camouflaged in the dappled light of the forest floor. We had walked within six feet of it ourselves.

It was between two and three feet long. Maybe it found the spring to be a good hunting place for small mammals, and since it had not struck Fisher, perhaps it had a belly full of deer mouse or wood rat and had felt somewhat lethargic.

It is more than three hours later now, and since he does not look like this, he was one lucky dog.

As for photos, none were good enough for the blog, but a bear had been there. I think that I need to re-position the camera, so I will need to go back, doglessly.

Bully for You, Snake

Cell phone picture of bull snake, taken while fishing this morning.

Bull snakes are victims of evolution, I reckon. Their stripe pattern is close enough to a rattlesnake that people see them and think, "Oh no, a rattlesnake."

Then they vibrate their tails when annoyed, which sounds kind of like a rattlesnake's rattles, so people go, "Get the gun/shovel/hoe/implement of choice and kill it!"

Really, they are quite beneficial. Unless you are a mouse. Or possibly a duck.

Sorry about the photo quality. Someone left his pocket Pentax at home.

Mexican Researchers Excell at Venomous Quest

When hospitalized in Tucson after the rattlesnake incident, I heard some discussion of Mexican antivenom (or antivenin) research—in fact, I was solicited to participate in a study, but I would have had to have lived nearby for the follow-ups, so I said no, give me the current antivenin. But as the belt buckle of the Venom Belt, Mexico has ample opportunity for researchers.

My one scorpion sting did not require treatment. In fact, I think it was a mild CNS stimulant.

Radio-tagging Rattlesnakes

Once piece of folklore that I heard repeatedly after my rattlesnake bite five years ago was that baby rattlesnakes were more dangerous than adults. This researcher says otherwise.

Katie Colbert, a naturalist at Sunol-Ohlone Regional Wilderness, has often heard people warn that a baby rattlesnake is a greater threat due to the fact that they're unable to control the amount of poison they inject into their victim when they bite. According to Colbert, this is just not true: all rattlesnakes, babies and adults, can control their venom. In addition, Colbert says, "Baby rattlesnakes can only produce and stash a very small fraction of [venom] an adult can." This does not change the fact, however, that a bite from any rattlesnake, regardless of age, is a dangerous bite and requires medical attention.

Watch for the rattlesnake living in the wall of the visitor center. I don't expect that they tell all the little kids about that one.