WITR-Rattlers

Although I had lived, and hiked, and backpacked in the Southwest for twenty or so years, encounters with rattlesnakes were pretty rare. If one sees snakes at all, they’re usually stretched across a trail or road.  I had sure never encountered one where it posed a problem, like crawling into someones sleeping bag. The closest anyone I knew ever came was when I was hiking with my nephew, he once sat on a large large rock that had a rattler underneath.  When it rattled, he moved.  This is generally considered appropriate behavior.  He might have been maybe a little too excited,  and ran much farther than he needed to, but the move-away–leave-it-alone strategy is all one really needs to do in most cases.  The people that do get bitten are usually young, drunk, and male.  

Most people in rural areas with great hideouts like barns and woodpiles, will usually handle rattlesnake encounters with matter-of-fact blowing them away with a shotgun.

I somehow got a job at a nature sanctuary near a small town and moved there from Tucson.  I had been a volunteer for a few years and Jerry, the manager, finally had the funding to hire some help.   Meetings with rattlesnakes increased.

Once my landlord brought one of his young bulls back to the little corral next to his house.  The bull was fairly agitated and bellowing.  I thought, Great, this fucking monster is gonna keep me up all night, so I went to ask the landlord what was up. 

“He (meaning the bull) got bit in the sheath by one of your goddamn rattlesnakes.”

He didn’t mean MY rattlesnake literally,  just that he knew I didn’t have a ‘ hate/kill all the fuckers’ attitude.    Meanwhile, I’m trying to think what the heck a sheath is.

“Yup, he (the bull) was jes layin there in the pasture, and that snake came up and bit ’em.”

How he knew what the bull was doing at the time I don’t know, but suddenly it dawns on me exactly what a sheath is (we have other words for its human instance) and I instinctively double over protectively.

“OOOOOOHHHHHHH, OOOWWWWWWWWW.”

Squinting and grimacing, I forced myself to take a look.  Strips of, black, rotting flesh hanging underneath was all I remember.

“You go ahead and make all the noise you want buddy.”

A few weeks later the landlord had a barbecue fundraiser for the VFW. 

 

I remember one slow day at the sanctuary visitor’s center.   A familiar truck came racing down the road.  The dust plume and roaring engine caught my attention.   It was Margie.  Or ‘Crazy Margie’ as some in town called her.  Her family had a ranch a couple miles down the road.   Tiny woman, somewhere between forty and ninety years old, who drank shots and beers for lunch, was probably tougher and had seen more than I could imagine, and had a deep, long-standing HATE for rattlers, or anything that looked like a rattler.  Legend had it that her sister had been bitten by a rattler and died when they were children.  

 

The truck screeched to a stop just before our gate…..backed up ten feet ….forward ten feet…..back……….then she gets out of the truck and grabs a shovel.  I know she’s a little,  uhhhhhhh eccentric, but this was strange behavior even for her.  I started to walk out to see if she’s having trouble with the truck…..(really, that was my initial motive….in a small town a neighbor is a neighbor, and you help if you can)…she’s poking under the truck with the shovel).  She gets back in the truck, back…..forth……….gets out again.  Half-way through the parking lot it dawns on me………..she’s been trying to run over a snake in the road, and is now using the shovel to push it back under the tires to have another go at it. 

This is perfectly legal according to Game and Fish.  It is only when moving rattlers to safety that they seem concerned about the well-being of the snake.  So I know that

there’s no legal recourse I have, but running up and screaming at her to let her know that I disapproved seemed like a good idea.   It went something like this:

“WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU”RE DOING?”

“FUCK YOU.  I’M KILLING THIS FUCKING SNAKE”

“THE FUCK YOU ARE.  NOT ON THIS FUCKING ROAD YOUR NOT.   IT MAY BE A COUNTY ROAD BUT IT RUNS THROUGH THE FUCKING SANCTUARY.”

Of course, that’s irrelevant; however I am hoping to distract her enough that she gets more pissed at me and forgets about the snake .  The snake (black-tailed) is still moving, but pretty mangled.  The conversation deteriorated a little more, and I did make sure that I kept a shovel-length away. 

She realized that I was not going to let her finish the job and finally got in the truck and raced off.  The snake was inching  its’ way off the road.  

Raw flesh, bleeding, crushed.   A meal for a coyote or raccoon at this point.  One failed rescue here.

 

Actually there were some people around didn’t want to kill everything that was a possible threat to them, and since Game and Fish or County Animal Control officers are often hard to get a hold of anyway, (and harder to get them to respond immediately if one did get a hold of them) Jerry had let the neighbors know that he would come rescue them (rescue the  snake )  if the people didn’t want to use traditional control methods (i.e. guns, shovels, etc).  This was considered  an additional community resource, and public outreach by the sanctuary.  Of course, Jerry had been rescuing snakes for years. Maybe he thought that I had also been rescuing snakes for years.  I had not.  One fine day,  early on in my career, when I was still a part-timer, Jerry called me at home.

“Hey, it’s me.  Wanna rescue a rattlesnake?”

“Huh?”

“The Triple-M Dude-Ranch called, they have a rattler caught in some chicken wire and they

want us to come get it.”

“Uhhh, sure.”

“I’ll pick you up.”

“This should be  interesting.  I wonder what he actually expects me to do.”.

We arrived at the dude-ranch to find half the staff standing around this diamondback stuck in the chicken wire around a little vegetable garden.  I think they just wanted to see the crazy tree-huggers  get bit.  Jerry analyzes the situation and hands me  the wire-cutters.

“I’ll hold it’s head down with the snake-stick and you cut the wire.”

A thought comes to me…..  How about:I hold the head down and YOU cut away the wire?

Another good thought ….   How can I get out of this?

And then flying through my head comes this one… 

How long will it take for word to spread through town than I wimped-out on my first rattlesnake rescue.

Trust in Jerry. Trust in Jerry. He knows what he’s doing.  He can hold it better without injuring it.  Now is not the time to engage in a debate. So I casually agree.

“Okay, cool.”

Jerry secures the snake just behind the head.

“Ya got it?”

“Yep.”

I tried not to take too deep a breath.  That would signal that this is more than a common everyday chore of mine.  I just kneel down and start snipping.  Okay, a couple quick snips isn’t going to do it….have to cut a bigger hole to get the snake out without it being shredded by the cut ends of the wire.  A very focused thirty seconds later the Jerry has the sweetie in the cooler.  The snake never made a sound.

 

What a RUSH!

How fucking cool is that!

No problem.

Any questions?

All in a days work Ma’am.

No thanks needed.

 

I’m sure that most of the ranch staff still thought we were insane.  But I didn’t care at this point.  I was a rattlesnake wrangler.  I actually thanked Jerry for letting me help.  Little did I know at the time that this would be the last time (to my knowledge) Jerry would be available to do this kind of thing, except around his own home.  Somehow he was always busy on a report, or an important call, or taking his daughter to gymnastics or something.

 

My first solo rattlesnake wrangling was at the home of a retired couple who were good friends and generous donors to the Sanctuary.  Heavily into birding, they were well-off enough to travel the world in their quest.  They once had us over for dinner and produced a slide show of their trip to Antarctica.  Good lasagna, but the first twenty or so slides of ice and penguins (though wonderful and spectacular) pretty much covered the

subject and, at least my personal ‘oooos and ahhhhs’ were pretty forced for the next forty slides.   They had called Jerry about the snake, but he was busy, so I grabbed my snake stick and a plastic garbage can (instead of a cooler) and headed up to their house.

 

This time it’s the landscaping crew that is going to stand around and watch. Sure enough, there it was a diamondback in the chicken-wire, except the wire is not up around a little garden plot, but still mostly on the roll.

Hmmmmmmmmm. Little different….and who’s going to hold the head down while I cut the wire away?

I look at the audience.

They look at me.

Was I going to ask for help?

Was I going to trust whatever help I got?

It didn’t really matter because no one gave the slightest hint that they were interested in assisting.  Arms were folded tightly on their chests, so as not to inadvertently make a movement that could be misinterpreted as wanting to help.  That’s why they had called Jerry.  I was seriously thinking of calling him back myself.

Show uncertainty?

Fear?

NAH.

Piece of cake.

Okay, only one problem that I could see right off.   The snake-stick is four feet long. Although I have quite a reach ,  it is suddenly unclear to me whether I can work the grip handle, clamp the jaws onto the snake, then bend down to cut the wire, while still keeping a firm, but non-damaging hold on the snake.  This snake looks much bigger than the one I cut out at the ranch, (don’t they always?), so it is stuck in the wire closer to its head, making the angle much more acute, and I have to do a kind of wing-span stretch, while in a semi-crouch.  The crowd looks skeptical as I try to make this appear to be standard snake-freeing procedure. Also, I remembered that Jerry had talked to the snake back at that ranch, (at the time I thought he was being a little new-agey), but maybe it was a good idea.  I start talking to the snake.  

“Hey buddy, quite a mess you got yourself into.”

Snip. Snip.

“Yep, that chicken wire can be a problem.”

Snip. Snip.

“Had to get one of your relatives down the road out of the same kind of thing just a little while ago.” 

Snip. Snip.

For some reason I start to whistle “Camptown Races”.   I’m not sure of its’ effect on the snake, or the crowd of on-lookers, but it seemed to have a calming effect on me.  I think I was so nervous that I reverted to fifth-grade Glee Club.  Somewhat free from the wire, the snake starts to struggle a little.  A few feet of stout, desert dwelling diamondback muscle is pretty strong and  it is slowly squirming out of my grip with the stick. 

 Snip. Snip. Snip. Snip.

Do dah.

Snip. Snip

Do dah.

It’s free, but still trying to slowly slide away, (so calmly, in fact, I wonder if it ever really noticed me or the stick, and just figured it had somehow freed itself and now was going to go on its’ merry way).  I’m able get the stick over to its’ middle and without even clamping down, float it over to the plastic can and slide it inside.

 

Incredibly, Mr. And Mrs. Dupree and the landscapers applaud.  I am humbled, yet grateful, as though I had just received a lifetime achievement award.  Mr. Dupree offers me a twenty as well, but at this point I’m doing it for the snakes, and the rush, not money.

 

Now it is time to re-locate. The problem is, that one is not supposed to take them too far away from where you found them.  A snake that has survived a couple years in a certain area presumably knows where things are: gopher holes, rocks to sleep under, maybe where there’s a spring (or a leaky garden hose) or even where water will collect when it rains.  To move snakes to a place that’s too unfamiliar and different doesn’t really

help them in the long run;  on the other hand, their chances of surviving being cut in half with a shovel is zero, so we assume they’re willing to take a little chance on a slightly different location.  So I stop by a wash about a mile down from the house and carry the can up about fifty yards to a large mesquite tree.  There will be shade anyway, I tell the snake.  Letting one go is not without risk either, as you’re not sure how it will react to a ride in a plastic garbage can.  I have to pee as well, so I set the can down  and dampen some sand.  When I come back, the beauty is stretching up the side of the can, but the plastic offers no good grip  and it slides down sideways.  I figure it’s anxious to get out, (duh),  so I set the can on its’ side from behind it and step back to wait.

Wait.

And Wait.

It’s a hot afternoon and it’s time for happy hour.

“Hey pal, come out and see your new place.”

Walking around to the front,  the setting summer sun is now behind the can, and it’s dark in the can, and I can’t really see the snake at all.  Oh well. 

Tip it over and the great beast slides out onto the sand, but doesn’t scoot away.  Just lays there.  Slowly pull the can away.

Flick.

Flick.

Flick, flick.

“Well, I’d like to hang around for a while, but I gotta go.”  

Be careful out there. ”

There were other rescues.   Sometimes they turned out to be gopher snakes, (somewhat similar skin pattern, and most people didn’t really want to get close enough to make sure)  Since I had stumbled across gopher snakes and jumped, I could understand the apprehension.

Sometimes people were at a loss as to how or why a snake would get into their yard.  Perhaps they were new to the rural lifestyle.

“Well sir, I reckon they can get over that two foot wall,  or under the wooden gate, or through that hole you put in the wall to drain the yard when it rains.”

” Well ma’am, that bird seed doesn’t just attract birds, but mice too, maybe the snakes keep coming in ’cause it’s a good place to eat.”

“But I like to feed the birds.”

“Well, then its up to you………”

Often people gave helpful advice like: Be careful.  Maybe they were worried that they had made a mistake asking a civilian to move the snake.  

Maybe I would sue them if I got bit.  “Want me to stop?  You can wait for Game and Fish to come”   “No, no, go ahead.  But be careful”.

“Yeah, thanks for the reminder.”

One time I did take a gift from  someone who had an unwelcome  rattlesnake in residence.  He was a retired gentleman who had built a house in one of the new but not too obnoxious  developments outside of town.  He too was having some planting done to hide the scars of the home-building, so just the two guys in the audience this time.  A good sized beauty was lounging underneath the deck raised from the slope of the hill in the back.  Not much of an immediate threat, but it made the gardener nervous, and neither of them wanted to kill it, or maybe didn’t want to risk a failed attempt..

 

The deck was about three feet off the ground at the open end, but only about a foot of space at the house end, fifteen feet in, where the rattler was looking pretty comfortable.  It was cool under there.  I was getting to be pretty slick about doing the rescues by this time, and had learned to take a snake-hook, as well as the tongs, because the hook works better in some situations, ( like getting a snake out from behind a  dozen elegantly arranged plants in twenty-gallon clay pots), and it’s less likely to harm the snake.  Both might be needed in this case.

 

As usual, I got the sense that they thought I was crazy.  The raised eyebrows and the wide berth they gave me were my clues….as though they were afraid if they came too close to me they would catch whatever made me want to rescue rattlesnakes.  

I lay down on my belly with a stick in each hand and start slowly squirming my way under the deck.  When I’m about half way in, the gardener offers this help:

“Maybe if I squirt it with the power nozzle, that’ll get it out of there.”

“No, no,no.  Not good.  No,no,no. Please don’t do that.”

I felt that I wasn’t in a position to be experimenting with how rattlesnakes react to being sprayed with pressurized  cold water.   

“Don’t worry , I won’t let him squirt  you.”

More sophisticated now, I start to softly hum ” Willow, Weep for Me”.  I get the hook around the fat middle of the snake and start inching my way

back out, ready with the other stick if it starts to get anxious.

Not much reaction.  Maybe  in a little stupor from eating a big gopher.  It is slowly  looking around a bit as though it knows something different is happening, but not quite sure what.  We get out into the sunshine and plop into the can she goes.

The gardener remarks,

“It never made a sound, no hissing, no biting.”

“Yeah, thanks for not hitting it with the water.   I’m beginning to wonder if they know I’m here to help them.”

Mr. Mertens also offers me money for getting snake out, but I have something more valuable in mind.   He was a cartoonist for a certain show long ago.

  So I says,

“Nah, no thanks, happy to do it.  However,  if some day you’re doodling on some scrap paper and happen to come up with something, that would mean a great deal more to me.”