In Defense Of A Snake

Every day, it seems, I lose a little more of what little faith I ever may have had in the intelligence of humankind, to the point where my boyfriend coined the phrase, "Everyone is stupid until proven intelligent." You may be wondering what I am on about now, and well you may. For today I was going to write about sharks and all the myths and misconceptions surrounding them, and I may still do that, but my plans were changed by a little event that occurred this morning.
As I stepped out of residence at approximately 10:45, looking forward to the walk outside while the weather's fair, I noticed a small group of people staring at something on the ground and poking whatever it was with object and their shoes.
This isn't exactly a rare occurrence. I fairly regularly find myself following the screams in order to save some unfortunate creature that just happened to be discovered by some spineless individuals who will, inevitably, crush it if I don't step in in time, thus disproving any fear they may have that such small creatures could possibly harm them. Usually the would-be victims I happen upon are spiders, centipedes, praying mantids, and sometimes large brown moths. Today's damsel in distress was not an arthropod, however, but a little snake.
As I bent down, to inspect whatever damage these pitiless individuals may have had inflicted on the poor darling, I heard one of them, a young man, muttering that it was a rattlesnake and that those things are vicious. Now, let's just stop there for a second and I will ask you my readers, what identifies a rattlesnake? You got it! The rattle from which it gets its name! And guess what this little baby did not have even remotely close to? Oh, yes, I shit you not. This snake had a long, slender tail that in no way resembled a rattle, whatsoever.
Thus, you can understand the short, clipped way in which I said, "It's not a rattlesnake."
Believe it or not, folks, I was then asked, "How do you know?" And I am now going to steal a quotation from Philip Pullman's The Subtle Knife because I have always wanted to use this and there is no better time than now to state that, "That question deserved a blank stare, which it got."
He then rephrased, "Then what kind of snake is it?"
I again neglected to answer because, by this time, I couldn't be entirely sure that I wasn't going to snap that he and his friends were idiots who had no business existing and inflicting their stupidity on the rest of the human race and following that with a punch. But to answer the curiousity of the rest of you, it was a Dekay's brown snake.
Now, just to be clear on some things, there is only one venomous snake that inhabits any significant portion of all of Canada; that snake is the Mississauga rattlesnake. The Mississauga rattlesnake does not have very potent venom; in fact, there have been only two recorded deaths in all of Canada caused by the venom of the Mississauga rattlesnake. Neither of those victims had gotten treatment. And, given the hatred of people towards the snake, I would imagine any death that occurred would indeed be reported and thus recorded, leaving me to believe that that those two deaths are the only ones ever caused by the Mississauga rattlesnake in recorded history. This is because the snake preys upon frogs, mice, rabbits, and other such small animals that make up less than a tenth of the size of an adult human being. The only function the Missisauga rattlesnake's venom on creatures that it cannot eat is to defend itself. Thus, on the off-chance that one should happen upon the Mississauga rattlesnake and get bitten, the joke is that the person will not die, but will wish s/he had, thus avoiding any of these snakes in the future and, theoretically, this leaves the snake protected. If one gets bitten by the Mississauga rattlesnake, s/he will be sick and in pain for a few days but s/he will probably live. As the two deaths indicate, however, one should always seek treatment, but this should be a given for bite from a snake that one is unsure about or that one is sure is venomous.
The next important piece of information to remember is that the Mississauga rattlesnake, being that it does not eat humans, does not want to run into you and is more than likely not to either stay very still and wait until you are gone or to slither away very fast. Thus, the only way you will be bitten by one is either by an accident of your doing or by sheer stupidity. If you step on it, you'll be bitten, though you should have heard that rattle warning beforehand. If you corner it and give it no way out, it will have no choice but to defend itself and it will bite. If you pick one up, it will assume that you are a predator and again it will defend itself by biting. Finally, if you decide to poke one with sticks, you are an idiot who is asking to be bitten. Thus, in the case of the morons I ran into this morning, if that snake had been a rattler, they would have been bitten. Therefore, no, the snake they were tormenting was not a rattler and even if it was, the Mississauga rattlesnake is not vicious at all; it only defends itself.
Now, if the rattle or lack thereof is not a sufficient clue for you, there is another way to tell the Mississauga rattlesnake from the adult fox snake whose tail does grow to mimic a rattle, though with our superior human eyes, the difference between the fake and the genuine article is glaringly obvious. All the fake is is just a blunt tail that's a bit thick and shakes but does not rattle. However, in the interest of any paranoid people who want to play it safe, the Mississauga rattlesnake is thick and short for a snake while the fox snake is familiarly long and slender. The little snake I rescued was long and slender and its tail was pointed and resembled nothing close to a rattle. It didn't even have diamonds on its back.
The final thing you should know is that the Mississauga rattlesnake is an endangered species, partly due to the loss of the tall grass prairies which are its habitat and due to the fact that most humans are too lazy to actually read up on the animal and too stupid to assume that if they simply walk away, they won't get bit. No they decide to kill it instead, which, as I have stated, is probably the most likely way to get bitten (this is, by the way, a great to up your chances of dying from the venom of a Mississauga rattler, as they release all of their venom when they are dying). Worse still is that the fox snakes are also often killed simply for possessing that rattle mimic.
So let this be a lesson to all you snake whackers who might happen to live in Ontario, Canada or even in Northern Michigan, USA, before you decide that it's a good idea to corner a snake and torment it or kill it, actually learn whether or not this animal actually poses any threat to you. And if it does, it's probably in your best interest to leave it alone.
As for the little one I saved? As soon as I picked up the terrified little creature, curled up defensively, the group stated that it was creepy of me to pick it up. Well, first of all, I have handled a great many snakes in my life. I knew where to hold it so that it could not bite; I knew how to use my hands so that the animal could wrap around them and thus would not be afraid to fall and thus would be unlikely to squirt its defense liquid all over me; I knew that even if I was bitten it wouldn't hurt or do much damage as I have been bitten by small snakes in the past and was left with no more than the tiniest punctures to my skin, barely visible; and I knew that, on the off-chance it was, somehow, a Mississauga rattlesnake, I still would have picked it up because if an adult probably wouldn't kill me, a baby's venom would do little more than make me feel uncomfortable for a little while. I was not bitten by the Dekay's brown, but successfully released it into the tall grass nearby where, after hesitating, it slithered swiftly away beneath deadfall before I could pull out my camera to photograph it.
So just...just grow up and get over yourself and let me tell you that the scariest creatures you will ever encounter are your fellow human beings, and I know that firsthand.