Perry wrote:The drought years may have been reducing the snake population. From talking to people who have been here longer than me, it sounds like there were more snakes of all kinds back in the 80's and 90's. I've been here since 2002 and rarely see snakes, but a month ago I heard something rattle inside a bush and I'm pretty sure it wasn't a kid shaking a maraca.
I used to encounter rattlesnakes frequently. In my driveway, on my porch, on trails, etc. Took my dogs to rattlesnake aversion training, and still had one bitten on the nose. Had a number of trail disputes with them, particularly between Cowles Mountain and Pyles Peak in the San Diego area, and a particularly memorable dispute with one lurking in the brush on the Ontario Peak trail. Now I have not seen one in four or five years. But I still like to know someone is ahead of me on the trail, running interference, particularly in the dark. But perhaps that is a fallacy, perhaps the hiker preceding you stirs them up, rather than scaring them off.
I lived in Africa for two years. It was worse there. Two people I knew were returning from a faculty meeting one night to their bungalow, when one was bitten by a cobra, walking across a grassy meadow. Since there are a variety of poisonous snakes there, we had been told that it was important to kill the snake and take its head, so they knew what anti-venom to use. Jerry went back with a flashlight and cutlass (the term for machete there), cut the snake's head off and picked it up. Too soon, the severed head turned around and bit him. They drove about thirty miles to the nearest hospital. Jerry's arm was fine starting out, by the time they arrived at the hospital he was driving with one arm. The guy who took the original bite had to be hospitalized for some time. Jerry had a painful and lame arm for a while.