Reduce the Number of Venomous Snakes in Your Area (USA)
In the USA you may meet up with a snake while gardening. There is a natural way of reducing numbers of snakes in your area without killing or harming any snakes.
Contents
Steps
- Do not kill any snake. Many venomous snakes are now critically endangered or threatened in the United states. It is against federal law to kill or interfere with any endangered species, and that includes protected venomous snakes. In addition, in many states it is illegal to kill, capture, harass, or possess wild snakes of any sort, venomous or nonvenomous.
- Get help from animal control. Contact your local animal control center or wildlife center if you need immediate removal of an animal from your property or place of residence.
- Tell your neighbors not to kill the snake. Make sure that your neighbors know not to kill snakes, regardless of if they are venomous or not. Snakes play a vital role in the ecosystem, and are only present if there is food for them (like mice or other vermin). Having snakes around could potentially be a good thing, but if you still insist on getting rid of them, keep reading.
- See if you can find if the snake is venomous. In the United States, the majority of snakes you will come into contact with are harmless, but a good way of identifying venomous snakes is seeing if their head is triangular. Most venomous snakes present in North America fall under the general name rattlesnake. These snakes may also have slitted eyes.
- Note that not all snakes will have these features. Some are harder to identify than others.
- Note that some non-venomous snakes will rattle their tails like a rattlesnake. This is not a sure way to identify a venomous snake. Some non-venomous snakes will flatten their heads a little to make it look like they have the triangle shaped heads, this is also not another reliable way to identify if a snake is venomous or not.
- Know your snakes. The best thing you can do is familiarize yourself with photos and pictures of the snakes in your area. This way you only may have a few snakes to recognize, rather than trying to identify something that is not even found in your area. Go online and find pictures of the snakes near you and print out a copy of each. You can hang this near the back door or in the garage and will be able to refer to it in a jif if you see a snake.
- Snakes find comfort by crawling into places that allow them to be well hidden. Keeping your grass cut short, and reducing the amount of artificial cover like trash, or old cars, or barnyard items or lots of boards or roofing tins will keep the number of places snakes like to hide at a minimum.
- Keeping the crawlspace under your house well sealed will help greatly too. The temperatures under your house are more mild than the extreme weather that may be going on outside, and snakes will find refuge under your house. Close all holes and spaces snakes might slither into in the fall as they prepare for the winter weather.
- Remove wood piles, brush piles, garbage or anything that attracts rodents. Snakes eat small rodents and if there is healthy rodent population it could attract snakes.
- Generally, in the US, the venomous snakes are strictly ground dwellers, and other non-venomous snakes can be found found off the ground. Their climbing ability is aided by the fact that their bodies are not quite as robust and heavy as the vipers of the US.
- Killing a snake is no reason to be proud about anything. You are dealing with an animal that has no arms or legs. As a human being you have a long list of advantages over this animal, you should utilize your superiority to do what's best for the animal by leaving it alone, or seeing that it gets back to the wild where it came from, rather than just smashing its head.
Tips
- Never try to pick up a snake.
- If people are present, get them to leave the area quietly.
- Never try to hit it.
- Call Animal Control or a snake expert to catch it or alternatively turn a water hose onto the snake to force it to leave the area.
- Check out the following website - [1] - it has a heap of information on snakes of the USA and is a really good reference source on this topic.
Warnings
- Many Venomous snakes are now critically endangered or threatened in the United states. It is against federal law to kill or interfere with any endangered species, and that includes protected venomous snakes. In addition, in many states it is illegal to kill, capture, harass, or possess wild snakes of any sort, venomous or nonvenomous.
- Do not kill snakes on sight. Snakes are a very important part of our environment. Learn how to distinguish non venomous varieties from venomous ones.
