Head em up, Move em out - the Rattlesnake Roundup

The curious traveler can experience the Rattlesnake Roundup in Sweetwater, Texas, the weekend of 3/12/05 [corrected].   It's an annual event, and this one will mark the 46th year in which they have put it on, according to their website.

There will be no pictures of rattlesnakes in this post, but the brave hearted can go here and here for photos.

Those of us who get the heebie geebies around snakes can probably attribute that to our wise caveman ancestry who hard wired this into our brains.

"Snakes have provided a recurrent threat throughout mammalian evolution," [Arne Öhman, a psychologist at the Karolinska Institute and Hospital in Stockholm, Sweden] said, adding that "individuals who have been good at identifying and recruiting defense responses to snakes have left more offspring than individuals with less efficient defense systems."  Source.

In other words, we wouldn't be here if our ancestors were braver.  Fight or flight?  I like flight.

There are opponents to rattlesnake roundups who say that they have a negative impact on the rattlesnake species.  But, it would be hard to prove one side or the other as no one really knows what the snake population is now or was before the roundups began.  But, you can get both sides of the argument at the National Geographic News.  And the Humane Society can expound on the inhumane treatment of snakes at these type roundups.

But, it will be a pleasant diversion on what looks to be a pleasant weekend.  We can save the species next year.

Followup:  The roundup took place last weekend, and the local paper said there were 30,000 people in attendance.  When I attended on Saturday around noon the entire 30,000 weren't present, but it sure seemed like it.  It was so crowded that it took much of the enjoyment out of the event.  But, it was surely a success for the Sweetwater Jaycees.

P.S.  Thanks to Butch for pointing out the mistake in the date in the initial post - it was a month off.  That has been corrected.  Sorry if anyone was misled by that error.

Comments

[Wallace-Midland Texas]

I always root for the snakes!

In 45 years of living in West Texas, on and off, I have never been bothered by a rattlesnake. In fact, as much time as I have spent out tromping around the boonies in Boy Scouts, hiking and the oil field I rarely ever encounter one.

[George]

Wallace, they are very stealthy, and I think they try to avoid humans in the wild.

A friend told a story about how she and two others took regular walks along a path on a ranch in West Texas. One evening she was the third person in a single file on the path, and she saw a rattlesnake lying on the path. The other two people had stepped over it without seeing it.

[butch]

you're dates are wrong

[Ucull]

I think your assumption sunodurring the details of this bite are probably correct. I never say never, but, it is highly unlikely that a rattlesnake would be at all active at those temperatures. Although we have seen snakes in dens survive very low temperatures, it is next to impossible for the snake to be able to physically function at 28 degrees.Check your laws for the State of Nebraska but I do know in Omaha it is illegal to keep venomous snakes. When this is the case, most people who illegally keep reptiles will concoct some asinine story like that to explain away a bite. For instance, just last month in Maryland a lady claimed to have been bitten by a cobra in a parking lot because she “thought it was a stick and bent down to pick it up.” Upon investigation it turns out she had a number of venomous snakes in her house.In another case in the East a few years back, a lady presented at the ER with a snakebite, claiming it was from a native rattlesnake. The ER administered Crofab Antivenom to no effect. She died quickly due to cranial hemorrhaging. It was later determined to have been a bite by a South American Urutu. Her local zoo stocked the appropriate antivenom so if she had identified the snake properly on presentation it is very likely she would be alive today.Terry