ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTIONS COME WITH SPRINGTIME

by Whit Gibbons

March 20, 2005

Last night I sat on the back porch and watched a sign of spring: lightning bugs flitting through the tops of the hickory trees. This morning I sat in the same spot and listened to another sign of spring: a carpenter bee looking for a place to drill a hole in the rafters. Along with these harbingers of spring come flowers, migrating birds, and questions about the environment. Following is a question I answered after I waved goodbye to the carpenter bee.

Q. From Hawaii: Aloha. I am about to move to a cabin on five acres in Yucca Valley California, with plenty of rattlesnakes. I also have seven grandchildren. Do you have any advice about how to repel snakes, including but not limited to modern snake fences and perhaps other deterrents such as electric fences or chemicals?

A. Keeping rattlesnakes out of an area is difficult, and can never be achieved if you want your five acres to remain as natural as possible. No chemicals (despite advertising claims by some companies) will repel all snakes from an outside area without causing enough of a smell that people would also be repelled. No repellent will selectively keep snakes away. Anything you hear to the contrary is a scam. Electric fences would probably cause more difficulties than solutions and would certainly present their own hazard for small children.

As far as putting up snake-proof fences around a five-acre tract of wild land, how do you know you would not be enclosing rattlesnakes that would otherwise leave? And a fence probably would not keep out all snakes because of underground burrows that might surface on both sides of the fence. If you want to retain the natural beauty of the as-yet-undeveloped areas of California, you may have to accept a few possible hazards, weighing the assured benefit of one against the rare and unlikely potential cost of the other.

As I have said before to other parents and grandparents with similar concerns, in a few rare instances in the United States, a bite from a venomous snake can be lethal. Yet, in most years, fewer than a dozen of the more than 250 million people in the country die from snakebite. In addition, in at least a quarter of the bites by U.S. snakes, the snake actually injects no venom or very little. Hence, many bites, even from big snakes, are not serious. So by using a little caution and some common sense, we are not likely to suffer a severe snakebite.

In addition, most snakes will not bite when someone is standing beside them or in many instances even when stepped on. Most try to escape. As many as half the total number of U.S. snakebites result from someone trying to kill or pick up the snake. When you put all the probabilities together, the danger from snakes is greatly overrated, especially when compared to some of the other activities of everyday life.

In this country, parents and their children deal daily with far more dangerous situations than encounters with snakes, such as traveling in automobiles. Parents put their kids into cars almost every day, and when they do, responsible parents expect their children to put on a seat belt. Children can just as readily be taught to watch where they step or put their hands when outdoors. And anyone should be able to learn never to pick up a snake unless someone present is absolutely certain it is harmless, as most snakes are. Snakes in the United States bite people only as a last resort; most Americans who get bitten have picked up the snake.

Some people relish the arrival of spring and all its flora and fauna. Others find it a bit disquieting because snakes emerging from hibernation are among the gifts of spring. If you are among this latter group who doesn't like such presents, remember that most snakes are completely harmless; venomous snakes bite people only as a last resort; and most Americans who get bitten by snakes first pick up the snake. So relax and enjoy all the glories of spring.



If you have an environmental question or comment, email