Rattlesnakes are worth the effort ~ October 4, 2006

David Heiller

If you saw a rattlesnake, would you kill it?

I sometimes wonder about that. Everyone is entitled to his or her opinion, and I respect that, but I can’t see why a person would kill a rattler.

I have to admit I once dispatched one, in the front yard of the parsonage where Gary and Maureen Meiners now live. That was in 1969, and there were so many Blair kids running around I figured it would nail one or two of them.

But chances are that would not have happened. The snake was probably a little out of its territory I could as easily have lifted it up with a shovel and moved it as the nearby ravine. It didn’t want to be there any more than I wanted it to.

Fear and emotion and a certain panicky dislike for snakes won out. Admit it, you see a snake and it startles the heck out of you. They just do. That goes way back to Genesis.

But I’d like to make a pitch for the lowly rattlesnake. For one thing, they are disappearing. You might scoff at that, but it’s true. When was the last time you saw one? People gathered them up by the thousands for their bounty over the past 50 years. The bounty numbers are incomplete, but here’s an example: In 1941, 5,957 bounties were paid in Houston County. In 1979, 4,955 bounties were paid.

That program ended in 1989, thankfully In 1996 timber rattlers were put on a list of threatened species.

Jaime Edwards, who is a rattlesnake specialist with the DNR, told me two weeks ago that she went to a prime rattlesnake spot for five years before she saw one snake there.

One of Edward’s career goals is to see that there are still rattlesnakes when she retires. She is 37 years old.

Her co-worker, Dave Spiering, said some spots that historically had a lot of snakes have been totally wiped out. All the snakes are gone. You might not believe that, but I do.

It might seem unlikely, especially if you live in some places around here like the Winnebago Valley, because snake encounters there are not unusual. About 40 rattlers were reported there just as as road kills last year.

But that’s deceiving, because Winnebago Valley is probably the richest rattlesnake habitat in Minnesota. It’s not like that anywhere else. It’s almost a last bastion for them.

There’s also not a lot of wiggle room for snakes, pardon the pun. A rattlesnake doesn’t even mate until it is 9-11 years old. And it only mates every other year. It gives .birth to 7-11 young. That’s not a prolific creature.

A lot of their habitat is disappearing too. The hills that used to be bare around here in all those old photos are now covered with red cedar. That eliminates snake habitat, particularly the sunny rocks that the females need for gestation of their eggs.

I was glad to go out with Edwards and Spiering last week and see that they are working to preserve the remnant prairies and the rattlesnakes. I think it`s money well spent.

I actually take pride in the fact that we have rattlers around here. What other part of Minnesota has those bragging rights?

There are no documented human deaths in Minnesota due to a rattlesnake bite,

So why kill them?

If you have a snake in an area, move it using a shovel or hoe. Or call the sheriff or state park or game warden. They will find someone to move it.

I think it’s worth the effort.