Respected snake researcher dies from rattlesnake bite

AP ^ | 12 Aug 2022 | MATTHEW BARAKAT

[EinNYC]

The closest I ever got to being bitten by a snake was in AZ. I was with some herping friends and we had just lifted a big piece of plywood from the ground. A huge coachwhip snake (fortunately not venomous to people) leaped out at me. I leaped backwards at the same time, and he just missed me. Scary!

[21twelve]

I was out in the woods with an electrical instrument doing some geology surveying. Stopped to take a drink of water (northern Florida). After a few minutes of standing there I took a step and heard a loud buzzing. I thought it was something weird going on with my electronics!

Figured out it wasn’t and then realized it must be a rattlesnake. I just stood still and it buzzed again and was coiled up under a palmento bush about 3 feet from me.

I backed off but couldn’t see it. I circled around keeping my distance and got a good look at it through the leaves. It was SO cool looking - huge to me, about 3 to 4 inches thick. Amazing creature. I just kept my distance and continued walking.

I grabbed the next big stick I found and tapped the ground and brush in front of me after that! It spooked me because I had been standing there and it must have been there the whole time too.

[jmacusa]

“Respected snake researcher dies from Rattlesnake bite’’.

Wow. There’s irony for you.

[mad_as_he$$]

The local snake wrangler says it is just gambling. Sooner or later you are going to get bit. He hopes that his is a dry bite or a non-venomous snake.

[wardaddy]

Snakes are not sentient though they can smell and grow relaxed around caretakers even what we assume is affection

My corn snakes though loved to bite the hand that fed them

I think a poster here asked me if I could spell t-o-n-g

[jmacusa]

Wow. You’re lucky. I live in Ocean County, NJ just on the outskirts of The New Jersey Pine Barrens. Had to beat a rabid skunk to death in my back yard a few days ago. I don’t own a firearm. I used a long-handled steel shovel.

Man. That was upsetting. Didn’t want to call the animal control. They’d have had the cops here and I don’t need cops snooping around or getting the story in the local paper.

[wardaddy]

Prelude for Sally

I do not kill snakes unless I have to not in decades

This timber rattler almost got me at the parking area on the Natchez Trace one mile south of loveless cafe at the northern terminus

I stopped to pee in the woods and came back to my truck and I heard the rattle as I started to climb in and it was right by my foot and I promptly stepped on its head with my other flip flop

I was very very lucky

As I have been all my life with 15-20 close calls

I grew up in south central Mississippi and eastern Louisiana in Tensas parish on bar pit land by the Mississippi

The rattlers are huge there and cotton mouths like locusts including Medusa nests like a 3 to 5 foot diameter ball of deadly carnality

I've had many friends bitten by all three venom types down here with cottonmouth the most common and while swimming

They are also fiesty

This timber rattler was around five foot which is standard

He now rests stoically on my piano next to a gobbler preserved for eternity

Three summers ago

I've been very lucky lucky lucky lucky

3to4 almost bites from muddy camo cotton mouths killed in near or mid strike

Stepped on a rattler at nite barefooted and it was chilly thank God and he was sluggish

You never forget that sound or feel on the soles of your feet and his thickness was like my adult forearms

All my 15 years in the tropics I saw plenty but no close calls

Bushmasters mostly and some puffies in Africa

Puff adders are apex venomous snakes and aggressive

Bushmasters too actually

[wardaddy]

Prelude for Sally

I do not kill snakes unless I have to not in decades

This timber rattler almost got me at the parking area on the Natchez Trace one mile south of loveless cafe at the northern terminus

I stopped to pee in the woods and came back to my truck and I heard the rattle as I started to climb in and it was right by my foot and I promptly stepped on its head with my other flip flop

I was very very lucky

As I have been all my life with 15-20 close calls

I grew up in south central Mississippi and eastern Louisiana in Tensas parish on bar pit land by the Mississippi

The rattlers are huge there and cotton mouths like locusts including Medusa nests like a 3 to 5 foot diameter ball of deadly carnality

I've had many friends bitten by all three venom types down here with cottonmouth the most common and while swimming

They are also fiesty

This timber rattler was around five foot which is standard

He now rests stoically on my piano next to a gobbler preserved for eternity

Three summers ago

I've been very lucky lucky lucky lucky

3to4 almost bites from muddy camo cotton mouths killed in near or mid strike

Stepped on a rattler at nite barefooted and it was chilly thank God and he was sluggish

You never forget that sound or feel on the soles of your feet and his thickness was like my adult forearms

All my 15 years in the tropics I saw plenty but no close calls

Bushmasters mostly and some puffies in Africa

Puff adders are apex venomous snakes and aggressive

Bushmasters too actually

[xzins]

Exactly.

[octex]

I’ve had similar thoughts when seeing the Elder commercial.

I learned as a young kid not to do that when walking through the woods. We kids played frequently in the woods a couple of blocks from our houses, building tree houses and shooting bb guns. I saw a snake strike another kid’s pet dog that had run ahead of us one day. Dog died and we all were more cautious afterwards.