People here go out of their way to shoot, club, shovel and run over all snakes.
Outside of my house, the only snakes I see anymore are smashed on the roads.
A couple of years ago the neighbor found the huge rat girl sho lived in our root cellar sunning herself in the lane and cut off her head.
We’re up to our ass in mice, now.
He threw her body in the dry stream bed and I only found out she was dead when I went to get the mail.
She was incredible and had lived here for decades.
At least 8 feet long and as big around as my upper arm.
I wept.
It was -so- uneessecary.
She’d never hurt anyone but rodents.
Several years before that, he weed-whacked the knot of garter snakes who liked to hang in the branches of my willow trees.
Hopped right over the fence and murdered them all...and then couldn’t wait to tell me about the great favor he’d done me.
*sigh*
If your neighbor continues to go all Biblical on snakes, one of these days he’s going to start walking with a limp.
Sounds like the neighbor from hell... Around here we have a lot of dairy farms and the farmers tend to leave the snakes alone because of the rodent situation.
I have never seen garter snakes hanging out in a tree, but we do have a rather large one that climbs the barn wall (vintage 1880's fieldstone/morter about 18 inches thick..) and uses the rocks as a ledge to sun himself.
The only snakes that get attention are the copperheads. Have never found any on the property, so thus far I have not had to deal with them.
A developing problem here is that a lot of the old farms are being turned into developments of McMansions populated by cityfolk and they're skert of anything that lives... But they won't neuter their cats, so they take the offspring down the road to where there are still farms and toss them. So along with the garter snakes, corn snakes, red tailed hawks, somekindofnoisyowl (only hear him at night, haven't been able to light him up to ID..) that sounds like a Great Horned, and the occasional Snowy Owl (had one swoop down on one of the outdoor cats while we were watching out the back door.. don't know why it decided to call off the attack, it sure looked big enough to have carried the cat off..) (the cat is now indoors ;-) we have semi-feral cats which do rodent control but also provide entertainment for the pack of coyotes that cycles through about every two-three weeks..
Stupidity should hurt. Sadly, it seems to have no limits.