I’ve had a lot of close calls with snakes and tend to give them the benefit of the doubt most of the time. There have been so many times they could have struck me and didn’t that it seems their attitude is really centered on defense and self-preservation.
But they do provoke easily, and you certainly can’t tolerate them around kids and animals.
We went to play tennis one afternoon and a copperhead had staked out the tennis court to get some warmth. When we tried to sweep it off the court, it became very aggressive. I was pretty much forced to kill it, if we were going to get to hit some tennis balls.
We lived across the street from a major river, lots of trees and a golf course. It was snake country.
I don’t freak out on snakes. We have a Ball Python as a pet, can’t say that I love it but it doesn’t bother me. We’ve also had non poisonous snakes around the house, fine with me, they eat rodents, but Copperheads, are another story. We have lots of woods behind my house, my dogs LOVE the woods, a Copperhead bite would kill them.