How to kill a dead snake

The background to this video concerns my good neighbor, a hard-working businessman, dog-lover, Iron Man competitor, irrepressible optimist, and electronic wizard who loves all things natural, except rattlesnakes.

When California's foothills warm up in the spring, Pacific diamondback rattlesnakes show up to lounge in the morning sun.

And last spring my neighbor from Chicago, let's just call him Larry, started finding rattlesnakes lounging in his backyard.

When this happens most folks around here start to curse and do a little fandago with a shovel or hoe while beating the snake to a pulp.

And that pretty much describes how this rattler met its demise.

Larry was kind enough, however, to deliver the corpse in a bucket, and after removing its head, I stashed it in a hole dug by a local pair of gray foxes.

The camera showed how a cautious fox "kills" a dead snake.

Its reaction tells me this wasn't the first time it used the old "shake and break" method to dispatch a snake.

But it makes you wonder if gray foxes prey on rattlers very often, and if so, how risky is it?

I imagine that as long as a fox seizes a rattlesnake somewhere away from the head, and shakes it quickly and violently, it can inflict a fatal whiplash and prevent a venomous bite.

It's not something I expect to see, so someone else will have to prove it.

Fred remembers Rattler

Fred perked up and sniffed the air vents as we approached Chimineas.

It was warm, slightly overcast, and breezy as we cruised San Diego Creek Rd toward the ranch gate.

And there it was in the middle of the road, a two-foot rattlesnake.

I had obsessed about the risks to my exuberant hound ever since Craig told me last week that the rattlers were back and popping up everywhere.

Fred had his rattlesnake vaccination a couple months ago, but I was still concerned about his high jinks in the sage where rattlers lie in wait.

This was a chance to test his memory.

I opened the car door, hooked him by the collar and led him the snake, which snapped into a sigmoid coil and rattled.

Before I could shout "NO!" Fred cowered and pulled me back towards the car.

I think he might have remembered his last lesson.

I am happy to report that in the three and a half days of Chimineas adventures that followed Fred encountered no rattlers -- at least none that I know of.

Deportation of another little visitor

He was minding his own business and so was I.

He was a baby, barely 14 inches long, waiting for the lizards to become active.

I was searching for Fred's dog logs around the garden for proper disposal further away.

I saw him just as I stepped over him. Whoa!

I got my camera.

As I took these pictures, I remembered Professor Joe Hall's legendary bare-handed rattlesnake capture.

He was leading a group of undergraduates on a field trip to Marin County (or maybe it was Napa County), when the class stumbled on a very peaceful rattlesnake on the trail.

It was completely motionless and stretched out like a crooked stick, and its tongue wasn't to be seen.

It was sleeping

The professor studied it for a few moments, and then slowly reached down.

No one knew what he was doing until he pinned the snake by the neck.

He impressed the hell out of us.

This little guy also looked asleep, but his tongue was working. He was peaceful, but he wasn't asleep.

I got a gallon plastic bottle and prodded him into it with a stick.

Then I released him in the woods half a mile away.

I picked the place carefully because I like rattlesnakes.

Fred meets some reptiles

I couldn't help bringing Fred's attention to a foothill alligator lizard  last weekend. 

The lizard was wall climbing when I discovered it.

Fred's initial caution gave way to lusty barking, play bows, and total fixation. 

It was the same old routine he directs to sweeping brooms and digging shovels with occasional sideways glances in response to my comments.

"Be careful, Freddy Boy. That thing will grab your snout like a snub-nose pliers."

I felt a little bad for the lizard. It tried to drop to the ground, but changed its mind and just hung there by a few claws looking up at its tormentor with a jaundiced eye.



Finally the lizard dropped to the ground, paused for a long overdue bowel evacuation, and made a slow motion exit behind a downspout.

A half hour of quality dog entertainment ended.

A couple hours later, neighbor Richard called. Could I release a rattlesnake he just caught next to his house? 

I agreed to deliver it to a safe haven down the hill in the chaparral. After dinner -- when the weather had cooled off.



Then I started to wonder:  Was the dog-lizard encounter a bad idea? This is rattlesnake country. Had I unwittingly emboldened the dog to reptiles in general?

If Fred took the same liberties with a coiled rattlesnake that he did with the lizard -- well, Fred would be dead.

But Fred's virtues are that he is not overly bold, and he is very sensitive to discipline.

So the snake release became an object lesson.

Mouse traps on the garden's drip system taught him that "look out!" and "be careful!" means he can get hurt. 

When the rattler started to buzz in the bucket he backed away before I could say those words.

Then I dumped the snake out of the bucket. 

Fred started to approach but heard my bellowing "Noooo!"

He shied away immediately, and watched as I prodded the snake to make its exit.

The next afternoon Richard called again and asked where I had released the rattlesnake. He had just caught another rattlesnake under the hummingbird feeder. It was the same size (about 30") and a dead ringer for yesterday's snake.

I found it hard to believe it was the same snake, and suggested that maybe this snake had followed the first snake's odor trail.

Whatever the case, I would take this one further down the jeep trail.

It was an opportunity to test Fred's rattlesnake training.

Richard and Julia colored this snake's rattle with a felt marker pen.

Down the trail I gave my warnings -- "Look out! Be careful!"

As I dumped the snake out of the bucket Fred watched intently from a distance of several yards.

No play bows, no barking.

When the snake was gone, I rubbed my dog's ears.

"You're a good boy, Fred."

Rattler at the back door

Last night my old friend Dave Rentz of Bunyipco heard a buzzer when he stepped out the back door. He's an incurable insect collector and was checking the black light for microleps. The snake was behind a crock in the corner.

We carefully escorted the visitor down the path, and measured it as it rib-walked against the wall -- 30 inches.



It was as willing to go, and we were just as willing to see it go (especially the Redhead, who watched at a safe distance).

Rentz and I are just back from New Mexico, and I have plenty of material for the blog, including the photos from the McMillan Ranch. You'll be hearing more from me soon.

Fooled by the rattlers

Here's what my camera trapping buddy Rich wrote last week after checking the trap line on the mountain in Napa County.

By way of background, we had set a cam in the "snake pit" on the last visit, and were anticipating some exciting images of rattlers swallowing mice and rats.

It didn't happen. Rich said the snake pit was lacking snakes, and the cam hadn't taken a single picture. It seems they have moved into the old stone lodge.

Here's Rich's email.

"On August 1st I walked into the lodge hallway and was headed for the fireplace room when a loud rattling stopped me dead in my tracks. After a face-off, the snake uncoiled and slithered into the cot storage room, and I went looking for something I could use to pin the rattler without harming it.

"In the storage rooms I spotted a 4 foot length of 3/8 inch wooden doweling and grabbed it up. On my way back to the snake I noticed the doweling had a loop of fine string at one end indicating someone had been noosing lizards with it. Whoever that was, thanks for the use of your tool. I found the rattler hiding behind the vacuum cleaner in a corner of the cot room, noosed it, took a couple photos, and then released it out by the old cesspool "snake pit."



I responded, "Seems like the rattlers moved in the house, huh? Was your grandson with you? Who took the pic?"

"I took the pictures on a tripod."

Codger: "You must have felt like the lone trapper on the mountain. Must have been nice wrestling rattlers."

Rich: "Naw, I don't really relish wrestling rattlers like I did 40 years ago. But they sure are easy compared to things like mambas and cobras, aren't they? Wasn't it nice of the Creator to give them well-defined necks for us naturalists to grab hold of? I think that kind of empathy proves the Creator is a naturalist, and shouldn't it follow that naturalists therefore should be recognized as deities? Tell that to the Redhead.

(Hmmm. Codger's thoughts: Rich knows who's the boss in my house. No way she's going to read that comment. Nice try though. . . . .)

Rich: "Must admit that after getting into it, "wrestling" the rattler was fun, just like most everything else we do in our "work" is fun.