By Armchair Mayor

Why we fear rattlesnakes more than clowns

Jun 9, 2018 | 5:00 AM

THERE WAS A GUY who lived in our home town when I was growing up who made the local paper every year. He was a minor celebrity, a bit of a folk hero, even, because he killed rattlesnakes.

Each spring, there would be a story and a picture of him with several dozen rattlesnake skins. His objective was to kill as many as he could, and he was good at it.

I don’t remember the reason for his life mission, but something must have happened that made him hate those snakes so much. It seemed impossible back then to make a serious dent in the rattlesnake population — Oliver is located in a desert with a lot of dry, rocky areas that make for perfect rattlesnake territory, and they were everywhere.

Rattlesnakes are no stranger to Kamloops, either. This, apparently, is a big rattlesnake year. The snakes are out and so are the warnings. Neighbours are sounding the alarm to one other — keep a sharp lookout and your dogs on leash, and stay on the trail.

Someone’s dog was bitten twice by a rattler near Tranquille Creek last week. Back in the day, such an event would have resulted in calls for an all-out war of extermination on rattlers. Nowadays, not so much — they’re a protected species.

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We grew up with the assumption that a rattlesnake bite was tantamount to a death sentence. We were told stories of having to cut X’s across the fang punctures on your skin and sucking out the poison, then spitting it out.

I often wondered whether I’d be able to cut crosses in my skin and suck out rattlesnake poison if need be. Or, almost as bad, do it for somebody else.

That’s not to say we were totally misinformed — rattlesnake bites are serious and need prompt attention but they’re only rarely fatal. Trying to suck out the poison the way they used to do it in the Western movies is no longer advised.

We understand rattlesnakes much better than we used to. They don’t slither around looking for people and dogs to bite. They strike when threatened; otherwise they save their energy and their venom for things they can eat, mostly mice. Their enemies include eagles, hawks, badgers and coyotes.

Yet they’re among our biggest phobias. An Insights West poll puts snakes second only to terrorism, tied with heights, and ahead of nuclear war and death on the list of things British Columbians fear.

Clowns are way down on the list — nobody warns us about clown season. Though some people find clowns sinister, we’re a lot more afraid of snakes. Psychologists conclude our fear of snakes goes back to our caveman days when we were prey animals.

TRU is part of a Snake Research Program in the South Okanagan along with the Osoyoos Indian Band and Environment Canada at the Nk’Mip Desert Cultural Centre. It maps out rattlesnake dens and monitors a bunch of snakes that have been outfitted with radio transmitters to see where they go.

“Rattlesnakes are one of the most misunderstood and maligned creatures on the planet,” according to Jared Maida, biologist in charge of the Snake Research Program. “Rattlesnakes don’t want anything to do with you.”

The rattler, he says, is more afraid of us than we are of it.

Nevertheless, the Ministry of Environment reports a few rattlesnake bites in B.C. every year, and they still scare the hell out of people. As far as I can find out, only one such bite has proven fatal.

I recall a bizarre story of a rattler allegedly attacking a swimmer a few years ago, which seemed unlikely. When we’re swimming, we’re probably more likely to be attacked by a moose than a snake.

The advice from the experts is to be careful out there, and if you come across a rattler to quietly vacate the area or let the snake go his own way.

When I was a kid, we golfed on a dryland course that used oiled sand for greens, and we came across snakes all the time. Mostly, though, they were bullsnakes, commonly mistaken for rattlers because their size and camouflage is similar. The main difference in appearance is that one has a rattle and the other doesn’t.

We regarded bullsnakes as the good guys because they supposedly killed rattlesnakes. I’m guessing that was another myth.

We’ve done a great job of trying to kill off the species. Hopefully we don’t club them to death or shoot them as much as we used to but we drive over a lot of them. One five-year-old study I found counted only 87 dens in the Thompson-Nicola, with the area between Tranquille Creek and Savona described as one of the densest rattlesnake areas in the province.

They may not be our friends, but we should be thankful we haven’t killed them off yet. On World Snake Day this July 16, spare a thought for the poor rattlesnake.