By Greg Fry

Rattle snake raises eyebrows in Kamloops

Jul 10, 2018 | 2:58 PM

KAMLOOPS — While frightening to some, snake enthusiast and Provincial WildSafe BC Coordinator Frank Ritcey was pleased to see a video CFJC Today received this week of a large rattle snake near Tranquille Creek.

“When I saw that video I thought great, that is a healthy adult snake. It looks as though it’s just had a fairly major meal, that’s why it had such girth to it,” he says. “I would suggest it might have been a chipmunk, a pack rat or perhaps a young marmot.”

Ritcey says rattle snakes are native to the Kamloops area due to its desert-like conditions though sightings aren’t too common.

“Snakes do not like to be bothered by people. So, typically they stay away from any well-used trail. And that’s why we always tell people in terms of safety – if you don’t want to be bitten by a snake – stay on the trail.”

And though snake bites aren’t too common, he says he knows of at least two people that have been bitten the past three years in the area. In those cases he says victims received “dry bites” – or bites without venom.

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“There’s very little benefit to a snake biting a human because they swallow everything they kill and obviously they wouldn’t go after a human.”