Latest / Virginia Outdoor Adventures: Hiking, Camping, Kayaking, Local Travel and more! / Virginia's Venomous and Nonvenomous Snakes: Hiking Safety, Myths, and Appreciation with Caroline Seitz, Virginia Herpetological Society (Ep 62, Part 2)
Transcript
- 0:01Jessica Bowser: From the Blue Ridge Mountains to the Chesapeake Bay.
- 0:04Jessica Bowser: Virginia is a mecca for outdoor travel and adventure.
- 0:07Jessica Bowser: Virginia Outdoor Adventures podcast is your local guide for hiking, camping, kayaking, travel and so much more.
- 0:15Jessica Bowser: Get the information and the inspiration to plan your own adventure right here in Virginia.
- 0:21Jessica Bowser: I'm your host, jessica Bowser.
- 0:24Jessica Bowser: We're slithering into the fascinating world of Virginia snakes, equipping you with practical tips to enjoy the great outdoors while respecting these often misunderstood creatures.
- 0:36Jessica Bowser: In part two of this two-part episode, caroline Seitz of the Virginia Herpetological Society helps us dispel common myths and misconceptions, while broadening our understanding and appreciation of our native species.
- 0:51Jessica Bowser: Caroline tackles listener questions about safety measures and snake behavior, offering practical advice for snake encounters so you can hit the trails with confidence.
- 1:01Jessica Bowser: Let's go.
- 1:03Jessica Bowser: Hit the trails with confidence, let's go.
- 1:08Jessica Bowser: The last question that I picked from Kelly is what is most misunderstood?
- 1:10Caroline Seitz: about snakes.
- 1:11Caroline Seitz: I'm just going to go with that snakes are something to be afraid of, that snakes are somehow dangerous to humans.
- 1:17Caroline Seitz: Okay again, copperheads, rattlesnakes, cottonmouths if you get bitten by them.
- 1:23Caroline Seitz: Dangerous, no question about it.
- 1:26Caroline Seitz: But it's so easy.
- 1:27Caroline Seitz: It's so easy to not be bitten.
- 1:30Caroline Seitz: You just leave them alone.
- 1:31Caroline Seitz: And all the other snakes, the other 29 species of snakes found in Virginia.
- 1:36Caroline Seitz: They can't even hurt you at all, like there's nothing that they could do that would harm you.
- 1:40Caroline Seitz: Also, they're not like thinking about hurting you either.
- 1:44Caroline Seitz: Snakes have a mind.
- 1:46Caroline Seitz: They have feelings.
- 1:47Caroline Seitz: They feel fear, they can feel pain, they can feel hungry, but snakes, they don't have any interest in being around people.
- 1:57Caroline Seitz: They're afraid of people.
- 1:59Caroline Seitz: Also, people think why do they want to come in my house?
- 2:02Caroline Seitz: Like, are they coming into my house just to bother me?
- 2:05Caroline Seitz: No, If you have snakes in your house, it's because they were able to get inside.
- 2:10Caroline Seitz: There was some way, there was some opening.
- 2:12Caroline Seitz: It could be as small as a hole the size of a pencil and they're just nosing around and they can stick their little head in and they can come in.
- 2:20Caroline Seitz: They're not doing it because they want to live with you.
- 2:22Caroline Seitz: They just go inside of houses because they can actually get inside of them, and especially this time of year in the fall, when it's getting cold outside, they're looking for warm places and your house is nice and cozy.
- 2:33Caroline Seitz: So the way to keep them out of your house is just to make sure that there's no access points.
- 2:38Jessica Bowser: I imagine that's probably tricky.
- 2:40Jessica Bowser: You know, I live in a townhouse and the attic is relatively inaccessible except through this small crawl space in the ceiling and so I never go up there in the 14 years that I think I've owned my house.
- 2:51Jessica Bowser: But I did have to go up once.
- 2:53Jessica Bowser: I was checking on something and I had to get out a ladder and I climbed through the hole and I'm like walking up in the rafters with the flashlight and I found this at least four foot long snakeskin, you know, just like in the rafters, and I thought it was the coolest thing.
- 3:07Jessica Bowser: And I remembered that several years before we had had mice, mice had somehow gotten in and so I felt really grateful in that moment that that snake had found its way in and was helping me with the rodent problem that I potentially was having at the time.
- 3:24Jessica Bowser: And I came down with the picture and was so excited.
- 3:26Jessica Bowser: My husband was not the least bit excited.
- 3:28Jessica Bowser: He was like what's up there?
- 3:30Jessica Bowser: I mean he was ready to burn the house down, but I was like you know, this is really cool that this animal can come in and actually help me with a potential issue that I had that I would otherwise have to pay an exterminator for.
- 3:42Caroline Seitz: Yeah, and the rodents actually could hurt you.
- 3:44Caroline Seitz: The snake couldn't have hurt you, but the rodents, they can actually carry some diseases that are zoonotic, that can spread to humans.
- 3:51Caroline Seitz: Also, rodents can chew through electrical wiring, and, speaking of burning the house down, they could have done that for you.
- 3:57Caroline Seitz: So rodents are a real, actual problem to have in your house.
- 4:01Caroline Seitz: Whereas a snake is not going to cause a fire and is very unlikely to give you any diseases, snakes potentially can carry salmonella.
- 4:09Caroline Seitz: Very unlikely that you're going to get salmonella from a snake that's in your house, though, whereas other diseases from rodents are.
- 4:15Caroline Seitz: Oh, and getting back to common myths about snakes, there's two that I thought of jumped in my head.
- 4:22Caroline Seitz: One is that cottonmouth water moccasins are found throughout Virginia.
- 4:26Caroline Seitz: That's a common common myth.
- 4:28Caroline Seitz: I'll be walking along the Potomac River in Fairfax County, or I'll be, you know one of the county parks here, and people see a water snake, or you know any snake near the water, and they say, oh, that's a water moccasin.
- 4:38Caroline Seitz: No, no, no, no, no.
- 4:39Caroline Seitz: We don't have those in this part of Virginia.
- 4:43Caroline Seitz: The other common myth that I hear is that copperheads mate with black rat snakes or eastern rat snakes to produce venomous babies, and that is completely wrong, completely impossible.
- 4:56Caroline Seitz: For one thing, rat snakes lay eggs, and copperheads give birth to live babies.
- 5:01Caroline Seitz: Also, I won't get too technical here, but the parts they have internal fertilization between male and female snakes, and the hemipenes of the male snake are like a lock and key with its own species, so they in fact won't fit with a species that's not their own.
- 5:17Caroline Seitz: The reason, though, that I think that that myth was created is that young Eastern rat snakes and young Northern black racers are not black.
- 5:25Caroline Seitz: They are born with that diamond pattern of gray or brown over a creamy white background, and when they're frightened they flatten their head in a triangle, they raise in an S shape and they rattle their tail, even though they don't have a rattle.
- 5:38Caroline Seitz: So they resemble rattlesnakes when they're young, when they're juveniles, and then they, as they grow, slowly fade to black, although sometimes they can retain a little bit of their juvenile pattern.
- 5:50Caroline Seitz: So again, cottonmouth water moccasins only live in a small part of southeastern Virginia, nowhere else, and venomous snakes cannot interbreed with non-venomous snakes.
- 6:02Caroline Seitz: Wow.
- 6:03Jessica Bowser: All really interesting and maybe I'm wrong about this, but just from my own experience as somebody who hikes a lot and hikes around all parts of the state a lot, I very rarely ever come across one of the three venomous snakes.
- 6:15Jessica Bowser: I even spent eight days primitive camping at Falls Cape State Park a few years ago and cottonmouths are pretty common there.
- 6:24Jessica Bowser: I never saw one, even when, like the ranger came to pick me up at the end of my trip.
- 6:29Jessica Bowser: I hopped into the truck and we're driving out and I said you know, I never saw a cottonmouth the whole time I was here.
- 6:34Jessica Bowser: She goes what?
- 6:35Jessica Bowser: There was one right next to the truck when we were loading your stuff.
- 6:37Jessica Bowser: If I had known I would have pointed it out.
- 6:39Jessica Bowser: So I to this day still have not seen one.
- 6:44Jessica Bowser: But I have seen like maybe two rattlesnakes and I just saw my first copperhead literally this past summer, the day before my birthday.
- 6:52Jessica Bowser: It was like the best birthday present ever.
- 6:53Jessica Bowser: But otherwise I really I just don't run into them and I don't know, is that normal?
- 6:58Caroline Seitz: That is so normal.
- 6:59Caroline Seitz: So, listen, I'm 52 years old and I've been looking for snakes since I was three.
- 7:04Caroline Seitz: So that's like 49 years of looking for snakes actively and I can count two, two timber rattlesnakes.
- 7:13Caroline Seitz: I'm just going to count for Virginia, but really for the rest of my life, traveling everywhere else too.
- 7:17Caroline Seitz: I usually don't see venomous snakes, but here in Virginia I think I've seen two timber rattlesnakes.
- 7:22Caroline Seitz: Never seen a cottonmouth tried.
- 7:24Caroline Seitz: I went down to First Landing State Park a couple of times.
- 7:27Caroline Seitz: I went to the National Wildlife Refuge that's next to Falls.
- 7:30Caroline Seitz: Cape Back Bay was told, oh, you're definitely going to see them.
- 7:33Caroline Seitz: Didn't, didn't see, looked and looked and I know what I'm looking for and I was there specifically at the right time of year.
- 7:40Caroline Seitz: Didn't see them.
- 7:41Caroline Seitz: They're there, they're there for sure.
- 7:43Caroline Seitz: I just didn't get to see them.
- 7:44Caroline Seitz: And then I probably have seen maybe 10 copperheads.
- 7:47Caroline Seitz: And again, I am actively out there looking.
- 7:51Jessica Bowser: Yeah, so I guess your chances of really running into one are probably if you're lucky, right, if you're lucky if you're super duper lucky, you'll get to see one.
- 8:01Jessica Bowser: Yeah, I think I've seen more as roadkill, sadly, than alive ones.
- 8:07Caroline Seitz: And a lot of people, when they see snakes, assume that they're a copperhead or a cottonmouth or a rattlesnake.
- 8:12Caroline Seitz: When they're not Like a lot of people will see a garter snake or a decays brown snake or a young racer or rat snake and label it.
- 8:19Caroline Seitz: They'll tell everybody oh, that's a copperhead, I saw a copperhead and I think the reason for that is it's more exciting for people to say they saw a venomous snake than a non-venomous snake.
- 8:31Caroline Seitz: It sounds better when you go home and say I was on a hike and I saw a copperhead than I was on a hike and I saw a decays brown snake.
- 8:40Jessica Bowser: Yeah, they live to tell the story.
- 8:41Jessica Bowser: In other words, yeah, exactly.
- 8:43Caroline Seitz: And so it's just more exciting.
- 8:44Caroline Seitz: And so a lot of people hear that people are seeing these snakes and they think, wow, there's a lot of copperheads.
- 8:50Caroline Seitz: When no.
- 8:53Caroline Seitz: But hey, if you ever do want to find out for sure, if you're not a snake nerd yourself and you need somebody to ID it from a safe distance, if you get a picture of whatever snake that you're seeing safe distance, we can zoom in, you can email it to the Virginia Herpetological Society and we can give you a definitive ID.
- 9:11Caroline Seitz: We have the top experts on Virginia herpetology working on the Virginia Herp ID email.
- 9:17Caroline Seitz: We literally have people who are in fact writing the book on salamanders in Virginia who are part of the Virginia Herpetological Society.
- 9:26Jessica Bowser: Yeah, I'll just jump in to say that I have emailed photos to them, or even sent them via Messenger on Facebook many, many times over the years, because there are a lot of species that look very similar, like smooth green snake and rough green snake right.
- 9:39Jessica Bowser: Yes.
- 9:40Caroline Seitz: And one of the things that's helpful when you send us that picture is tell us where you are, like, not like.
- 9:46Caroline Seitz: Are you in your you know backyard?
- 9:48Caroline Seitz: No, no, no.
- 9:48Caroline Seitz: We need to know, like what county or what town you're in, because, for instance, in the case of a smooth versus rough green snake, in addition to looking at the scalation, if you tell us what county you're in, that can automatically rule out the smooth green snake, because the smooth green snake is only found in certain counties.
- 10:05Jessica Bowser: Yeah, and that's a beautiful snake too, both of them.
- 10:08Caroline Seitz: Never seen the smooth green, seen rough greens, but never a smooth.
- 10:11Jessica Bowser: Yeah, I saw a Northern rough green snake.
- 10:14Jessica Bowser: I was riding my bike down Highbridge Trail one September and they were out sunning themselves on the trail and I didn't realize it and I ran one over with my bike and I literally cried Caroline, I was so upset because they're so adorable and they're not aggressive in any way and it was just out there being its little cute snake self.
- 10:37Jessica Bowser: Yeah, they're beautiful.
- 10:39Caroline Seitz: They eat insects.
- 10:40Caroline Seitz: They're just such a fantastic snake.
- 10:43Jessica Bowser: I was with a friend who was trying to calm me down and he's like, oh, but it slithered away, it's perfectly fine.
- 10:48Jessica Bowser: I'm like, no, it's probably suffering over in the bushes, over there A lot of people don't realize snakes have bones, just they're a vertebrate animal.
- 10:54Caroline Seitz: They literally have backbone and ribs and a skull.
- 10:57Caroline Seitz: They have stomach, lungs, lung.
- 11:00Caroline Seitz: Most snakes just have one lung.
- 11:01Caroline Seitz: Some snakes do have two, but they have liver, they have pancreas, they have all the same internal organs that you have.
- 11:10Caroline Seitz: Basically, snakes are just like you.
- 11:14Caroline Seitz: They just don't have arms and legs.
- 11:16Jessica Bowser: And this one's really cute because its face reminds me of Kermit the Frog oh yeah, I don't know how else to describe it Like if you really don't like snakes and you can't get over the long you know body or whatever.
- 11:28Jessica Bowser: Just look at its face.
- 11:30Caroline Seitz: Yeah.
- 11:30Jessica Bowser: I mean they look like other reptiles that we think are cute, things like frogs and turtles.
- 11:35Jessica Bowser: Like their faces are pretty much the same and they're just really adorable.
- 11:39Caroline Seitz: Yeah, yeah, oh.
- 11:40Caroline Seitz: And here's another myth.
- 11:41Caroline Seitz: A lot of people think snakes are slimy In.
- 11:44Caroline Seitz: I'm sure you've all heard that word before keratin right, they put it in really expensive hair products because your fingernails and your hair is also made of keratin.
- 11:56Caroline Seitz: So if you wanna know what petting a snake feels like, pet your fingernails, because snake scales are just basically fingernails that are small and laid down all across the snake's body.
- 12:09Caroline Seitz: But I also don't recommend petting snakes because they don't like it when humans touch them.
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- 13:42Jessica Bowser: So Thomas sent in a question he would like to know is there any type of tree snakes in Virginia?
- 13:48Caroline Seitz: Oh yeah, definitely so.
- 13:49Caroline Seitz: The rough green snake, the smooth green snake, the eastern rat snake, oh man, rat snakes.
- 13:51Caroline Seitz: If the rough green snake, the smooth green snake, the eastern rat snake, oh man, rat snakes, if you see a snake somewhere and you think how did that snake get up there, it's almost certainly a rat snake.
- 14:01Jessica Bowser: I have seen rough green snakes in trees before too.
- 14:05Caroline Seitz: They're, definitely they are arboreal.
- 14:06Caroline Seitz: This time of year is really the time that we see them, because they're completely camouflaged when they're up in trees and bushes, but they leave the trees and bushes right now because they're searching for places to hibernate.
- 14:17Caroline Seitz: Snakes don't exactly hibernate, for those of you who are in the know, but you know what I mean.
- 14:22Caroline Seitz: They're finding places that they can hunker down for the winter, so we can actually see their beautiful emerald green bodies as they're cruising across trails and paths, whereas normally they're up in the green trees and bushes.
- 14:34Jessica Bowser: Glenn sent in this question, which I think is really interesting.
- 14:38Jessica Bowser: He says Florida is having a lot of issues with pythons.
- 14:41Jessica Bowser: How far north could they spread?
- 14:44Caroline Seitz: It's a really good question that I don't know the exact answer to.
- 14:47Caroline Seitz: Pythons are tropical species, but obviously Florida is not exactly in the tropics and they've been able to survive there, but they're not going to come here.
- 14:57Caroline Seitz: We're not going to have pythons living in Virginia, so we don't have to worry about that.
- 15:01Caroline Seitz: But I will say this that poor pythons, they are an invasive species.
- 15:05Caroline Seitz: It's not healthy to have them in the Everglades.
- 15:07Caroline Seitz: But, come on, there's like so many invasive species that are so much more devastatingly noxious than Burmese pythons.
- 15:16Caroline Seitz: Let's just talk about porcelain berry.
- 15:18Caroline Seitz: Let's talk about kudzu, let's talk about the spotted lanternfly.
- 15:23Caroline Seitz: Let's talk about the invasive armorated stink bug.
- 15:26Caroline Seitz: There are so many species that are just not as exciting.
- 15:29Caroline Seitz: They're not as sexy as the Burmese python that we can all talk about and vilify.
- 15:34Caroline Seitz: Are Burmese pythons good to have in Florida?
- 15:37Caroline Seitz: Definitely not.
- 15:38Caroline Seitz: Are they the worst thing that's happening in Florida?
- 15:40Caroline Seitz: No, they're not.
- 15:42Caroline Seitz: There's plenty of other things.
- 15:43Caroline Seitz: And no, you don't need to worry about Burmese pythons being in Virginia.
- 15:48Jessica Bowser: I won't get on my soapbox about spotted lanternflies, but those seem to be getting out of control right now.
- 15:53Jessica Bowser: So yeah, you're right, there's a lot of other things to be concerned about.
- 15:56Caroline Seitz: Much, much more devastating than Burmese pythons.
- 15:59Jessica Bowser: All right.
- 16:00Jessica Bowser: So the next question is from Elise and I just love this question because, honestly, I've wondered this myself and she asks is anything still alive when it gets into that snake belly?
- 16:12Caroline Seitz: And I have a great story for you.
- 16:15Caroline Seitz: So when I was a little girl, I would spend my days out of school in the woods.
- 16:21Caroline Seitz: Behind my back there's a big swamp and I once brought home a giant northern water snake and I don't recommend that you guys go out and catch snakes and bring them home, but I was you know, I was 10, and I was bringing home snakes and putting them in my room for a couple of days and then letting them go because I love snakes.
- 16:40Caroline Seitz: And I brought home this giant northern water snake and for those of you who are wondering, did it bite me and did it poop all over me?
- 16:46Caroline Seitz: The answer is yes and yes.
- 16:47Caroline Seitz: And while it was biting and pooping, it's because it was terrified, because I was holding it and it was scared of me.
- 16:52Caroline Seitz: It threw up a huge spotted salamander, probably eight inches long.
- 16:57Caroline Seitz: It was enormous.
- 16:58Caroline Seitz: And it threw up the spotted salamander and I washed it off and it was fine and the salamander walked around.
- 17:05Caroline Seitz: So the answer horrifyingly, as in Return of the Jedi, with the Sarlacc pit where you'd be slowly digested for millions of years the answer, unfortunately, is yes, with snakes that are grab and swallow eaters, like water snakes and garter snakes and decay brown snakes.
- 17:21Caroline Seitz: They just grab their prey and they just eat it and swallow it.
- 17:24Caroline Seitz: Yep, swallowed alive.
- 17:26Jessica Bowser: I wonder how long it would actually take, or would have taken, that salamander to pass away and then be digested.
- 17:32Jessica Bowser: Oh my gosh.
- 17:34Jessica Bowser: So interesting.
- 17:35Jessica Bowser: What a great story, caroline.
- 17:38Jessica Bowser: Two in one on that day.
- 17:41Jessica Bowser: Two in one, oh my gosh.
- 17:43Jessica Bowser: Okay, so Steve sent in the next question.
- 17:46Jessica Bowser: He would like to know if pants like, I guess, long pants would help protect against snake bites.
- 17:57Caroline Seitz: Yeah, yeah, I mean you know they're not going to be 100% protective, but absolutely, when you're out hiking, I tuck my pants into tall rubber boots and it has nothing to do with snakes, it has everything to do with chiggers and ticks, because when I tuck my pants in and tuck them into the rubber boots, it seems to protect me from getting these terrible chigger problems and it really really cuts back on ticks.
- 18:17Caroline Seitz: It will also definitely do something, you know, like if a snake were to try and bite the fangs of a rattlesnake or a copperhead or a cottonmouth.
- 18:26Caroline Seitz: You know they're not teeny tiny, but they would have a lot more trouble getting through something like denim.
- 18:31Caroline Seitz: That being said, have I gone out and gone herping in shorts and flip-flops?
- 18:36Caroline Seitz: Yes, yes, I have, and, in fact, a lot of the people in the Virginia Herpetological Society.
- 18:42Caroline Seitz: When they go out, they also just wear tennis shoes and shorts.
- 18:47Caroline Seitz: Your chances of A finding a venomous snake are very, very low and your chances of finding one and getting it's just not really something you need to worry about.
- 18:56Caroline Seitz: Let's just say that it's something you can.
- 18:58Caroline Seitz: Just take a breath, it's gonna be okay.
- 19:01Jessica Bowser: I always wear long pants, even in the summer, because of what you just said ticks, chiggers, poison, ivy but I'm definitely not hiking in rubber boots and I'm not hiking in anything that doesn't breathe well, so it's all very lightweight.
- 19:13Caroline Seitz: I don't hike generally in rubber boots, but the reason that I wear them when we're doing the herb surveys is because we're tromping through brushy brush with chiggers and ticks and poison ivy, and I am so allergic to chigger bites and to poison ivy and so I wear those rubber boots to protect me from those things.
- 19:31Jessica Bowser: Oh, that's right.
- 19:32Caroline Seitz: Yeah, I remember you telling me when we were together how allergic you were to poison ivy, that's got to be tough, and on that day I wasn't wearing rubber boots, so I was staying right in the center of that trail.
- 19:42Jessica Bowser: John sent.
- 19:43Jessica Bowser: In the next question he says should we carry snake anti-venom while hiking or backpacking?
- 19:50Caroline Seitz: That's an impossibility.
- 19:51Caroline Seitz: Snake antivenin is only available to doctors and hospitals, and it requires refrigeration.
- 19:57Caroline Seitz: It's not something that you're gonna be able to just go out and buy, and if you could, you'd have to keep it refrigerated.
- 20:03Jessica Bowser: I do have one of those.
- 20:04Jessica Bowser: I forget what it's called.
- 20:06Jessica Bowser: It's supposed to be like a snake bite kit.
- 20:08Caroline Seitz: Throw it away, unless it's a pair of car keys.
- 20:10Caroline Seitz: Put it right in the trash can.
- 20:13Jessica Bowser: That was going to be my question.
- 20:14Jessica Bowser: It's got this like little pump in it.
- 20:15Jessica Bowser: You're supposed to put it over the bite, don't do it.
- 20:18Caroline Seitz: That will make it worse.
- 20:19Caroline Seitz: The snake bite kit will make snake bite worse.
- 20:24Caroline Seitz: Literally, put it in the trash.
- 20:26Caroline Seitz: Your best snake bite kit includes a cell phone or one of those things that you can click for.
- 20:31Caroline Seitz: Emergency help kit includes a cell phone or one of those things that you can click for emergency help.
- 20:35Jessica Bowser: you know, and a set of car keys and a friend.
- 20:37Jessica Bowser: Okay, gosh, I'm really glad I asked that and thank you, john, for submitting that question, because it triggered my brain to ask.
- 20:45Jessica Bowser: I'm carrying this thing around in my pack every time I go out.
- 20:46Jessica Bowser: I know, like I know I'm never going to use this thing, but there's this little thing in the back of my head going what if?
- 20:51Jessica Bowser: And so I'm wasting all the space and the weight of this thing and I'm not a physician.
- 20:55Caroline Seitz: I'm not a doctor, so if you would like to, before throwing it away, you could ask a physician.
- 21:00Caroline Seitz: There's actually a Facebook group called National Snake Bite Support Group.
- 21:04Caroline Seitz: If you join, you can ask them, and they are run by professional medical doctors who specialize in snake envenomation.
- 21:13Caroline Seitz: If you wanted to get the definitive answer, they would be the best source.
- 21:19Jessica Bowser: Well, that kind of leads really well into the next question, which was submitted by Michelle.
- 21:24Jessica Bowser: She wants to know what to do if you're in a remote area and you get bit by a snake.
- 21:29Caroline Seitz: So, once again, I am not a medical doctor, so I hesitate giving actual medical advice.
- 21:34Caroline Seitz: But if I was bitten by a snake in a remote area, the first thing I would try to do is to call 911.
- 21:42Caroline Seitz: You know, if there was any way that I could get 911, and then I would I would listen to whatever directions they gave me.
- 21:48Caroline Seitz: That's number one.
- 21:49Caroline Seitz: If somebody could carry me out so that I didn't have to do too much, I would try to do that.
- 21:55Caroline Seitz: But again, 911 first.
- 21:57Caroline Seitz: I mean, really there's not a lot that I know of that you can do if you're in remote, other than get out of remote backcountry to a hospital.
- 22:06Caroline Seitz: If you're bitten by a venomous snake, if you're bitten by a non-venomous snake, just wash the bite with some soap and water.
- 22:13Jessica Bowser: Yeah, that was going to be my next question.
- 22:15Jessica Bowser: I feel like probably more people are bit by non-venomous snakes and really, what is the extent of damage that can be done if you're bit by a snake that's non-venomous, I mean?
- 22:24Caroline Seitz: really it's just a scratch.
- 22:27Caroline Seitz: So in the sense that a scratch could become infected, like if you fell down and scraped your knee on a rock, it could become infected If you didn't, you know, keep it clean.
- 22:35Caroline Seitz: Same thing with a snake, but snake mouths are.
- 22:38Caroline Seitz: They don't have any special germs that are going to be especially dangerous or anything like that.
- 22:43Caroline Seitz: It's just a little teeny, tiny scratch.
- 22:46Jessica Bowser: Caroline.
- 22:46Jessica Bowser: Last question comes from Chrissy.
- 22:48Jessica Bowser: She says her cat caught a small snake in their basement.
- 22:51Jessica Bowser: She would like to know how did it get in.
- 22:54Jessica Bowser: Did he sneak in or was he born there?
- 22:56Jessica Bowser: And should she be on the lookout for a bunch of little baby snakes?
- 23:00Caroline Seitz: Love this question.
- 23:00Caroline Seitz: First, I hope the snake was taken to a wildlife rehabilitator or a wildlife veterinary hospital, because cat bites can be very dangerous.
- 23:09Caroline Seitz: Cats actually do have special germs in their saliva that can be particularly aggressively infectious.
- 23:16Caroline Seitz: Cat bites to snakes can be fatal.
- 23:19Caroline Seitz: But how did the snake get in the basement?
- 23:21Caroline Seitz: So in my old job long time ago, when I used to do snake inspections of properties in basements, I would find snakes coming in through the sliding glass door.
- 23:30Caroline Seitz: There's like a little area there where snakes could sometimes get in if it doesn't have the right weather stripping.
- 23:37Caroline Seitz: So you want to make sure if you can stick a pencil from the outside to the inside.
- 23:40Caroline Seitz: That's one place.
- 23:41Caroline Seitz: Another place is the dryer vent.
- 23:43Caroline Seitz: So I have a dryer vent that when it's not on it falls flat and no animal, including birds or mice, can crawl up into my dryer vent.
- 23:52Caroline Seitz: Also, the areas around where your plumbing comes into your home.
- 23:56Caroline Seitz: Your electric service comes into your home.
- 23:59Caroline Seitz: You want to make sure all of that is completely sealed up and if you have crawl space vents, you want to use a fine mesh hardware cloth that not a pencil can get through and that will keep them from getting into your basement.
- 24:14Caroline Seitz: Do you have more than one snake in your basement?
- 24:16Caroline Seitz: No way to tell it's possible.
- 24:20Caroline Seitz: But snakes they don't like nest in the sense of like a female either she gives birth or she lays eggs and then she goes away.
- 24:28Caroline Seitz: She doesn't protect the baby, she doesn't stay with the eggs and usually the babies will disperse.
- 24:33Caroline Seitz: So it's not something to be too too concerned about.
- 24:36Caroline Seitz: And if you have, you know, any specific questions.
- 24:39Caroline Seitz: If people have questions or they want advice, they are welcome to email Virginia Herpetological Society.
- 24:45Caroline Seitz: I am always happy to answer questions about reptiles and amphibians.
- 24:50Jessica Bowser: So then I will put your contact information in the show notes for anybody who has additional questions and didn't get an opportunity to ask them for the purpose of this recording.
- 24:58Jessica Bowser: But let's close out with a question that I think is really important, because I know a lot of people experience fear of snakes, and I was once one of those people myself.
- 25:10Jessica Bowser: So the question is do you have any tips for people who want to get over their fear of snakes?
- 25:15Caroline Seitz: For people who have a true phobia, there is a clinical term for that would be ophidiophobia the fear of snakes.
- 25:18Caroline Seitz: I would actually recommend going to a therapist, because there are, in fact, therapies that can help people is the clinical term for that would be ophidiophobia, the fear of snakes.
- 25:23Caroline Seitz: I would actually recommend going to a therapist, because there are, in fact, therapies that can help people get over phobias.
- 25:29Caroline Seitz: If it's a real phobia, that's really what you're going to have to do.
- 25:31Caroline Seitz: But if it's just a general fear of snakes because we're in a culture that vilifies snakes and people have told you bad things about snakes and you just have a lot of misinformation about snakes, I would suggest just learning.
- 25:44Caroline Seitz: I always find that when there's something that scares me, that when I find out more about it, then the fear tends to lift.
- 25:52Caroline Seitz: You know, human beings have a natural tendency to be afraid of things that we don't know about or that are strange or that we don't understand.
- 26:00Caroline Seitz: It's a safety thing.
- 26:01Caroline Seitz: I mean, if you're living a million years ago and you came upon something that you didn't know and you messed with it, you know you weren't going to be able to call 911.
- 26:10Caroline Seitz: So our natural instincts are to avoid things that we don't know a lot about.
- 26:15Caroline Seitz: But I recommend getting to know snakes, perhaps reading some books about snakes, maybe joining the Virginia Herpetological Society.
- 26:24Caroline Seitz: Oh okay, so one of my very favorite herpetological surveys happened.
- 26:29Caroline Seitz: I think it was three years ago.
- 26:31Caroline Seitz: I was on a survey and I was on a team with a woman who said she was terrified of snakes.
- 26:37Caroline Seitz: And I said, and you're on a herpetological survey?
- 26:41Caroline Seitz: And she said, yep, because I feel like I don't want to be scared anymore.
- 26:45Caroline Seitz: And so the whole day she was hanging out with us.
- 26:48Caroline Seitz: But she also told us, honestly, I'm hoping we don't find a snake.
- 26:51Caroline Seitz: But we did.
- 26:54Caroline Seitz: And she was so nervous I mean, it was real, it was a little decays brown snake.
- 26:59Caroline Seitz: It was about maybe six inches long and she looked at it.
- 27:02Caroline Seitz: She came real close and looked at it and we suggested maybe that she touch it.
- 27:06Caroline Seitz: Again, we generally recommend people not touch snakes, because snakes don't like human beings touching them.
- 27:12Caroline Seitz: But for these kinds of purposes, this is something that we do and she didn't want to touch that one.
- 27:18Caroline Seitz: So we put it back where we found it, after photographing it and marking it in our data, and then we found another brown snake, and this one she actually gently reached out one finger and gently, gently touched it.
- 27:30Caroline Seitz: And then the third brown snake she actually put it in her hand.
- 27:35Caroline Seitz: I couldn't believe it.
- 27:36Caroline Seitz: She was shaking, she was nervous, but she was exactly like the kind of person that I love meeting Somebody who was genuinely afraid but genuinely open to learning more.
- 27:48Caroline Seitz: I love her story.
- 27:49Jessica Bowser: Can snakes sense when you're afraid of them?
- 27:52Jessica Bowser: I have no idea.
- 27:54Caroline Seitz: My instinct is no, just because they're not attuned to human beings.
- 27:58Caroline Seitz: But certainly when we're holding snakes in general, the snake is terrified.
- 28:02Caroline Seitz: Brown snakes are completely harmless and I find that when you pick them up they don't bite ever, and so that was kind of a good snake for her to start out with.
- 28:12Caroline Seitz: And if you hold snakes gently, like when I do handle wild snakes for scientific purposes, I know how to handle them gently in ways that doesn't scare them as much.
- 28:24Caroline Seitz: I'm not like grabbing them and you know, grabbing them by the head and wrestling them and stuff.
- 28:29Caroline Seitz: I'm gently, gently lifting them up and supporting them gently, and so the snake is calm.
- 28:35Jessica Bowser: I'm calm, we're all calm.
- 28:37Jessica Bowser: I'm glad to hear you say that education is key to that, because that was a lot of what helped me get over the fear.
- 28:43Jessica Bowser: I was never terrified of them, but, like I remember, in college I worked at Petco and one night after the store was closing I was checking on the aquariums and the big water tanks that they have under the aquariums.
- 28:54Jessica Bowser: And I opened one up and there was a snake that was drinking out of the tank in the bottom.
- 28:59Jessica Bowser: It was a store, you know, a pet that was for sale.
- 29:02Jessica Bowser: They had gotten loose and found its way to the water.
- 29:09Jessica Bowser: And I remember just like jumping back like oh my gosh, what do I do now?
- 29:10Jessica Bowser: And somebody else had to come get it.
- 29:11Jessica Bowser: And I remember watching somebody else just gently pick it up and carry it over and I remember thinking I would like to be able to not have that fear.
- 29:18Jessica Bowser: You know, I would like to be able to be the person who can say okay, come on, sweetie, let's put you back where you belong.
- 29:25Caroline Seitz: Look where you are now.
- 29:26Caroline Seitz: You're my hero.
- 29:28Jessica Bowser: It's two parts.
- 29:29Jessica Bowser: One was to learn to appreciate them.
- 29:31Jessica Bowser: But then the second part was also to have a sense of empathy, because when we're fearful of them, we're more concerned about our own feelings than about that animals.
- 29:40Jessica Bowser: And even now I stumble across a snake when I'm hiking or whenever I'm outside.
- 29:45Jessica Bowser: If I'm not expecting it, I still jump back and I do that with any animal, not just snakes If there's something moving and I'm not expecting it.
- 29:53Jessica Bowser: But then I usually find myself like with my hand over my heart saying oh friend, I'm sorry, you scared me, but also not as much as I probably scared you, I can flip the script and realize that I'm the big scary thing in this situation and not the snake.
- 30:11Jessica Bowser: That is exactly where it's supposed to be doing exactly what it's supposed to be doing.
- 30:14Caroline Seitz: Jessica, you are so, so right about that Empathy flipping the script.
- 30:20Caroline Seitz: That's what it's all about.
- 30:21Caroline Seitz: Snakes are people too.
- 30:23Caroline Seitz: They have their own little snake lives, their own little snake thoughts.
- 30:28Jessica Bowser: They have their own big snake fears, and they just want to live their own life away from people, and that appreciation has led me to just really loving them and getting excited when I find one in the wild and being able to appreciate it in that moment, because you really don't see them that often and so it really makes me stop and appreciate and enjoy what I'm experiencing, and then that just brings me a little bit closer to nature every single time, absolutely.
- 30:56Caroline Seitz: I love that.
- 30:58Jessica Bowser: Well, Caroline, I appreciate your energy and your enthusiasm and your love for our reptiles here in Virginia and I want to thank you for sharing all of that with us today.
- 31:11Caroline Seitz: And Jessica, I appreciate you having this podcast celebrating Virginia outdoor adventures.
- 31:16Caroline Seitz: I love that you're celebrating snakes today.
- 31:19Caroline Seitz: Could we?
- 31:19Jessica Bowser: please get together and go out again, because you and I had such a good time the last time we did it and I felt like you were the snake magnet, because I don't see reptiles as much as I did when I was with you.
- 31:31Jessica Bowser: Every time we turned a corner, there's another one, there's another one, and it was so magical.
- 31:36Caroline Seitz: Let's definitely do that.
- 31:36Caroline Seitz: This is a great time of year right now to go out and find baby snakes, and in April and May is like primo time for snakes too.
- 31:44Caroline Seitz: Why April and May?
- 31:46Caroline Seitz: You can actually find snakes 12 months out of the year in Virginia, but they do tend to go pretty dormant in the colder times of year November, december, january, february, march they're chilling out, they're snuggling in their little dens down in the ground.
- 32:01Caroline Seitz: On warm days they might pop out, but once April and May comes and the warm season is back, they are full on, they're coming out, they're looking for mates, they're looking for food, and so April and May is just a great time to find snakes.
- 32:15Caroline Seitz: But right now, like September and October also, they're on the move, looking for their places to snuggle in for the winter, and the babies are all either being born or are hatching, and so we find a lot more snakes this time of year too.
- 32:28Jessica Bowser: I will be keeping my eyes open, as I always do on my next hike.
- 32:32Jessica Bowser: All right, caroline, thank you again for being a guest on Virginia Outdoor Adventures and I hope to see you outdoors looking for reptiles again soon, I hope to see everybody outdoors looking for reptiles soon.
- 32:43Caroline Seitz: Thanks so much for having me, Jessica.
- 32:45Jessica Bowser: Adventure on.
- 32:46Jessica Bowser: Don't miss part one of this two-part episode.
- 32:50Jessica Bowser: Last week, Caroline covered how many species of snakes are native to Virginia and which are venomous, our most common species throughout the states, the difference between venomous and poisonous, and whether hikers should be concerned about encountering a snake on the trail.
- 33:05Jessica Bowser: Virginia Outdoor Adventures is inspired by and supported by listeners like you, which is why your messages and feedback means so much to me.
- 33:15Jessica Bowser: You can text me directly by clicking on send me a text message in your show notes.
- 33:20Jessica Bowser: I answer questions, respond to comments and share your feedback on the show.
- 33:24Jessica Bowser: Never miss an update.
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- 33:31Jessica Bowser: Click on newsletter, sign up in your show notes or visit Virginia outdooradventurescom.
- 33:37Jessica Bowser: Thanks for listening.
- 33:38Jessica Bowser: Until next time.
- 33:39Jessica Bowser: Adventure on.