Episode 106: How To Avoid Getting Bitten By A Snake

spk_0:   0:01
Hello, everybody. He's a sneaky one.

spk_1:   0:08
Gotta watch out

spk_0:   0:09
for him when you're walking in the grass. I think he said this is Solti and he wants to welcome you to the show. The big show. The biggest, most popular podcast ever produced in our car since he salty and I misplace.

spk_1:   0:29
And we're here for the three B.

spk_0:   0:31
Why? But guest on snakes and how not to get bit by them. Okay. I think you can switch to English now.

spk_1:   0:43
Are speaking snake. I'm sorry. Yeah, snakes. Stakes are cool, but they can occasionally bite you. It can happen. We were Ah, we thought about doing this podcast because she saw snake today, which is

spk_0:   1:02
my was out kayaking at the lake.

spk_1:   1:04
Absolutely nothing unusual.

spk_0:   1:06
And, uh, I kayaked under a few overhanging willow trees because they like to hang over the water. And I like to go through the shade and see what cool creditors air there under underneath him.

spk_1:   1:17
Sometimes you'll see even dear stuff like that 100 three's? Yeah, they

spk_0:   1:21
sleep down there. And as a went by, I saw curled around one of the branches just above head height, Water, snake hanging over the water curled up in the tree.

spk_1:   1:34
Now we're in Missouri, where North is right. So one of the water snakes in this area is actually poisonous.

spk_0:   1:43
Not this particular one, but one of this.

spk_1:   1:46
But most of them are entirely harmless to people. Yeah, fact as a scuba diver, I've had really beautiful, uh, northern water snake swim right between my wickets, right between the gams and at the videocamera going at the time to it was really cool.

spk_0:   2:05
So we've got a really nice video shot of the snake kind of half swimming, half crawling on the bottom toward him, going right underneath him. And then as he follows it through with the camera, you can see his skins in the background back there.

spk_1:   2:19
And, you know, the people of my social media account went bonkers. For some reason, a lot of people hate snakes. I don't get it.

spk_0:   2:29
It's instead it's instinctive. If you take a baby monkey that's been raised in captivity its whole life and you toss a piece of hose on the bottom of the pen, baby monkey freaks out, thinks it's a snake. If you take that same baby monkey and you let it play around with the thing. Figure out what it is because it gets over it. It stops doing that. If you throw in some other shaped like a ball or a box, baby monkey doesn't freak out. It's got to be the same basic size and shape of a snake to make it freak. So it's instinctive. I'm thinking that the instinct is geared more toward places like Australia and South East Asia, where snakes actually kill a considerable number of people year to year. Not so much North America where they don't. I don't have that many poisonous snakes and the most venomous one we've got North America is not mean. It will bite you just out of spite.

spk_1:   3:35
Yeah, very few snakes will bite you out of spite. There are a few that will. Actually,

spk_0:   3:40
rattlesnakes might

spk_1:   3:41
buy some of them. Some of them get a little mean with coral snake, which is the really deadly one. First, it's not that much, you know. It doesn't cover that much of America. It's got a very limited range

spk_0:   3:54
Florida area, basically,

spk_1:   3:55
and but it is quite deadly. But other than that, the copperheads and the cottonmouths, they're poisonous. Their pit Vipers, the Rattlers, rattlers, and

spk_0:   4:11
they'll make you considerably un unhappy. If you get an inventive bite

spk_1:   4:16
can kill you,

spk_0:   4:17
they can soldem d'oh but can.

spk_1:   4:21
But they're not really designed to be bringing down animals our size. That's not really what they're here to. D'oh! Gently trying to kill smaller things. Yeah, stuff taken like e, for example. So pit vipers, what do they call him? Pit vipers. They always live in a pit

spk_0:   4:39
because I have little pits between the corner of their eyes as much as something with around, I could be said to have a corner, and there are nostrils. They've got heat sensitive organs recessed into little pits, and they also have rather triangular shaped head, so their jaws are broader than their neck. So diamond shaped heads, more triangle shaped heads, more or less if you can see the pit guys, you're too close.

spk_1:   5:09
Yeah, now here's a thing, too. I don't know how many people have said, Oh, I saw a rattlesnake over there. Well, did you see there? I don't know, but there's a lot of mimic re out there in the wild life, too, because everybody heard the the everybody knows that a rattlesnake is a scary snake. Well, everybody who's has a sense does, and there's mimic rien the while with Wild World. The coral snake has a very close mimic. It just isn't The banding isn't identical, but it's the same colors. They just The bands aren't in the same order.

spk_0:   5:45
Red touch black Good for jack Red touch yellow. Kill a fellow. So the red and yellow bands right next to each other. It's a coral snake and its venomous, and if it there red and black ones or touching each other and the yellows on the other side, then it's a non venomous milk snake.

spk_1:   6:01
So bottom line, don't mess with him. Don't walk through a rattle snake key areas in shorts. It's just a bad idea.

spk_0:   6:11
The biggest problem people have is panic. I was recalling when I saw that guy up in the tree. My first thought, I flashed back to when I was a kid, maybe after knowing 89 years old, and we were camping at a state park alongside a river, and we were there roasting marshmallows or whatever at you know, not a no 10 o'clock at night. Kit was full dark and a canoe comes down the river with a single guy in the front of it. Which is unusual because if you're alone in a canoe, you're generally in the back because that's where you get best hearing. And he pulls up when he sees their campfire to say Conover, a flashlight. I kind of have a problem here. I was with my partner and we went under a limb and a snake fell in the boat and my partner jumped out, and I don't know where my partner is, but that snake is still in here somewhere. And he ended up having a two and 1/2 foot long water snake, rather terrified, hiding under the seat, one of the seats of his canoes. It was gonna and Heaven only knows where his partner was, who jumped out into a river in the middle of the night. Why, there's no lights. I don't know because a snake dropped in the boat.

spk_1:   7:24
It's a straight a local farmer home store. These are guys Who are you big, tough, strong men told salty stories and throw around big wait men's men, right? Well, several. It's been many years ago, a little garter snake couple footlong garter snake came in the back door while it was open. They have a back door. Two crashed. I'll say. You've been a forklift in there and it's littered in and then went into the store somewhere and they came running out of the back room like a bunch of two year old girls screaming, trying todo two year old girl. I mean, the pitch of their voices was that of

spk_0:   8:18
a two year

spk_1:   8:18
old girl. Ah, it's a snake. It's a snake. Somebody get my shotgun. Like what? What kind of state? I don't know. It's a snake. So I go back in there and I look around and look under thing. That this is a little bitty tighty guarded is thinking. You got to be kidding. So I grabbed a broom and I shoot it out the door. You really actually want a steak hanging out on the farm and home store snakes. They need to be outside, not inside. But they do a great job that they're environmentally very important. They do a great job to keep the environment exactly balanced.

spk_0:   8:59
You want him around your food storage, you want him outside around your garden outside, and you definitely want him around your Barnes because they're such big eaters of rodents. Baby rabbits. So they pop baby rabbits like popcorn. Bless their Scalea little hearts.

spk_1:   9:20
Yeah, I always like to see snakes outside. Yeah, actually,

spk_0:   9:26
actually did a post last summer. Did a bunch of research on how one should actually treat a snake bite and I've got a post will link that post in the show notes so you can find it. But this one's about how not to get in trouble snakes in the first place because here's the first big secret they, most of them. I do not want to bite you. You're too big to eat. It could be hard for him to get their teeth out of things once they bite things. You're a waste of venom. If they're a venomous snake, which most of Martin, they really don't want to bite you. If they bite you, it's self defense. A few of them interpret self defense a little more broadly than others, but that's the reason they bite self defense. Absolutely. The most common reason people get bitten by snakes is they step on them and who could blame the little sucker for that? Second most likely is they're climbing and they're not watching where they put their hands and they reach up onto or too close to a snake that's hanging out on the rock sounding too warm itself up, and then they get nailed. So watch where you put your feet in hands. If their water snakes, be it water mocks and or common harmless water snakes. Those guys do hang out in trees over the water, and they do drop into into an on two things from time to time, as the canoe story shows you. But North America doesn't really have any tree snakes that are venomous or in any way dangerous that do that from trees on dry land is a as a natural part of their lifestyle. So it's not like you're gonna be walking through a temperate forest or a cone of her forest in North America. I'd have dropped snakes If you're in Brazil, watch out for the pythons, Okay, But here, with America, yeah, not so much. Don't step on. Don't gravel. If you see one, give it time to leave, and it usually will do not run over there and try and kill it, because that's the third most common way people get bit. I remember on a different camping trip, there was a copperhead, which is venomous, and it was in a camp ground and it was about three feet long. So my oldest brother killed it because he didn't want a copperhead running around where a bunch of kids are running around in the campground. Fair enough. We usually leave snakes, snakes alone, but that was not a good place for it. He, uh, killed this copperhead. Then he grabbed by the neck and he paraded around showing it off because he was proud of his. Ah, he was playing the protector. Oh, look, this thing was hanging out where the kids are, and I killed it. Hey, big, brave hero kind of thing. Then he dumped the body in trashcan, moved on to something else, came back later and heard sounds from the trash can. It wasn't actually dead had been carrying around that venomous snake which was wounded by its neck for 45 minutes or so. Don't mess with

spk_1:   12:41
Yeah, I admit we used to go up and kill rattlesnakes on pilot bluff when I was a teenager. We get our old smoke polls, single shots and go up there. And we used to get used to get a bounty because they would come in and they were really the place was just infested with him in the local farmer. Give us a bounty. I forget what it waas. I have no idea whether that was actually illegal to do or not, but it's a time we didn't care. So I shot myself several rattlesnakes. But he had cattle, and he kept having a problem with the Cavs getting bed. So Anyhoo, yeah, I don't like snakes are they could be dangerous, but they're not like, you know, you look about Australia. Those guys have serious poisonous snakes. Some of those steaks are really, really serious. Now. They're not nearly as bad as the drop bears. Yeah. I mean, if you're in Australia and you get hit by a drop there, you know, those are the worst. They're these big, horrible, horrible animals. They're just a jackalope. So absolute more so because jackalope stew all they could do a stab. You

spk_0:   14:03
Are you kidding? Jackalope? They got theirs teeth, and they're like this,

spk_1:   14:07
but, you know, you get a drop air drop on. You know, I'm all your pretty hard. I've seen stories of people who've been eight and entirely whole by drop there.

spk_0:   14:20
I'm sure you have seen stories,

spk_1:   14:22
So yeah.

spk_0:   14:24
Now, any snake that bites you, they tend to have problems with bacterial injection when they bite. That's not part of their Benham or anything like that. But bacteria on the skin and bacteria in the mouth of the snake can get pushed in through the skin pretty deep when they bite you. So bacterial infection is always a risk. What? Any snake? Bite us. So you wanna watch that? If it happens,

spk_1:   14:51
cool. So basically, don't step on it

spk_0:   14:55
And don't mess with him and don't freak out if you see him.

spk_1:   14:58
And if you are in an area that's known to have a lot of rattlesnakes where gators along flee or ah, long pants and gators.

spk_0:   15:06
When you're walking through the grass, you really can't see him and told grass until you step on them. He also got a watch given him a place to live. They like to live under rocky things. So we've got a big brown snake that likes to live under our container in place, which is okay with me. He sees welcome to live there as far as I'm concerned, but I don't go walking around through that big, tall grass out there without at least reasonably tall boots. I don't really work Gators because he's not poisonous and

spk_1:   15:41
right, but

spk_0:   15:42
I think I might risk getting bitten is pretty low.

spk_1:   15:43
If you were at North Dakota dinosaur hunting, you work a day

spk_0:   15:48
because they have a lot more aggressive snakes out there and they have a lot more venomous snakes out there. They have a lot more snakes full stop out there. So yeah, I would if I were out there at the place I have pants on. I have ah, hiking boots with fairly high tops. Good enough.

spk_1:   16:08
The place. Bigger worries are Tiggers. Ticks?

spk_0:   16:13
Yeah, that's why I'm really wearing all that stuff. Because we have millions of ticks and the ticks are way more dangerous to my health and well being. Then snakes are because a significant portion of the text will carry tick borne diseases.

spk_1:   16:28
We don't like ticks its Heartland around here, innit?

spk_0:   16:31
We got a few things but Heartlands. Most common. One of them. Yeah.

spk_1:   16:36
All right, so there we are. Anything else to say about the sneaky snakes? Yeah. No,

spk_0:   16:48
I was just thinking about how you get him. When you if you see one walking up, if you see one, you want to get it to slither off without annoying it. Too much tossing rocks. Adam is usually good getting a big long stick and tickling him with the big long stick. Don't start beating on it because it's going to start thrashing around and may end up nailing you. If you see little ones around, there's probably a whole bunch of little ones around because they are the eggs related big batches, and when they hatch, there tend to be a whole lot of little bitty snakes in the same region.

spk_1:   17:24
Remember that time we were on the Katie riding along and there's a there's a bridge and a snake clutch. It just hatched me and never about a gazillion little baby snakes all over the place.

spk_0:   17:39
Everywhere you went, they were

spk_1:   17:41
to just

spk_0:   17:42
Oh yeah, and if you see one that looks like it's dead because it's coiled up and turned over on its back. Leave it alone. If you go up to a hog nosed snake, first thing it's gonna dooz. It starts rattling its tail against whatever dry vegetation is around, hoping that you think it's a rattlesnake and it's colored vaguely like a rattlesnake. So it makes this rattling sound, but it doesn't have a rattle on its tail. It makes it by slapping its tail around in the weeds, hoping you'll think it's a rattlesnake and go away. And then, if that doesn't work and you harass it and feels threatened, it'll usually, uh, coil itself into a little coil and put its head on the underside of the coil. And then, if you mess with it, it rolls over. Oh, look, I'm dead. You might as well leave me be. I'm dead. You take a stick and you flip that sucker over. And about five or 10 seconds, he flips himself back. It says, no, no, I'm really dead. Flip him over front ways. No, no. See, I'm dead like this. Then he flips himself over upside down again. Nobody said they were smart. I've done that with a big walk state the other way. Snake sorta is. Horses tend to freak out about on the same way people do. So if you're riding a horse and it sees a snake, it

spk_1:   19:01
Oh, Lord have decided horses freak out about butterflies.

spk_0:   19:05
Some of them do.

spk_1:   19:07
Oh, my gosh. It's a monarch forces

spk_0:   19:10
air. Extremely talented about remembering associations. Something scary happened right before that scary thing happened. I saw this

spk_1:   19:18
butterfly and stepped in a hole. Yeah, butterflies means there's holes. Ah,

spk_0:   19:24
yeah, I saw a butterfly and then a horse fly bit me on the on the butt. Oh, wow. Seeing butterflies hurts in the butt. Oh, cool stuff up there. Not that bright either. But they're sweet animals,

spk_1:   19:40
except for the guy.

spk_0:   19:41
And there's the tree down there where I saw my little snake this morning. So I guess that's assigned to wrap it up.

spk_1:   19:45
All right, we're gonna wrap it up, so we'll catch you next time.

spk_0:   19:49
Watch where you put your feet.