"Venomous snakes are a major predator of small rodents, many of which can be harmful and destructive, particularly to farmers' crops and so forth... Venomous snakes, at least the local venomous snakes that we have, are not actually at the top of what you might call the food chain. They get preyed upon by other things, so they fit kind of in the middle part of the connections of living things, the food webs that we have where energy flows from one thing to another, where one thing eats another thing." -Kory Roberts
Snakes play a vital role in our ecosystem, keeping rodent populations and disease in check and adding to biodiversity.
"What are the major diseases that we know of that are rodent vectored? There’s a bunch of them. There’s Honta virus, bubonic plague, both of which are present in the American West right now. One that people don’t think about are tick born ailments like lyme disease, lichiosis, Rocky Mountain spotted fever. The nymphs of those ticks develop on rodents. Rodents do in fact carry some of those diseases... The more rodents there are out there the more likely those ticks are going to carry those diseases. Rattlesnakes are actually doing a really good job at keeping those rodents from blowing up. If they weren’t there if they weren’t present the population of the small mammals would be huge." -Dr. Steven Beaupre
"They’re finding this out down here where they have rattlesnake roundups in Texas and Oklahoma where the fear makes them go out and over harvest rattlesnakes and butcher them. They’re having pack rat problems out here they’ve never had before. Sure, there’s other animals eating the pack rats too, but they have to have the rattlesnakes doing their part also, because when that one predator is removed the other predators can’t take up the slack so to speak.... One snake in this area could eat up to 40 mice in a year. 2 mice starting in the spring of a year can produce up to 1000 offspring in 12 months." -Dale Ertel
"They are here for a purpose. The rattlesnake, the Eastern Diamondback from the central United States. Their venom is the quickest out of all the vipers in North America, because they hunt down birds and ground squirrels. Things that we see everyday and we think oh, how cute, how cute. If something doesn’t keep them in check then those ground squirrels then become a plague animal. Now they are gnawing on your house, under your house, on your crops. So we think granny is out there feeding the birds, the little old brown sparrows, the woodland creatures that tweet tweet tweet. All of a sudden they are breeding without anything checking them. There is no longer a predator to keep them. So all of a sudden those brown birds eradicate acres and acres of seed fields. Now that just took away from my kids and your kids... Once we break the chain, that’s it." -Scott Sanders
WANT A SNAKE?
"Learn, don’t just jump in. You don’t want Joe Schmo who just learned how to surf on a two foot wave to go jump into a fifty foot wave. They are gonna die. It’s a sad reality about it. Learn. That’s all. Learn. Ask questions. There are people out there you can contact that will work with you. But if you apprentice under and start slow and don’t jump into and say 'I want to get into venomous snakes and I’ve done had me a copperhead and I’m gonna buy me a black mamba from that reptile show in Oklahoma…' NO. No, you don’t want a mamba. Work your way up. Start with non-venomous. You may think, 'I’ve had boas and I know how to handle a snake', but look at some of the rat snakes, the black rat snake, the king rat snake, the bamboo rat snake. They are quick, agile, quick to bite." -Scott Sanders
If Slithering Home makes you think venomous snake keeping might be for you, take some caution before you rush out and order a monocled cobra or a rattlesnake.
"Venomous are a great animal. They come in a lot of color mutations. They're pretty. But, they are dangerous and one simple mistake could be the end of it. So you need to think hard and long about if it's worth it. If you have a family or kids, do you really want to keep one... where your kids could possibly open the cage and get themselves bit, or if you get bit if you have time to get it in the cage? You just need to make sure that it's the right timing for you. You have the right equipment, and that it's the right timing for you to do it. Cause if you have little kids, do you want to take the chance of you getting bit and letting them grow up without a parent?" -Billy Davis
"I generally would advise most people not to keep venomous snakes as pets. I understand why someone would be interested in keeping venomous snakes as pets. And I probably should clarify that I wouldn't call them pets. I actually have a problem that you would call an animal like this a pet. And this is more of my opinion that a dog, a cat, something that has some kind of reciprocal relationship to me is more of a pet. I think these are animals that are fascinating. I think they capture people's fascination. I think the reasons some people might choose to keep venomous snakes can be really varied. And some of the reasons they might keep venomous snakes I am on board with and would agree with, provided they understand the risks and provided they've taken the precautions that they need to do so safely. There are some who, my opinion honestly is that they actually keep them for the wrong reasons. And so I do have a problem, for example, if someone needs to keep a venomous snake to project a macho kind of perspective or macho image, and them having a venomous snake helps their image. That's one reason for keeping venomous snakes that I'm actually opposed to." -Kory Roberts