“Let’s try to take it home.” Hmmmm, I contemplate Eric’s suggestion and quickly come to the conclusion that yes it’s an excellent plan. I mean why not? There actually happen to be many reasons “why not” which of course will reveal themselves as we work through the plan.
It’s a lovely late spring day in the mountains west of Roanoke. Having a few days off from dental school we have fled the city –Richmond- and find ourselves on the Appalachian Trail on Brushy Mountain in Craig County. The Redbud has faded, but the Service Berry and Mountain Laurel are in gorgeous full bloom. It feels good to be out in the woods and walking at a good clip. Our destination is a popular rock outcropping which features stunning views all around. Atop the rocks, in the warm sun and cool breeze, the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches taste especially good.
“Whoa, there’s a big snake down there in the clearing,“ Eric whispers. I scramble over to look and it’s a beauty. “I think it’s a rattler.” Being enthusiastic nature-wildlife people with college degrees in biology –heck Eric recently completed a masters degree in herpetology – this is exciting news. We scramble down the rocks and around the back to sneak into a good position to view the majestic animal stretched languidly before us, about fifteen feet away. “It’s a timber rattler, Crotalus horridus” we both whisper in agreement. This is the point where Eric brings up the idea about taking it home, and the part where I quickly agree, “why not?”
Even though Eric has a fair amount of experience handling snakes, I’m still seeing many challenges here such as…. What will we use to contain the rattler? How will we get it into said container? How will we carry it safely down the mountain? How can we avoid getting bitten? What will we do with it in the car? What will we do with it when we get home? But we cannot resist the huge challenge that has been set before us.
“We’ve got to get it before it leaves the clearing.” This creates added pressure, since we know we have to work fast. If the rattler gets out beyond this open space into the woods or under the rocks it will be infinitely more difficult to capture. Time is of the essence.
Eric produces a pair of old grey sweat pants from his small pack and grins silently. Ah ha. We decide to tie the legs of the cotton pants with tight knots and utilize a long forked stick from which we will suspend the sweat pants open at the waist. Using a second stick, we plan to pick up the snake “somehow” and drop it neatly into the sweat pants, tying the waist closed tightly thereafter. Then we will have our rattler in a bag. It’s a good plan, but a bit easier said than done. My job is to hold the stick with the sweat pants bag open, while Eric, the herpetologist, will place the snake into the bag with the other stick.
Now things really get exciting. The snake has not moved from its position in the sandy clearing and we stealthily move into position. “Gosh it’s a beauty”, we whisper again. As Eric attempts to pick up the thick five-foot-long snake with the stick the rattler clicks into full battle mode. What had been a rather inanimate object a second before is now writhing so fast we can hardly see it.
Eric is manipulating the stick masterfully, and I cheer him on. The snake repeatedly drops on the ground and coils and, yes, rattles ominously. Eric doesn’t give up. With a renewed grip on the stick he carefully lifts the snake way up high, rotates and drops it into my waiting “collection bag”. OK, now what? The snake is down one of the legs of the sweat pants, and the grey cotton pulsates and expands. I lower the bag to the ground and with another short stick I close off that part of the bag. Eric cinches up the waist cord of the pants and then knots the whole thing up tightly.
Voila. Kind of.
We take stock of our situation and are satisfied that yes the snake is indeed contained but we are quite sure that its large fangs can easily pierce the worn cotton fabric, and that given enough time the snake can find its way out of the improvised specimen collection case. But we relax for a moment and congratulate ourselves on a job very well done.
“Actually, I think the movement will be calming to him,” says Eric as we hike down the mountain, referring to the snake in the sweatpants that is contained within the small pack on his back. For my part, the movement is not calming me down, but at least I had been able to avoid carrying the fully-grown rattler in my pack.
Some of the details are hazy – this was, after all, 25 years ago – but we got “Fang” back to Roanoke to Eric’s parent’s house where we fashioned a habitat for him using an old aquarium. It was most exciting to have a rattlesnake as a pet for a time. Fang was a most beautiful animal; the coloration of his exquisitely-textured skin was vivid, and was ever-changing in its subtlety. Watching the great snake subdue and slowly devour a gerbil or small rat was awesome and fascinating.
The time we shared with Fang was appropriately brief – Eric returned the snake to the place we found him a few days later – but the power of that experience was uncommon in its lasting effects. I will never forget the excitement and the enthusiasm we felt for the impromptu hunt and acquisition of our very own Crotalus Horridus.
These days, however, we tend to observe such beautiful reptiles from a distance.
By John Robinson [email protected]
