Wednesday, June 8, 2022

Of Snakes and Mistakes

I was recently summoned because there was a snake in a public area and there was concern that it may be a copperhead and I am known to have an interest in snakes. By the time I got there, a man was in the process of decapitating a harmless milk snake while invoking the need to protect people walking by.

This made me frustrated because the snake could have easily been removed alive and taken to a nearby field or patch of woods.

The following day, in the midst of my still smoldering righteous indignation, I remembered an incident from maybe 10 or 12 years ago. We had moved into the mountains where we see snakes fairly often, including copperheads and rattlesnakes. One day, one of our kids reported seeing some baby snakes and, sure enough, there were multiple little snakes poking their heads out of a large crack in the blocks surrounding a planting bed right next to the house.

Baby snakes often look different than their adult counterparts and I did not know what kind of snakes they were and was concerned because they were right beside the house. I was worried that they may be baby rattlesnakes. So I killed the ones I could get to and tried to flush the others out with a water hose. Only later did I realize that they were baby rat snakes, totally harmless and maybe even helpful in keeping the poisonous snakes away.

Now I know what baby rat snakes look like and would never kill them. If that happened today, I would take some pictures and leave them be. But the younger, less-experienced version of me didn’t know what I know now.

At that time, I was basically the same as the guy killing the milk snake a few days ago. Perhaps we are most frustrated by the actions of others that reflect poorly on our past selves? As humans, we often react violently to things we fear because we do not understand. Fear and ignorance are a dangerous combination.

The antidote is to seek to learn more about the things we do not understand. After I had killed the baby snakes, I posted some pictures to ask others what kind they were and quickly got responses from a couple of people who knew. I confirmed this by checking in my field guides as well. In retrospect, it would have been good to do this before killing them.

How much of what we do to “protect” ourselves and others are simply illogical actions borne out of fear and ignorance? And what are the ramifications of those actions?