Snake wrangling

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ShouldBeWriting

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Anybody familiar enough with rattlesnakes (or other venomous snakes) to answer this question: can you think of a way to set up a snakebite in an outdoor setting?
 

Helix

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Is this a specifically North American setting?

One view from Australia: I trod on a venomous snake in my garden one evening. It wasn't happy about the encounter, but luckily I was wearing proper shoes. I stepped back and the snake headed off in the other direction. It can be really easy to overlook snakes if they're not moving, because most of them are really well camouflaged. You can step on them or accidentally put your hand on one when you're picking up kindling. Most snake bites happen when twits decide to catch or kill them, though.
 

mccardey

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I was inches away from pulling a Highlands Copperhead out from under a shrub in the vegie patch today. (Helix - that Eastern Brown I told you about is apparently a Highlands Copperhead). This one had a damaged, flattened tail which was all that was poking out, and I went to grab it, thinking it was the end of some toy a visiting child had lost, when it slithered away. I watched for a while and - yep: Highlands Copperhead. Could have been very awkward.

OP, Sanora Babb has lovely stories about farming in the Dustbowl, and there seem to be quite frequent episodes of workers scooping up rattlers along with the hay and flinging onto the back of the cart where the balers are.
 
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ShouldBeWriting

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Ha! I might not want to go near a garden or hay pile for a while after hearing those stories. Can you think of any way for someone to STAGE a snakebite? (Thriller writer here.) Though I might just go with it being an accident to make it more realistic. And thanks for your stories! :)
 

mccardey

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Ha! I might not want to go near a garden or hay pile for a while after hearing those stories. Can you think of any way for someone to STAGE a snakebite? (Thriller writer here.) Though I might just go with it being an accident to make it more realistic. And thanks for your stories! :)
Do you mean a way to make a snakebite happen deliberately? Sure. Trap a snake somewhere (a nestingbox in the chicken coop for instance) and tell your victim to just slip their hand in, to check if there's any eggs. That would work. Or do something with frogs and water - snakes eat frogs and will happily hunt for them around water. You have to make a snake angry or startled enough to bite - but trapping a snake and then introducing a hand or a foot will usually accomplish that.
 
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Helix

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What mccardey said. There's always the old standby of the snake in the boot. But you'll also have to prevent your victim from getting treatment.
 

UrbanAmazon

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Well, my workplace has a known prairie rattlesnake den on the property. They're a protected species, so it's not to be disturbed or moved. However, from the outside, it just looks like a slightly enthusiastic prairie dog burrow - this species tends to steal other animal burrows as opposed to making their own. When the rattlesnakes emerge from their burrow in the springtime, they tend to blend in with grass that is still very sparse and brown. Long story short, I once nearly stepped from a cement patio onto a coiled rattler, and it made very apparent that it was unhappy with this development, though I was only rattled at, not bit. I've found that if a snake is outside, but people are regularly nearby, it might place itself somewhere it thinks is safe and out of the way (like below/under a stair, or bench, or in a hole that we don't realize is its home), but humans are the bumbling sort and we might get much closer by accident, and that could lead to a bite.

(That said, it very much matters what kind of rattlesnake you're dealing with. As I tell out-of-town visitors, if one of our prairie rattlesnakes does happen to bite you, you'll need a doctor and you'll have a bad day, but that's about it. A diamondback rattlesnake... very different story.)
 

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Anybody familiar enough with rattlesnakes (or other venomous snakes) to answer this question: can you think of a way to set up a snakebite in an outdoor setting?

Walk up on a pygmy rattler (no rattle) in the Everglades or in many back yards and you'll get bit. Climb a rocky wall or hill above a horse pasture in South Dakota and you'll get bit. Reach down to move a dead diamond back off the highway and find it's just sunning and you'll get bit. Be stupid and you'll get bit.

If you're setting this up as a trap, toss a rattlesnake in their car, lock it in their garage, create a pitfall trap over a rattlesnake den...

Jeff
 
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CWatts

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Walk up on a pygmy rattler (no rattle) in the Everglades or in many back yards and you'll get bit. Climb a rocky wall or hill above a horse pasture in South Dakota and you'll get bit. Reach down to move a dead diamond back off the highway and find it's just sunning and you'll get bit. Be stupid and you'll get bit.

If you're setting this up as a trap, toss a rattlesnake in their car, lock it in their garage, create a pitfall trap over a rattlesnake den...

Jeff

There's a terrifying scene in the movie The Player (1992) where Tim Robbins' character puts a box in his car and a rattlesnake slithers out when he's in LA traffic.
 

mccardey

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Did I ever tell you guys about the time in, oh, 1964 it would have been - or 1966, somewhere around there, anyway - when my then ten year old brother-in-law flew off from Sydney to somewhere with his family - and took his snake wrapped up in his jacket because he didn't want to leave it at home?

He would have gotten away with it, too, except he was caught trying to chase it down underneath the seats in front of him.
 

mrsmig

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Did I ever tell you guys about the time in, oh, 1964 it would have been - or 1966, somewhere around there, anyway - when my then ten year old brother-in-law flew off from Sydney to somewhere with his family - and took his snake wrapped up in his jacket because he didn't want to leave it at home?

He would have gotten away with it, too, except he was caught trying to chase it down underneath the seats in front of him.

:e2thud:
 

CWatts

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Did I ever tell you guys about the time in, oh, 1964 it would have been - or 1966, somewhere around there, anyway - when my then ten year old brother-in-law flew off from Sydney to somewhere with his family - and took his snake wrapped up in his jacket because he didn't want to leave it at home?

He would have gotten away with it, too, except he was caught trying to chase it down underneath the seats in front of him.

The only thing that could make this story better is if a teenage Samuel L. Jackson was on the same MFing plane!
 

Helix

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Walk up on a pygmy rattler (no rattle) in the Everglades or in many back yards and you'll get bit. Climb a rocky wall or hill above a horse pasture in South Dakota and you'll get bit.

This is the sort of over-reaction to snakes that results in them being killed for no reason.

Reach down to move a dead diamond back off the highway and find it's just sunning and you'll get bit. Be stupid and you'll get bit.

Last bit is spot on.
 
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