There are many people out there that are terrified of snakes because they have none or very little knowledge about what ones are venomous and what ones are not, and their typical behavior. Wisconsin is home of 22 different species of snakes, however only 2 of them are venomous. The larger of the two is the Timber rattlesnake also known as the “canebrake”. This species of snake was once very common in Wisconsin in the early 1980’s, but when people purposely go out of their way to track these beautiful creatures down to kill them (even though the snakes were not near a populated area causing harm to people) for no reason, their population has decreased to nearly nothing in the state of Wisconsin, along with many other non-venomous snake species. People have been killing off Northern Water snakes, Bull snakes, Fox snakes, and even Rat snakes because people are ignorant from telling the difference between the two; whenever someone spots a larger bodied snake they automatically assume it’s a rattler. Since 1900, there has only been one person to die in Wisconsin from a rattlesnake bite and just a handful of bites since then. These rattlesnakes are a very passive and would rather try to avoid you and escape than turn and bite. The people that get bite from these snakes are the ones who try to handle them without any experience or have consumed alcohol. To avoid this a law was passed in Wisconsin to avoid people from killing endangered or threatened species, and to help bring their population back to where it was in the 1980’s, so in the year 1997 the Timber Rattlesnake was put on the list of threatened species by the Department of Natural Resources (DNR). Rattlesnakes have many good qualities, the most important is the control of rodents. Rodents carry many diseases that can cause illness and even death to people and other wildlife. If the rodent population was not controlled by snakes they would over run people’s houses and kill over 100 times more people than do rattlesnakes. There are many ways to avoiding these creatures if you know their range and habitat they are found in. They range from central Wisconsin near Devils lake state park to west Wisconsin by La Crosse as well as along the Mississippi river. Their habitat consists of high bluffs, deciduous forests and woodland edges with large rocks to lie on top of. People should also now how to identify a venomous to a non-venomous snake. Timber rattlesnakes have very narrow necks with a large wide head shaped in a “V”. They have a heavy, light yellow, gray or in some case a greenish body with dark black or a rust-colored “zigzag” strips along the length of their back and a black tail that are tipped with rattles. We need more people educated on species like this to help others better understand how important these creatures are to our wildlife, and also to tell the difference between a venomous and non-venomous snake.
References
http://learningstore.uwex.edu/assets/pdfs/g3139.pdf
http://www.weau.com/home/headlines/19477979.html
http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/huntwild/wild/species/timberrattlesnake/
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