PA Venomous Snakes

you have them on to help grow awesome Russia Yeah right just sit away okay good evening folks you are at the venomous snake exhibit and we hope here this evening then we can give you a little information about the venomous snakes in Pennsylvania you'll be a little more knowledgeable a little more tolerant of venomous snakes by the time you're done here this evening I'm Jim chesty I'm with the  natural diversity staff and I've been working with rattlesnakes particularly timber rattlesnakes for over 40 years with me this evenings bill Crist wco from north central Pennsylvania in Cameron County Bill's been up there for 12 years and Cameron County is basically rattlesnake central in Pennsylvania well the whole county has populations of timber rattlesnakes and point well known in the state Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission is responsible for protection of all reptiles and amphibians and of course in that that includes our venomous snakes in the state we have three different species of venomous snakes the timber rattlesnake which comes in white beige dark phase can be any shades of brown in between we'll talk about that a little  bit later the northern copperhead common throughout the southern half of the states and southern half basically interstate 80 South there are places north of interstate 80 but it's very River related or up there primarily warm air corridors going to the north and that's where that this snakes found up there and the third species is the bass of saga rattlesnake which is a small rattle snake that lives in Venango in Butler County

we it's endangered in Pennsylvania we have four populations four Denton populations of those remaining we're in the process of working with them trying to secure the land protect the land that they're on so that we can keep them in Pennsylvania venomous snakes many times are mistaken they're non-venomous snakes or mistaken for most venomous snakes that happen too often with the rattlesnake simply because they they rattle they're quite easy to identify but this guy right here the Copperhead many times milk snakes water snakes hognose snakes young newborn black rat snakes and many of you knows when black rat snakes hatch and likewise with racers in early next one be hatching we're going to start getting  phone calls that I've got a copperhead because they have markings not like these guys but they're they have markings across the back turn on black and the easiest way to identify a venomous snake is by the market learning what the markings are of course rattlesnakes you can identify those very quickly but learning what a copperhead looks like that's the best way to identify other ways you can identify it is with the pupil on a venomous snake it's an elliptical pupil we're on a non venomous snake it's around you but the downside to that is you've got to get real close to look into his eyes and tell whether it's a lip tickle or not the other and there's another way to this just as risky is on the underside of the tail behind the vent sub-model scales between the vent and the tail want a non venomous snake those are split they come in from both sides.

And join in the middle on a venomous snake it's one scale straight across but who's going to be the one to lift up and look at the bottom side of the dam you know so again the easiest way is the pattern or snakes and Pennsylvania in height meaning get places is it possesses a heat detecting pit between the nostril and the eye if you look at these snakes you got to look at them straight on you'll see there's like a hole and it's detecting debt the way I can relate that to you is like if you are around a campfire and you turn and face a campfire and you feel that radiant heat hit your face that's what these things detect a difference of less than one degree maybe out to a foot and the purpose for that is under the cover of darkness these snakes can hunt effectively this time of the year it's 90 degrees in the daytime it's too hot for snakes they are just hold up the statement I've had so many people say oh I bet they're really laying out on the rocks today if they were they'd be dead in ten minutes so they are comfortable with the same temperatures that were comfortable at and so with these kids they're effective now is night feeders now they become very nocturnal and most of their feeding and activity takes place at night which if you're out in rattlesnake comprehend country those of you that live out in the woods and stuff node in the summertime you don't go walking outside without a flashlight you don't get walking outside your bare feet at night you can step on a snake and bill will get into that that's one of the only well that's the way you get bet you literally have to step on them they are going to attack you in that I think what we'll do if they'll talk a little bit about the disposition of the snakes they're a very non aggressive species and you have to do a lot to get them to bite you yep as you've said these guys are laid-back you know I guys just kind of running because mistake hunts you know guys get all the machismo out of handling these snakes actually probably least likely snake to bite you offensively a racer will bite you you know well before you're ready and water snake bite here chase you down to bite you these guys the last thing they want was by Jim said food would fear Oh you ever a story about a racer we have a lot of racers in the southern part of the state and the South Mountain Show State Forest and someone says well how do you catch a racer well you try to catch a race or something like this that's like eating soup with a fork you know look good catch a racer you got a dog on him and take your bite you're going to get bit he's going to bite you every time and how you do now so these guys are real laid-back so they're number one the fence is is not the bike in the woods in the role that you know the big woods up there you know people of course work there no match for us  cognizant you and being a reservoir snake should have no problem navigating around a trail we'll talk about that but bears will take them coyotes taking turkey feed on poxy them I've seen Turkey buzzards take live ones Eagles take them for four pounds of tree meat in the woods so generally they're laying real still they don't want to be seen they see it if they are seen they just want to get away from you I've had people say oh they're cut that came at me and they've come at me too we go into dense sights to bring work for surveys and things like that in station one everywhere a lot of times we're going at either they're not going here to trying to get our sea legs passed you just turn around they need to get cover fast so and they know they cannot run that's one of the ways we can offer we can feel fast around a rattlesnake unless you're playing with it so what happens well as you're walking down the trail and as you guess the state trouble is come around the band you can be the firewood boom right there that closer the brows and they pull it up like that of course that's when you get the big start and you know a lot of reaction is you know that this snakes wouldn't be dead because he was sneaking up on but what he was doing was hoping God you didn't see him he's freezing that's all he can do he can't run away he doesn't want to bite and he can trust you to the ground so he just got to be you know I just hope he walks by then I go back my business and sometimes it works I think a lot of times we walk through the woods we walk by a lot of snakes are tagging guys you know under tracking them zooms time I tracking them I mean they're getting right up on the snakes on a hard time fine and walking by them two three times so they're just laying there freeze that's their number one defense now it comes down to nitty-gritty when it runs I can't get away in a corner they're going to strike  it's their last offense and that's desperate stake now.

They're not going to lunge it so they can't run you down take a strike fast but they're not going to strike real far they can always track about half the body length we're going after pan inside that curve in there an active first curve they can throw their head about a hundred seven miles an hour and they can hit anything they want get that close to this so that's what will find it I investigate all the snake bites in half in my area call up the guy and my statistics match other officers in other areas and other areas in favor of snakebite visited occurs like this years old that's about 15 20 some beers and sees a snake and says hey y'all watch this and he goes right into that snake Porter snake zone and whack he gets hit gets hit right around the head somewhere here it'll get a shot at that and that's pretty much how it goes they will only strike for two reasons food and fear so they know they can't eat you don't make them afraid in a matter of fact when we feed them with their own prey they do not kill the fun they not kill for no reason they're actually pretty clever and they can anticipate they understand things they know it's time to eating is not sometimes are picking they might not like a white might and when I can smell it at the color of it so if you throw a mouse in there if they're not hungry they won't kill it will let the mouse run around they won't bother at all and in fact you're a sneaker you know that within 24 hours you got a check if that Mouse is still running around in there if he's not any receipt.

He's not going to be dead if that Mouse is running around in there you got to get the mouse and out of the cage because the mouse will start eating the snake start chewing on picking off these scales and the snake will tolerate it to the point where there's a point where they'll defend themselves but Phil tolerates a point where bad from snake or it's like their their scales are like our skin it's leathery if they get shipped them scales awaiting succesful infection and mites and all that so it's snake time to save the snake we have a big house out throw it away get rid of it give it to another they will not bother me I had mice jumping up and down on the snake's head broken either very laid back now serve and when they do be found in a degree is an important part of the digestive process and as well as a last resort and offensive process now going to see the movies the guys in Africa you know Indiana Jones you know the snakes he runs into black mambas there are neurotoxins those are the two steps that can kill a human and with that vent and that is not what these guys are neurotoxin is a venom that travels through your bloodstream and attacks your brain or your central nervous system and paralyzes your lungs your diaphragm so they can't breathe anymore basically that's a common way when neurotoxin works these guys are not that these guys for hemotoxin emo from the word the Latin word for blood it's a it's a venom it's a lot like our saliva except it's a little more aggressive an extra protein molecule and what it does is when it get didn't gets injected into a red blood cell carrying creature like us warm-blooded animal they don't have red blood cells they can strike each other and won't hurt when they strike you though the red blood cell here in our microscope here comes the venom it's transfusing through your blood it attaches to a red blood cell it makes it basically sucking a bunch of fluid to a first it makes mush how the red blood cells and so doing that process it's can't travel up your veins because it's dissolving your bait making them go pop so we are so big that that venom can't really get to your internal organs and kill you no you know humans died from a timber rattlesnake bite in Pennsylvania that's one of the reasons why we always get bit ice almost like a giant violin  stick your chest that's a different thing but a regular snake carrying hitting in the hands it's going to do a lot of damage oh it's not saying hey these guys are mellow and you officer said the snake but me but tell me so we're go ahead and grab nearly you know what do that unless you really like paint because now let's think you're jacking acid on your skin mister solving a red blood will be tremendous swelling because all those cells when pop-pop Megan Bush on a rat for a squirrel it's it's devastating because that's ejected in the vital organs it's dissolving the vital organs and it's you know would chew our meat we're mixing slava and dissolving our meat before we get started on preparing it stand over them but they can't chew so it's dissolving the rat and basically make it a fur covered milkshake that they can stretch out down or stomach and dissolve because they can't chop it up and chew it like we can so that's what happening to you at a local level just in your hand muscles or legs not your quite organs so if I was to get bit right now you know I'd run around screaming and Jim with tackle beam so you knucklehead rather say for you slapped me three times so then he pull the ring off my hand you know any constricting clothing any bands jewelry anything like that he'd remove it because he's going to know but my hand area is going to swell off with others red blood cells popping the five times in size pretty fast in black and woogie boo ugly I'm going to be Paul it hurts all that hurts and and he's gonna taking the hospital like a stricken band treatment for shock light not a tourniquet you know we're talking like a little like band here don't cut off circulation and taking the hospital where I'll get treated with an anti-venom and the end of that is more to protect my hand keep swelling and protect the muscles so I can keep I can use my hand in the future or it is necessarily save my life and Jim that is you know we you know we unfortunately I see unfortunately because anytime you handle a snake there's risk involved and we we must handle snakes in our profession we have a lot of research we have under length and in Pennsylvania we are good tagging certain populations of course tube this is what we run the snake up in and then grab grab it and then that way we can work with the snake when the snakes in in the to half the snakes in the tube how we sit safely handle it we inject pit tags this is a pit tag we put it in with a syringe and then it's it's read with a reader it's like a barcode technology we have about 2,000 rattlesnakes in the state right now in the wild that are carrying 50 we track putting transmitters in snakes in Gap areas where we know there's rattlesnakes in this area and what we don't know where their critical habitat is so we will we do the surgeries all over at Neuville the Big Spring facility for several areas within the Commonwealth and we have teams that track those snakes and ultimately the snake will lead it lead us to his den or her den and default some of the safety equipment leggings and so on that we use and unfortunately I said we handle snakes and both of us have been bitten but in it wasn't the snakes in my case it wasn't just thankful I made a mistake I did something I shouldn't move hindsight's 2020 but I got probably the same foot bill but Pennsylvania has done a lot of proactive management with the rattlesnake with the Copperhead and we've come a long way at back thirty years ago the rattlesnake numbers for timber rattlesnake numbers were really depleted in the state due primarily then to over harvest we've now got  that under control and actually the the problem then is now probably our best ally the snake hunters are some of the best conservationists out there we issue about eight hundred permits per year and our harvest is about eighty snakes so you can see the snake hunters are not harvesting the snakes we have the permitting program we've wandered the organized snake hunts we have a lot of environmental review going on up north right now with the Marcellus Shale requiring monitors on pipeline construction well pad construction we have a wind farm going on Willian 88 turbines up in Wyoming County it's north west of Scranton and right now there there's like five monitors on that job they're encountering 50 rattlesnakes a day crossing roads you're just all over the place and they're saving all these snakes from getting whacked run over you know so that that's our position with with the rattlesnake we're very very proactive with it we have other states now calling us up saying how are you doing this because you know and Oklahoma the other year call me up you mean you get these guys to report I mean they just can't imagine you get somebody to report what they because they just won't do it down there but our hunters have to report what they what they saw and that's how we know what the harvest is but they're a very very important creature in the echo ecological balance of the forest and we we are very very serious about protecting them and behind keeping them here in the state one researcher dr. Howard Reiner had said to Pennsylvania as between five and ten percent of the entire breeding population of Tucker rattlesnakes anywhere in the thirty-one states that they're found this is the biggest breeding population in the country we want to keep it that way it wasn't always that way we built it to be that and we wanted to continue and with that I'll end and we have about seven minutes for question and answers or comprehend or was one in the back row on the color phases of rattles timber rattlesnakes come in either we call them black or yellow darker light has nothing to do with sex it's a genetic thing female temperate rattlesnake can have a letter half will be dark half will be light and just the way it works there are certain areas of the state where the dark phase like northern Pennsylvania is more predominant real southern part of the state the Blue Ridge northern into the Blue Ridge Mountain to yellows more predominant but it just maybe it has to do more with the environment than anything those it blends in the best more cryptic are the ones that are living to reproduce that's what that it's not a dominant recessive trait or it's just no I mean there's both color phases found both both areas but it's just unpredictable get out your question to comprehend your rattle things more or less aggressive like to the Capri is high strong yeah I refer to them as being snappy they start off went and maybe you can be from me to you and they're just striking going on as they're retreating to their safety rock it seemed to start over a rattlesnake a lot of times like bill said you'll you'll see it he'll be sound asleep you know that instance where you see a rattlesnake and you jump back DEP through that stage and Oh Mike I've got to kill this thing step back come to your senses one thing you know for sure your hearts might be working really worked try to get over that fear of killing it and appreciate the magnificent creature you're looking at anytime you're looking at a rattlesnake or a copperhead one one thing that we use you can be looking at it if it one time they're sleeping they sleep they don't have eyelids and they sleep with their eyes open but they're sleeping your time is not collecting any time they're awake you'll notice with all these snakes the tongue is constantly going so that that's one thing that snakes sound asleep that's why he didn't rattle he wasn't waiting I got a little bit closer to strike several other stations said we don't keep these these were confiscations or we caught these in the wild we can't make it out of that these your show these are our snakes that were acquired through confiscations timber rattlesnakes do not and copperheads like last two don't reach ant let them go and others there they're imprinted to one death when they were confiscated we don't know even where they came from so for us to take the snake out in rattlesnake country and let it go we're probably dooming that stake studies have been done with rattlesnakes that actually move from one County to another and actually put into an own den that was discovered through radio telemetry the snakes didn't know anything they left trying to find their way and perished they get imprinted to one spot so when we relocate a snake like if you have a property and you capture a snake going across the property and need to move that snake we recommend moving it no more than 100 yards take it back in the woods dump it out let it go it's out of that experience with you the predator it doesn't want to come back and we know they don't come back because we had tagged a lot of snakes particularly over in Machaut State Forest at Caledonia State Parton they had last year three snakes into your part of the campground in one night.

We attack all these snakes take them behind the campground let them go they don't show up there is a season I can't grab neither's second Saturday in June to the end of July July 31st last edition it's a special Farmington kg school over counter gate you have to go to the Fish Commission and there's a tag system like it there and copperheads the copperheads upon the regular one season with tag with a permit these guys have to be tagged and have to be a male about 42 inches there's a system for measuring the subtitle scales underbelly and male has 21 or more and female has less than 21 a guy who's the the snake hunts and the regulated portions of that have a helped promote the snakes and through patrols have any guys out there keeping eyes on the snakes and caring about having a good population but after the old days haven't guys wanting to get a bunch of females to wipe out identities they only reproduce once every five six years sometimes they wouldn't do that ifa guy got into a couple of pregnant females into white bottle whole generation peasant the dander song with a few and or someone hundreds yeah well the males will visit other dense males coming into their maternal depends more female to stay local we found that at through radio telemetry that the male snakes sometimes they'll take you to a good site sometimes where they go it's like I could have picked out a better spot the females the females generally are very gregarious and when they take it to a den site it's a good day thank you very much you're welcome there's handouts up here and welcome to look at the snakes and our equipment and nights again for stopping by hey one