Remove their habitat, including hiding places, foraging areas, and food resources. The best way to discourage snakes around a home is to make the area unattractive to them. You may also consult Extension Publication 3529, Snakes Alive! How to Identify Hazardous Snakes, to learn more about them.
A good field guide to reptiles can help you identify snakes and understand their habits. Mississippi does have six types of venomous snakes: copperhead, coral snake, pygmy rattlesnake, eastern diamondback rattlesnake, canebrake or timber rattlesnake, and cottonmouth or water moccasin. In most cases, the snakes seen around houses are harmless species such as garter, ribbon, ringneck, king, or rat snakes.
If they are living around a home or other human dwelling, they are doing so because there is food, shelter, or other habitat features for them.įor your safety, it is important to be able to identify snakes as venomous or nonvenomous. Depending upon their size, they feed on prey ranging in size from insects or eggs to small mammals, lizards, birds, or even other snakes. They seek places in their environment that can help them stay cool during hot summer months or warm during cool fall and spring weather. Snakes are “cold-blooded,” which means they are unable to internally control their body temperature. Knowing more about snakes will help you understand how to handle situations when they are encountered. If you spot a copperhead or any other venomous snakes while on base, please contact the base safety office at (678) 655-4434.Snakes in and around homes can cause many people to worry. "More people hurt themselves than help themselves by doing that." "People used to be instructed to take various precautions like sucking on the bite, but these can sometimes do more harm than good," she said. According to May, the best thing to do in this scenario is immediately go to a hospital. It may be that a person corners one and the only way out is past you, but snakes typically don't want anything to do with people. So the only time they're really going to go after you is if you corner them and that's their last chance of survival."Ĭontrary to popular belief, they do not chase people. "Whether they're venomous or not, you are a big predator that's going to hurt them. "They see you as a big predator," she said. May also pointed out it's against state laws to kill a non-venomous snake. They have to move around to hunt and eat." "You have a greater chance of being bit on your forearm if you try to kill it. "Staying away is safer than trying to whack at it," May said. Though your first reaction may be to get rid of a snake, May says that people are usually better off just letting them be. "I wouldn't say that you'll run into one every time you walk outside, but if you're outside a lot, especially if around brushy areas, you could come across one." "Copperhead snakes are fairly common," said Linda May, Georgia Department of Natural Resources environmental outreach coordinator. If given the opportunity, they escape - down a hole, under a ledge, or in the case of cottonmouth snakes, into the water. Whit Gibbons, University of Georgia professor, found that all the snake species tested have had the same initial response to human presence.
If you provoke and capture a wild animal, the animal is going to try to defend itself.Ī study by Dr. Snake bites on a human usually only happens when someone is deliberately trying to provoke or harm a snake, and the animal acts in self defense.Īccording to a study conducted at North Carolina State University, almost 80 percent of snake bites happen when someone is trying to capture or kill the snake. If you spot a copperhead, then the best course of action is to leave the snake alone. There have been no confirmed venomous snake bites on Dobbins, according to an employee who has worked on Dobbins since the late 1970s. It's not unusual that we have at least one confirmed copperhead sighting on Dobbins every summer, but only by people in, or near, wooded areas. The copperhead is one of three venomous snakes found in North Georgia and is the most commonly encountered. A copperhead snake was spotted recently by a runner near the trail behind the Air Force gym on base.