 Mills Pond - Austin, Texas: Safety Tips for Dealing with Wild Snakes
 photo ©Eric Tilton Most of the snakes found in and near Mills Pond are Texas Rat Snakes, a nonvenomous constrictor that feeds primarily on (you guessed it) rodents, or blotched water snakes, who eat frogs and toads. It's not too surprising to find them in abundance in an area where houses are abutting woods and water, since this environment is ideal for vermin such as rats and mice. The snakes are going to go where the food is. While I won't claim there are no poisonous snakes around the suburbs of Wells Branch, I've never seen one. I was motivated to make this page after talking to several residents of the Mills Pond area and hearing their concerns about the snakes: Are they poisonous? Will they hurt the children who play here? Why are there so many of them? What should we do about them? And from the kids, Can we keep them as pets? While I'm not a herpetologist, I have owned pet snakes on several occasions and have quite a few friends who keep pet snakes, including Texas Rat Snakes. I've done a lot of research on snake behavior and have a lot of first-hand experience with them.
Are they poisonous?I said this before, but I want to reiterate, most snakes are not venomous. The Texas Rat Snake is a species of colubrid, a type of constrictor who kills its prey by squeezing it to death. A lot of people see the Texas Rat Snake swimming around in the water and assume it must therefore be a water moccasin (a.k.a. cottonmouth). An important fact to remember is that a lot of snakes swim, even if they're not water snakes per se. Colubrids use water to keep their skin properly hydrated, and to keep from getting cooked by the Texas summer. So no, they're not water moccasins, and it's not just water snakes that like to swim.There are four species of poisonous snakes in Texas: water moccasins, rattlesnakes, copperheads, and coral snakes (there is a nonvenomous king snake that looks extremely similar to the coral snake). According to Peter Brazaitis, former curator of the Reptile House of New York's Central Park Zoo, throughout the entire United States there are about 10,000 incidents of venomous snakebites each year. Of those ten thousand, about 15, throughout the entire country, are fatal. Many of the bites are incurred by people who think keeping venomous snakes as pets is a good idea.
Are they dangerous?Any wild animal is dangerous if it's not treated with care and respect, and if it's provoked into defense. Furthermore, the chances of being bitten by a dog are much, much greater than the chances of being bitten by a snake. The best way to avoid being hurt by a snake is the same as with any animal: use common sense and don't approach an animal that clearly doesn't want to be approached. You probably wouldn't go up to an unfamiliar dog and poke it with a stick. Treat a snake with the same level of respect.Texas Rat Snakes, like most constrictors, have a set of teeth which point back in the mouth. This is designed to keep prey from being able to get out, should it still be alive when the snake starts to eat it. Snakes will bite in defense if they feel threatened, though Texas Rat Snakes are relatively small compared to other constrictors (yes, five feet is small for a constrictor, though you aren't going to see any pythons or boas around here unless someone's pet escaped) and as such their teeth would not do as much damage as a larger snake's might. The wound will still hurt, and it will probably bleed a lot, but in the absolute worst case you might need to get a few stitches and take a course of antibiotics. Texas Rat Snakes are just not big enough to do humans any significant or fatal damage. The important thing to bear in mind when dealing with a wild snake is to give it enough space. Rat snakes and water snakes are not especially timid around humans. However, they would prefer not to have contact with you if they can help it, so they will eventually try to leave if you get too close. If the snake feels cornered or overly threatened, it will almost always give you a great deal of warning before striking: it will coil up with its neck in an S-shape when it is preparing to strike, will hiss, and will probably thrash its tail as well (which unfortunately causes people to mistake it for a rattlesnake). Wild snakes are not acclimated to being handled the way pet snakes are, so don't try to touch it or pick it up or it will try to bite. In general, moving slowly and deliberately is the best way to avoid spooking a snake. If you're sitting still, it probably won't mess with you. It definitely doesn't think of you as food, unless you smell like a rat. (Seriously. Snakes don't see well at all, but they have an excellent sense of smell, so if you've been handling rodents for whatever reason, like if you have a pet rat or hamster, the snake may smell that on you and think you've got tasty rodents in your pockets or something.)
Why are there so many of them?Quite simply, if there are a lot of snakes, it's because there's a lot of snake food. While rat snakes will occasionally eat birds (such as ducklings or fledglings, of which Mills Pond has many) or eggs, their primary diet is rodents. Water snakes generally eat frogs and toads, or other soft-bodied water dwellers of a similar size. In a suburban area where houses are right next to woods, there's plenty of food in the trash cans for the rats to eat, and plenty of woods for the rats to hide in. The pond and creek have an ample supply of frogs and toads. Ergo, snakes.
What should we do about them?The absolute best thing to do about them is to leave them alone, especially the rat snakes. If you kill off the snakes because you're afraid of them or you think they're gross or are worried that your children will get bitten, you will be destroying the major natural predator of rats and mice in this area, and the same areas that were previously covered in snakes will now be covered in rats. Rats breed fast and furious, are excellent swimmers, and carry all kinds of diseases which are transferrable to humans (including such winners as rabies and plague). Rat bites are not especially fun (trust me on this one), and are in fact far more dangerous than snake bites due to the increased risk of disease. Snakes certainly have their own diseases, but many of these are just not transferrable to humans. (Snakes can carry salmonella, though they are unaffected by it. But, as with turtles or birds, this bacteria would only be transferred via direct contact and failure to wash your hands thoroughly, and getting rid of the snakes would certainly have no appreciable affect on salmonella cultures, what with all the turtles and birds around.)Alernate methods of rat control are either extremely dangerous for children and pets (in the case of rat poison), or are ineffective as anything other than a stopgap (traps won't kill nearly as many rats as snakes will). Personally, I'd much rather cope with the snakes. If you leave them alone, they'll leave you alone. Rats, on the other hand, would be perfectly happy to move in with you and eat all your food, nibble on your baseboards and electrical wiring, and leave droppings everywhere. You don't even have to touch the rats to risk contracting disease from them, as their droppings and fleas will also spread bacteria and viruses. Smaller snakes like garter snakes are major consumers of pest insects and are therefore a great benefit to gardeners.
Can we keep rat snakes as pets?There is a big difference between captive-bred rat snakes and wild rat snakes. Captive-bred snakes have been selected for temperament, are acclimated to being handled, and are kept free of parasites and diseases. None of this is true of wild snakes. Wild animals basically never make good pets. If you've seen the rat snakes by the pond and think they're pretty and you want one in your house, please do the following things:
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