Allison Baker moved to what she calls "snake heaven," a home on 2.5 acres just outside of Dallas–Fort Worth, Texas, because she was afraid of a dangerous encounter between her children and one of heaven's residents. It was understandable that Baker was anxious. Texas has more than 80 species and 11 venomous ones. The previous homeowners found venomous snakes on the property. She had her own run-ins with the slithering creatures, including a bite from a copperhead while doing yard work.
Since moving into the new place, Baker has had an attitude change. She said she knew better than to dig in a pile of leaves. I relocated the animal rather than kill it because I did not blame the snake for it. Most people wouldn't go to the emergency room, but Baker did. She took a bit of anthelm and got rid of the mild symptoms she had. She said it was okay. There is a scar on my body.
What force could be used to change perspective? The group on the Facebook page is meant to educate members about snakes. The social media giant has a bad reputation for doing things wrong in public health and politics, but it turns out that it is a powerful tool for saving snake lives. It's not just a social networking site. Wildlife enthusiasts are using social media to promote accurate snake information and slay myths. They are converting even the most committed snakehaters into ardent snake appreciators whose newfound admiration for these misunderstood creatures often spreads to family, friends and neighbours. One by one, the snakes are making their way through the forest.
Chickens led Baker to the ID groups. She says that having chickens is a warm feeling, so domestic, and wonderful until you open the doors and see a five foot rat snake with an egg down it. The domestic warm feeling quickly disappeared into panic. People kill snakes regardless of whether they pose a threat or not. Baker was wondering if there was another way to go.
Mark Pyle is a Herpetologist. The group tried more conventional snake-conservation outreach. He is the president of the Dallas–Fort Worth Herpetological Society. He didn't feel like he was getting any traction because he only had a few minutes with each person. People are more important than snakes. It takes care of itself if you can help people with some knowledge about a topic. You can't care about something if you don't know anything about it.
In contrast to other social media ID groups, Pyle went local, focusing on the snakes he's most familiar with. He thought that he could help if someone had a snake. He wanted his approach to serve as a template for other efforts.
The region's venomous rattlesnakes, copperheads, cottonmouths and coral snakes, as well as its nonvenomous rat snakes and water snakes, are among the many harmless species in the area. The group has been the first time in his life that he thinks he's making a difference. The statewide Texas ID and Central Texas Snake ID have more than 43,000 members and are run by a snake-relocation service. In the south and southwestern states where most snakes live, there are dozens of other groups on Facebook.
The groups are about the same thing. Within minutes an expert administrator responds to an image uploaded by a member. Users are required to keep their guesses to themselves. Only IDs that are certain can be used. The rule is so important that he once silenced his daughter for guessing. It can be dangerous if someone says a snake is not venomous.
It's possible that admins are like amateursnake nerds. The Central Texas Snake ID group is overseen by a quality-control manager. He was an administrator after a few years of establishing his credentials with accurate IDs on the boards. He helps panicked newcomers who think every snake they come across is a cottonmouth that they need to kill. It's usually a case of mistaken identity and they have a nonvenomous water snake. Long-term members of these groups can tell you that a diamondback water snake has vertical lines on the upper jaw and close set eyes. Cottonmouths have no vertical upper jaw lines, unlike venomous ones. They don't look like they're out of place.
As members become more familiar with the snakes in their area through participation in the ID groups, they are better able to respond to one at home. Thanks to the North Texas group, international flight attendant Sheryl Guth had four snake encounters in a single day. The final encounter of that snakeful day, with a rat snake wrapped around her door handle, would probably have ended badly if she hadn't joined it. She was able to identify the movement based on what she had learned from being on that page. I was like no, no, no, he's okay, probably going up to that bird nest over the door and getting the eggs and going on its way.
The identification page gave Guth the education she needed when she discovered a snake in her bathroom. She remembers that everyone was going to kill him because he was a water moccasin. She knew from the page that the vertical bars on the upper jaw were a feature of the plain-bellied water snake. They used a broom to rid the snake of it's fur.
Family, friends and neighbors hardened against the animals were told to show mercy to a snake until they could get an identification. There is a woman in North Texas named Betsy Patel. She sent a picture of a snake to a relative. She was referred to the snake identification group by the relative who said, "Oh, that's a good one, keep it in the house." She encouraged other family and friends to join the group after she decided against keeping the visitor indoors.
A rat snake was netted out of a water barrel, and a garter snake was left undisturbed, because the family banded together to allow other snakes to live. The initial freak-out turned to friendly when one of the kids found a snake at a pool party. They all got to pet it after a boy reached in and said he loved them. Four snakes were saved by one family.
Sometimes a snake submitted to a group for identification is venomous and needs professional intervention. A benefit of belonging to a hyperlocal snake-identification group is that members may be able to find a nearby expert who can relocate a problematic snake or take it to a local rehabilitation center. For the past couple of years, he's been doing local relocations for free, mostly snakes and copperheads. He's found himself under a house or trailer in the middle of the night trying to locate a copperhead or rattler that needs to be relocated. If someone has a snake in their yard, he puts his money where his mouth is.
It's not clear how much impact these social media outreach efforts are having. According to Texas's state herpetologist, it's difficult to count snakes because they are secretive. He has no doubt that these educational groups are beneficial and have helped save a number of snakes. On the Central Texas Snake ID page, a single day snapshot of how snakes fare among converts can be found. 14 people posted pictures of snakes on the new year's eve, which were from all over the state. Two of the snakes were venomous. Six of the 12 nonvenomous animals were rat snakes, including one that was coiled around a water hose and another that was slithering around on a porch. One of the 14 was killed by a neighbor who thought it was a copperhead.
Snakes benefit from these groups. Baker started out as the most fearful snake enthusiast. A large group of people are afraid of snakes. Snakes are thought to be one of the most feared animals.
Theorizing that primate might have evolved an innate fear in response to being preyed on by snakes, researchers have been trying to understand the roots of this aversion. Babies look at images of snakes and snakelike movements without being scared. Culture may turn an inborn ability to detect snakes into a fear.
It might be possible to unlearn the fear if it is learned. According to his experiences with people who are scared of snakes, fear and fascination are related to one another. Fear can be turned into fascination if you put the knowledge there. After he joined the North Texas group, his dreams changed a lot. He was directed to the page by a neighbor after he freaked out when a rat snake turned up on his doorstep. He visited the page every day to test his identification skills. Danawala is a sales engineer in the North Dallas area.
Therapy was what Snake ID was for him. You're getting used to seeing snake pictures and you're learning a lot. He dreamed about a snake attacking him or running away from it. In his dreams, he will be stepping over a snake and thinking, "Oh, that's a rat snake or that's a coral." He is a fan of the rough green snake. He says that they have an adorable smile on their faces.
A six-foot broad-banded water snake occupied Allison Hollier's pond for six weeks before she was able to relocate it. She joined the North Texas group at a friend's suggestion. She says looking at the page every day does work. I'm proving myself.
Her words are similar to those of Andrs Zsid of the Institute of Psychology at the University of Pcs in Hungary. He explains that being in control of the encounter is important in exposure therapy.
The person is starting to get used to the object. Zsid calls this habituation. Knowledge in itself could help lower the fear, as people in such groups can learn a lot about snakes. TheFamiliarity inoculates them against the fear.
A generation habituated to snakes might be created by adults who show fascination. Eleanor is eight years old and she and her mother scroll through the North Texas group a few times a week to try to identify the animals. Eleanor likes the western diamondback rattlesnake because it has a cool pattern. What would she do if she came face to face with someone? She says she would enter. I wouldn't do anything else.
There is a nature preserve and a golf course in the area. She says that when the city comes out to do flood clean up, they call her home "the snake house" because they seem to find a lot of snakes.
After hearing that, she was ready to sell the house and move out, but since she joined the local Facebook snake group, she's come around. She has a favorite snake on the property, a ribbon snake, that she believes she and her family have been seeing around for a long time, and she describes some of the snakes in her yard as friendly.
The eight-year-old granddaughter of Pollitt is fascinated. They look through the snake group page for fun. We are just sitting and scrolling. When asked which snake she liked the most, she sent back a drawing of a hognose, which snake fans call the "drama noodle" because of its theatrical efforts to appear unapproachABLE.
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The caption was changed after it was posted to include more information about the copperhead.
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