Zoologist: Snakes prefer not to bite

Posted by Christopher S. Pineo | Jul 21, 2016 | Community |

NAVAJO TIMES | CHRISTOPHER S. PINEO
Johnathon Arren, security guard at Tsehootsooi Medical Center, steps in to try handling a snake during a training session.

WINDOW ROCK

To handle and deal with snakes safely, you need to respect the animals.

Chad Smith, a zoologist at the Navajo Nation Department of Fish and Wildlife, and Anderson Hoskie, a traditional practitioner at Tsehootsooi Medical Center, made this respect central to an educational presentation they conducted for the hospital, Window Rock School District, and the public on July 13.

Smith gave a talk on the safe handling of snakes, which focused on their behavior and what you should do if you come across one – especially a venomous species like the local prairie rattlesnake.

He stressed that the rattlesnake generally tends to avoid aggressive behavior or biting, if given the option. He used the Appalachian snake handlers as an example.

In Pentecostal prayer services in Appalachia, pastors and parishioners frequently handle rattlesnakes to demonstrate that they “shall take up serpents” as stated in the King James Version of Mark 16:18. Smith didn’t see any miraculous occurrence there; rather he attributed the lack of bites to the temperament of the species. Smith anticipated the likely outcome, if the rattlesnake had an innate impulse to bite.

“We wouldn’t have a lot of Appalachian snake handlers alive,” he said.

(Maybe he wasn’t aware of the 2014 death of pastor Jamie Coots, who featured in a reality show on the subject then died when a rattlesnake bit him in his Kentucky church.)
“I don’t want to downplay the nature of the rattlesnake,” Smith said. “I just want to emphasize that they’re not out to get you.”

Hoskie followed up with a talk on where in the Navajo tradition the snake fits. He spoke about the animals as people in a way, and said that killing one can have negative consequences for an individual – which echoed Smith’s repeated assertion that snakes need not be killed in an interaction with humans.