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Big rattlers vex rural business
Bob Campbell
Midland Reporter-Telegram
MIDLAND COUNTY -- Most afternoons at four o'clock, Stoney Harris and Eddie Lowrance stop their regular occupations to go diamondback rattlesnake hunting.
They don't do it for fun but to decrease the danger.
Harris, owner of Bulldog Steel Buildings at 4008 N. County Road 1241 some 10 miles west-northwest of Midland, discovered the dilemma diamondbacks present upon building his home and business three years ago.
The rattlers crawl from an abandoned 1950s vintage Colorado River Municipal Water District sub-station that has become a prototypical den. With pipes and culverts covered by a concrete slab, there is no telling how many live there, the men say.
"These snakes are so big, they feed on blue quail that come up to the hole," said Harris. "I have caught 100 with a snake catcher with a loop.
"When they rattle, they're saying, 'You're too big to swallow, but I can still hurt you.' My wife stepped on a five-footer when we were unloading groceries at 10:30 one night last August. I was a few feet away and it sounded like a machine-gun."
Harris has been negotiating with the Big Spring-based CRMWD for the right to excavate since the area was annexed by the city of Midland last year.
That doesn't mean he and Lowrance, a Coleman rancher working here as a bulldozer operator, want to kill all the snakes. They will dispose of the smaller ones but sell recently caught four and five-footers and one six feet long and so big around they fear picking it up.
"I don't want to kill these big snakes," Harris said Tuesday. "They live to be 15-18 years old. If we lift that slab, there could be 80 or 800. My dogs have been bitten numerous times and it is getting to the point where somebody's kid will step on one. It's unbelievable what a snake that size can do to a child."
Lowrance began catching diamondbacks as a King County ranch manager in South Texas 25 years ago. "I had one in a bag and he struck at the heat," he said.
"I have a crooked finger because the doctor didn't do a complete fasciotomy and drain the venom from the joint. The only ones I've caught near this size have been down south.
"A snake is pretty much solid muscle. Nobody handles them over 5 1/2 feet because they go crazy and you will get bit. The Fort Worth Zoo pays a good price for anything over six feet."
People who work or play outdoors in rural settings should be particularly cautious in springtime when rattlers come out of hibernation, Lowrance said. Watch for them around brush, in large pipes and under structures where they can get shade or wait for prey.
"It's warming up and the snakes are starting to sun," he said, adding that they are normally non-aggressive and will retreat if possible.
"They're very dangerous when their skin is coming off at the eyeballs because their vision and sense of everything is off. You don't want to surprise them because they will strike at random."
Lowrance said they eat rats and mice -- only needing nourishment once a month -- and eliminate the diseases rodents can spread.
Hampered by cool weather, the men have only ensnared the three big snakes in the two weeks Lowrance has helped Harris.
He said they will come to the aid of anyone with a snake problem who calls them at 425-0906 or (210) 289-0929.
"Religion uses snakes as the devil, but God put them on this earth for a reason," said Lowrance. "Symbolizing the devil is a bad rap."
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