Over 90 Venomous Snakes in Den Underneath Northern California Home
 

Al Wolf, director of Sonoma County Reptile Rescue, found his hands full of scales during a recent call.


On October 2, Wolf responded to a call from someone who said "they had snakes under their house," Sonoma County Reptile Rescue — a nonprofit offering rattlesnake rescue and relocation free of charge — shared on Facebook.

After arriving at the home in Santa Rosa, California, Wolf climbed underneath the house to look at the issue. "Three hours and 45 minutes later," he had pulled 81 Northern Pacific rattlesnakes, 59 babies and 22 adults, out from under the Bay Area home.

"I've been doing this 32 years. I get calls with snakes under the house pretty often. The most I've done under a house is four or five," Wolf told SF Gate, adding that, before this incident, he had only seen dens this large in the wild.


In the days after the initial discovery, Wolf made two follow-up visits to the home and found 11 more snakes, bringing the total discovered under the house to 92.

Northern Pacific rattlesnakes are the only venomous snake species native to Northern California. The species is not aggressive unless provoked, Wolf told SF Gate.

All of the snakes Wolf retrieves, including the 91 he found recently, are released into the wild. Most are taken to unpopulated areas, but some snakes are released onto ranches as a form of pest control at the landowner's request.


The Santa Rosa home's location on top of a rocky area that has access to the outdoors is an environment snakes like and serves as an ideal den spot for rattlesnakes.

"She told me, 'Now I know why I haven't had any rodents all these years,' " Wolf said of the homeowner.

The Sonoma County Reptile Rescue director plans to visit the home several more times over the next couple of months to help keep the snake population there under control.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/re...KhG?li=BBnbcA1

"some snakes are released onto ranches as a form of pest control at the landowner's request"

I like this part. We need a service like this where I live. :)

I thought snakes would imprint with their dens and return to them each year? Or is that an old wife's tale? If so, I wonder how that impacts those animals when it comes time for them to return to their den? Do they do the Lassie thing and return to that den, find another one, of just wind up dying over the Winter months?

Just a clip from an article

https://livingalongsidewildlife.com/?p=3749

This reminds me of that old movie called (silent predators)

Actually, I am wondering if that den has been there for a very long time, and that house was just unknowingly built over top of it.

Back when I lived in Maryland there used to be a really great snake overwintering den that had lots of black rat snakes and eastern milk snakes using it. It was actually pretty secluded and not that easy to get to as it was a long abandoned railroad. It was a pretty good hot spot for some really pretty eastern milks until the county, for some reason, built a foot and bike trail right next to it. I'm guessing one or more of the housing developments that were cropping up everywhere brought people closer by. Didn't take long for the inhabitants of that den to vanish afterwards. I am sure a lot of the people then using that trail thought they were doing a good deed by killing off the "cottonmouths" and "coral snakes" they misidentified that they were finding laying on that asphalt trail.

Speaking of misidentifying snakes, I remember my brother in law over in Delaware telling me one time when Connie and I visited her family over there that he had just killed a copperhead he had found in the field. I asked him how he knew it was a copperhead and after thinking for a moment, blurted out, "Well, it was just like the last one I killed!" :rolleyes:

Rich ;

Where in DE was this ?

My wife's family lived in the Georgetown area.

But trust me my brother in law (now deceased) couldn't have truly identified a copperhead if his life depended on it.

BTW, I was just looking for range maps of the copperhead and stumbled on this page -> https://sciencing.com/copperhead-sna...k-8574266.html

Ever seen a copperhead that looked like the one in the picture? :confused:

Sheesh, I have to stop looking at other websites. Here's one claiming that they have a pic of a black racer, but is, in fact, a black rat snake.

https://greennature.com/delaware-snakes/


:bandhead0

I grew up in Orlando area from 1968 till 1980. When we first moved there they were preparing for Walt Disney World. Tons of orange grows, swamplands and bush. Red sand roads every where. I last visited Orlando in early 90's. All my snake hunting places were now asphalt and buildings. All the orange groves where I would find fish from all over the world that had been deposited by birds in temporary ponds now apt complexes and professional buildings. I don't think I was never more depressed.

I have a book in my library entitled "THAT VANISHING EDEN, A Naturalist's Florida" by Thomas Barbour.

In the introduction, he states:

That book was published in 1944.

The reason my family moved there in 1968 was because my dad got a job driving one of those enormous dump trucks with 12 foot tires. They were clearing out for Disney. I went with him once. I was 9 years old. Thing did not have a/c and you had to close windows while they dumped muck into bed. I remember watching crane lift up fallen tree's and all these animals come running out. And snakes galore! They really did destroy that area down there and killed so many animals.

Just asked as copperheads are in basically only two locations in DE , near Wilmington and way further south at Trap Pond. Not common either place. I think some popped up here and there in that southern location, but not in Georgetown.

No doubt he was knocking off water snakes ... of which many people say are cotton mouths.

If anyone wants to read a REALLY interesting book about the history of Florida, check out this one ->

FINDING FLORIDA, The True History of the Sunshine State, by T.D. Allman. Published in 2013.

Especially eye opening about Disney and how they basically created a separate country right in the middle of Florida.

Geez , 1944 ... if he saw it now it would kill him on the spot.

The changes to the NJ Pine Barrens since I first went there in 1972 are also depressing. Some of my spots are still there , untouched as they are so remote from making them worthwhile to develop that Timber Rattlesnakes , Pines , etc are still there.

Depression really sets in for me when I think of my past springtime hunts at Okeetee, Good Hope and Chelsea Plantations in SC that are gone with the great friends I used to meet there to hunt Diamondbacks and Corns. First the new owners of the plantations no longer allowing snake hunting followed by the Best Western and other chain motels and restaurants taking over the little town of Ridgeland.

I'm glad I'm as old as I am and not 19 years old and starting my quest for herps with the way things have been destroyed, ridiculous laws shoved down your throat by F & G and 'snake hunting' to most people being reduced to looking into deli cups rather than stump holes, just to catch a glimpse of scales and being happy about it.

I'm glad I was born no later than I was ! :yesnod:

Isn't it something how all the developers killing animals aren't held responsible for any of it yet transporting your captive produced animals across state lines .... animals who's bloodlines go back thirty years or longer ... can get you thrown in jail or a huge fine ? How than this happen ?

It just shows just how corrupt everything has become.

Unfortunately, the people who pay for damage to wildlife/habitats/the general environment don't tend to be the people who did the damage. There are no chemical company CEOs living on a Superfund site. The island nation of Kiribati is contributing nearly nothing to global warming. And so on.

Also unfortunately, this is nothing new -- novel situations, but the same pattern.

Funny- I know Al. He is been so busy with the fires (rodent pops went way up…guess what followed?) that I have been moving rattlers as well (he did one for me this summer, I have done two since at my school). So nice to have locals who know they mean no harm and control rodents…that said I won’t be diving into a den anytime soon, but I can handle one safely for the snake and myself.