Snakes and Being Who You Want To Be

Before Multiple Sclerosis messed up my hand co-ordination enough that I no longer trust them for delicate work, I used to rescue snakes from people. The people that called the snake hotline didn’t quite see it that way, they saw it as THEM being saved from the snake, and it was oh-so-hard to disabuse them of that notion.

You see, when you have a grown man in front of you, gibbering in fear, tears running down their face, the message that “the snake is just being a snake, it is easy to deal with that when you know what being a snake is” just isn’t going to be rationally dealt with by that person.

Here in Australia we have the world’s deadliest snakes, like 8 out of the top 10.  It is a societal norm, as well as a natural instinct, that snakes are FREAKING DANGEROUS and sadly that leads to the death of thousands of perfectly harmless, as well as poisonous, snakes every year (which is illegal!). People feel justified in taking a shovel and braining, or chopping up, something that can be usually be left alone and it will go away, or an expert can take away. They would rather break the law than face and conquer their fear of these animals.

So what made us snake rescuers different? Why were we able to calmly walk into a house and pick up the snake with our BARE HAND and put it in a pillow case and leave. The answer is education and practice.

People like me would turn up at a herpetologist’s house, stand in the back yard and watch how an expert did it. We were told that snakes are pretty basic creatures, that they are non-aggressive unless provoked (apart from a couple of types), and if they feel more around 1/3 of their body on the ground, they feel secure.

Then we would start by catching a non-venomous snake and then work up the poison scale till we were at the 4th most deadly snake in the WORLD (the top three are on the other side of Australia).  You see, apart from bagging a Death Adder, handling a non-venomous snake is the same as a venomous one.

Lift the back end of the snake with a with a hook, grasp the tail at where it becomes thick at the body, leave the top third on the ground, lift and place into bag. All pretty simple.

In that back yard I saw people face their greatest fears, understand that they had the skills already to do this, and then “click” after success. They were a beaming (albeit adrenalin-filled) success story who wouldn’t go back to be that fearful person again because they just knew how to do it, and they knew they had done it.

I use that experience every time I hit something i am fearful of doing.

• First, get educated on what the thing is
• Practice on something a little less scary but uses the same skills
• Do it

Simple. And it is that simple, do NOT let anyone tell you it’s not, that is THEIR fear saying that.

Go catch some snakes!

Thanks to Wollembi for the image