Before we
get to my love of snakes, I think I should bring up why I don’t fear them. At
my pre-school, the teachers had some exotic animal owners bring in some snakes
to get the kids over irrational fears regarding them (there were other fears
that we were being taught out of, but that one stuck because of how cool the
day was). They brought a huge boa that took seven or eight of us to hold and a
small rattler that was a rescue (someone had removed its venom sac) so we could
hear what a rattle sounded like. While we were taught not to mess with wild
snakes, the class made it clear that normally if you leave a snake alone, it’ll
leave you alone.
Now, as to
why I love them. Oddly enough, my love of snakes can be entirely blamed on
Pokémon, or more accurately Beckett
Pokémon Collector magazine, and on my second grade teacher. We were given
an assignment to do a 5-step food chain, and mine included a snake. I was
having issue drawing one, however. So my friend hand me the magazine, since
there was a picture of an actual snake alongside a picture of the Pokémon Arbok
along with an article.
I happened to read the article, which stated
that Arbok was based off the King Cobra, the largest venomous snake in the world.
I was interested to learn more, because the snake pictured looked next to
nothing like Arbok, even ignoring that the Pokémon was colored bright purple.
The school’s library had exactly four books on
snakes. Since I was looking for cobras, I chose two that talked about deadly
snakes. I very quickly came to the conclusion that the article was wrong and
Arbok looked a lot more like an Indian Cobra, due to them sharing a large,
marked hood. I was also fascinated by other facts, such as the legend of the
Black Mamba I mentioned last time and exactly how long the longest Reticulated
Python on record was (around 29 feet, which at the time I mentally thought of
as ‘more than three times the height of my Uncle Steve’). It explained how
snakes moved without legs and how different snakes had different styles of
moving, from what people generally think as slithering to the very interesting
maneuver known as side-winding.
With all the interesting information on them
to explore, I was beyond hooked, and snatched up every snake book I could for
years.
While I consistently dragged my parents to see
the snakes, I got an even better opportunity when I was in eighth grade. I got
to do Keeper for a Day at our Zoo, where I got to hold the Red Tailed Boa,
Elmo, and the Ball Python, Fluffy. Later, when volunteering at ZooCamp, I often
ended up holding Fluffy a lot for the kids who were afraid of her.
I‘d wanted a pet snake for a long time, but it
was Elmo who turned the wanting into begging. I still remember how she kept slithering
into my hoodie pockets for warmth (it was winter and the show area was
outdoors). My parents denied me, for the good reason that our jumpy hunting dog
of a Cocker would probably kill the thing on sight, or at least attack its cage. Since I couldn’t bear to subject a snake to that kind of
stress, I have accepted that until I have my own place I won’t have a pet
snake, and have instead devoted my time to doing research on what breed to get
and how best to care for snakes.
Me, at the
Zoo-Boo, holding a snake being advertised by Herp-Sellers that were attending
Next Post:
Snakes as Pets—Dos and Don’ts
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