Snakes don’t deserve poor publicity

My sympathies to those trying to free the corn snake from the sewer pipe at Quadra Street and Balmoral Road — I feel their pain.

But let’s also spare some compassion for the snake. Besides being stuck in an unpleasant environment, it and other members of its extended family don’t get the respect and admiration they deserve.

Snakes are fascinating creatures, but they suffer from bad press. They slither and hiss and generally do not lend themselves well to Disneyfied cuteness.

In fact, they are most often portrayed as villains. While Kaa, the python in The Jungle Book, was described in Rudyard Kipling’s writings as a wise and respected centuryold python, he is portrayed in the Disney animated movie as a sneaky, conniving serpent always intent on his next meal.

Consistent with that studio’s typecasting, one of the villains of Robin

Hood is Sir Hiss, nasty counsellor to the evil Prince John in Disney’s 1973 version. Likewise, in the 2004 movie Ella

Enchanted, the evil uncle to the heir to the throne is aided in his plotting by Heston, a talking snake with a penchant for spying.

Never mind the long list of horror films that feature snakes of all sizes and descriptions — in movies, snakes are almost always portrayed as evil and dangerous.

A rattlesnake buzzes, and the cowboy pulls out his trusty shootin’ iron and beheads the threatening serpent with one shot. He’s the hero, despite the fact that in all the history of places inhabited by rattlesnakes, vastly more people have been killed by accidental gunshots than have died from rattlesnake bites.

Rattlesnake fatalities in Canada? One source says there have been two in the recorded history of the country. But that estimate is low, according to another source — it says there have been three.

Rattlesnakes in Canada are confined to the southern prairies, parts of Ontario and the B.C. southern Interior.

So if you’re hiking anywhere between Osoyoos and Kamloops, it’s wise to take reasonable precautions, but the danger from snakes is extremely small.

Elsewhere in the province, any snake you meet on the trail is utterly harmless. But if your conditioned fear makes you jump back in panic and gives the snake a chance to find cover, that’s just fine. Snakes need all the help they can get.

I have taken my kids rattlesnake-watching on the prairies. The best time is a warm spring day when the snakes are emerging from their winter dens. We exercised caution, kept a safe distance and no one, reptilian or otherwise, suffered.

But one day, I was not so wise. Strolling along a river, I disturbed a bullsnake nearly two metres long. It was the largest of that species I had seen, and I wanted my kids to see it. But my efforts to transport it home were a disaster.

As I drove down the highway, the snake easily punched its way out of the plastic bag I had put it in and began to crawl around — over my feet, across the seat, even around my neck — before it found a handy hole in the panelling near the door and disappeared.

When I got home, I couldn’t find the snake. I took the door off, undid every bolt I could find. No snake. I went to bed that night trying to rid my mind of all the consequences of a large snake living somewhere in my truck.

I awoke with the sudden memory of a camping trip where I had seen a bullsnake basking in a patch of earlymorning sunlight. I positioned my half-dismantled truck on the driveway so a shaft of sunlight fell on the floor.

Within minutes, the snake had moved into the patch of sunlight to warm up. I grabbed it and, with the help of my five-year-old daughter (who didn’t want to let it go), drove to some proper bullsnake habitat, where we released it.

Problem solved. Lesson learned. Snakes — and most wild creatures — are best admired from a respectful distance.

Not everyone shares that admiration. My friend, who was the staff sergeant in charge of the local RCMP detachment, certainly didn’t. He had been in a lot of dangerous situations and was not one to lose his cool. As long as that danger didn’t include snakes.

“If that had been my truck,” he said with a shudder, “I would have shot it full of holes.”

Gentler measures, I hope, will entice the corn snake from its sewery hideaway at Quadra and Balmoral.