Rising temperatures mean snake season in Central Texas
When winter ends and the sun starts to come back out in Austin, so do the snakes.
Springtime in Central Texas is peak snake season, said local snake expert Tim Cole. Although the majority of alerts called into Cole’s Austin Reptile Service are nonvenomous, he said there is a chance Austinites might encounter a western diamondback rattlesnake or other venomous snake in their backyards this spring.
“They’ve gone the winter without eating, our daytime temperatures aren’t too hot, and for a lot of species it’s breeding season,” Cole said. “That’s why we see more in the spring than any other time of year.”
Snake season usually picks up in the early spring and ends when the weather starts to cool down again in the fall. Snake bites are fairly common this time of year, said Albert Gros, chief medical officer for St. David’s South Austin Medical Center.
“Rarely do people pass away from snake bites these days, but there’s probably half a dozen people in the country every year that do,” Gros said. “Things like cardiac arrest and shock can certainly contribute to that.”
Gros said he would not recommend the “old-fashioned” treatments often promoted in snakebite kits, such as tourniquets, cutting on the puncture wounds, sucking out the venom or using ice on the wound.
“The best recommendation for