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Wednesday, July 15, 2015 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
Tales from a
Sisters
Naturalist
by Jim Anderson
Give snakes
a break
It may come as a sur-
prise, but there are NO “poi-
sonous” snakes in the U.S.
Plants contain poison; ani-
mals carry venom. Will we
ever get that right…?
I’m 87 years old, been an
active naturalist for most of
my life — and still plodding
along — and I can count the
times I’ve met up personally
with a venomous reptile on
my two hands.
At the moment my wife
Sue and I are helping to
conduct a state-wide golden
eagle survey that takes us
about 20,000 miles a sea-
son in our Toyota 4Runner,
searching for eagle nests
in an area about the size of
Rhode Island. Once a sea-
son we see a rattlesnake and
there’s tens of thousands of
them in the area we drive
and hike.
Come on people, give us
old-timers a break, will ya’?
My counterparts out here
in the West are probably
laughing up their sleeve at
AARP’s approach to com-
ing off with the same old
nonsense about how danger-
ous snakes are, you’d bet-
ter watch out for ’em and
have your cell phone in your
hand to call 911 when you’re
bitten.
When my oldest son,
Dean, was 3 years old back
in the ’60s, he had a great
attitude about snakes. He
wanted to pick up every one
he saw, and didn’t think any
of them would bite him. At
that time I was the naturalist
and teacher for The Oregon
Museum of Science &
Industry (OMSI) frequently
traveling to our Camp
Hancock near the town of
Fossil on the dry side of the
Cascades.
Yes, there are rattlesnakes
all around Camp Hancock;
yes, we’d see about two a
year and I’ll admit, I was
worried about Dean grab-
bing up one in his marvelous
enthusiasm to personally get
to know every snake he met.
One day driving to Hancock
in our Ford Falcon van,
a beautiful gopher snake
started across the road right
in front of us. It was big as
a broom handle and the day
was perfect for snakes. “Hey
photo by JiM anderson
Northern Pacific rattlesnake, not the villain many people make it out to be.
Dean!” I said, “Do you want
that gopher snake?”
Dean looked out in front
and saw that beauty starting
across the road and almost
jumped out of his seat. “Oh,
yeah, dad!” he exclaimed. I
pulled over, hopped out and
set him down and said, “Go
get ’em Frank Buck.”
It went just as we thought
it would. Without hesita-
tion, he grabbed that big old
bull snake right in the mid-
dle, and immediately that
big old bull snake grabbed
Dean’s hand. He yowled, but
didn’t give up and used his
other hand to grab the snake
behind the head, hauled it off
the ground, and then came
running back to the van tri-
umphantly, but with tears in
his eyes, shouting, “I got him
dad, and he bites, too!”
Then we went looking for
one our native rattlesnakes,
but couldn’t find one, so we
used pictures to teach Dean
that there is ONE snake in
our neck-of-the-woods he
had to be more polite to, and
why.
Snakes are — unfortu-
nately — considered the bad
guys of the world of nature,
thanks to false advertising.
I once had a fly fisher-
man interrupt me during my
discourse on bull snakes at
a continuing ed class I was
doing for Central Oregon
Community College. “You
have to kill every one you
see!” he almost shouted;
“they’ve cross bred with rat-
tlesnakes; you can tell by the
way they shake their tail.”
A lot of snakes shake their
tail at you when annoyed,
but that doesn’t mean they’re
venomous; besides, cross-
breeding gopher snakes with
rattlesnakes is nuts.
Anyway, enjoy your
times in the forest, field and
desert, good people, and use
your head. If you’re deaf
as a post and wear hearing
devices as I do, don’t depend
on hearing a rattlesnake
buzzing a warning (although
I can with my devices). Just
watch where you put your
feet and hands, and use your
eyes to watch for them. If
you’re lucky and really look-
ing, you may see one.
If you do, please take
a photo and send it to me:
jim@northwestnaturalist.
net.
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