In the recent week, I found two dead snakes in my garden. One just outside the gate flattened by a car tire, the other lost his life to Sushi, my cunucu dog who punctured his head/throat area. Good snake, bad snake, I questioned Byron Boukhoudt who is my expert on just about any flora and fauna issues. I snapped a picture of the deceased and sent
it to him for identification. My motive? The committee in my head was playing out a horror scenario in which an abandoned mama boa, had dropped her nest of fifteen-thousand squirmy little ones in my yard and that my favorite sausage dog was in danger of being swallowed up for lunch. You know, our heads can run away on us with scripts from hell.
Good or bad depends how you look at it, says Byron. Technically, and it is an opinion which I share, there are only good snakes in the world. The one in the picture is in any case, our innocent endemic, pest controlling, can-harm-nothing-other-than-cockroaches-crickets and toads, creepy-crawly population controlling, the local garden snake: the Santanero. An unsung hero which hides in dusky and humid corners of yards and in the rapidly succumbing little natural areas that still remain under fallen leaves and shrubs, and comes out in all stealth and peace slithering in the twilight hours, seeking its favorite food, the little critters which humans care even less for. Yet "snak-o-phobia" has pinned this shy friend, which seeks neither fame nor gratitude just a peaceful coexistence, dead center in the middle of the bull’s eye, victims of cruel prejudice. They are completely harmless and could be picked up and played with. Try it, when you have a chance. Think of Eleanor Roosevelt, who said: "You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, I have lived through this horror I can take the next thing that comes along. You must do the thing you think you cannot do."
Rona - Do you think she ever tried to pick up a Santanero in her yard?
WOW. Heavy duty stuff. Byron is challenging me to stretch myself . . . I am not sure I am prepared. Prejudice is deeply rooted.
