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Welcome to episode seventy nine of Get
Out Alive, a bio weekly podcast put

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animal tax why they happen, and
how we can avoid them. I'm your

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host, Ashley, and before I
introduce the topic of today's episode, as

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a thank you to all of you
who leave five star reviews, I'll be

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reading one each episode, and this
week's review comes from Elijah CM and is

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as follows. I absolutely love this
podcast. I started listening two weeks ago.

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It's my new go to while working. The information you guys put out

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and the guest speakers you have are
absolutely enthralling. It's awesome to be able

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to listen to something I, as
well as so many others, are passionate

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about, and to hear you guys
put it all out in such great taste

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is amazing. As an aspiring conservationist
slash biologist slash ecologist slash zoologists, have

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no idea what path I want to
take yet, well, this podcast helps

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gives me insight to different fields that
are available. Thank you guys so much

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for the content. I look forward
to continue to be a listener. Then

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this is a great episode for you, Elijah, because me and today's guests

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talk a lot about research that needs
to be done in a up and coming

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field that is super exciting that I
wish I could go back and go into.

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Also, thank you to all of
our patrons at patreon dot com who

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wrote in questions for today's guest and
you if you have not already, you

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can also join us on Patreon and
get bonus episodes, add free episodes,

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and do things like ask our experts
questions. Today's episode is all about rattlesnakes,

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how often they bite, how dangerous
bites are, and other myths and

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facts about them. And months ago, I had someone write into me on

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Instagram, ann Alie Nelson, and
she suggested that we talk about rattle lists

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rattlesnakes in Texas, and this is
something that we do touch on. So

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we get into a lot of different
things, and we especially talk about venom

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too. But I'm so excited for
you all to hear today's guest and about

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the very exciting research project that has
going on right now that you all can

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be a part of. From your
couch at home, wherever you have access

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to the internet, you can be
a part of this research. So,

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without further ado, let's get into
the interview. My name is Emily Taylor.

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My pronouns are she Hers, and
I am from I was born originally

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in California, but I moved around
my whole life, so I don't really

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have a home base, to be
honest, and I'm currently a professor of

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biology at cal Poly in San Luis
Obispo, California. Nice And how did

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you get into reptiles? Were you
always a reptile lover? Did it just

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kind of fall on your plate?
No? I was not one of those

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kids who ran around chasing scaly things. My love for reptiles came a little

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bit later in life. When I
was about twenty years old, I took

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a class at UC Berkeley called Natural
History of the Vertebrates where every Saturday we

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would go out all day either bird
watching or looking for amphibians, or trapping

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rodents, or looking for snakes and
lizards. And that was definitely my favorite

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part. And it was a king
snake that my professor found under a log

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and handed to me. That kind
of really was my gateway animal into patology.

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And after that I got involved in
undergraduate research and then that was it.

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You were just hooked hooked on snakes
ever since twenty five years counting now.

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Nice. So what are some of
the studies that you have done,

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like post undergrad my research is mainly
focused in physiology, so primarily on lizards

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like bluebelly lizards called western fence lizards, and then especially on rattlesnakes, and

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we've done a lot of work ranging
from endochronology, so how hormones impact their

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physiology, to thermal ecology, so
looking at how climate change may impact these

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animals' ability to function thermally, and
then more recently hydric physiology. So we're

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really interested in how drought in the
Western United States could be impacting lizards and

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snakes. But I think one of
the overarching themes of my work is also

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community science and outreach, So we
do a lot of work that involves input

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from the public and people help us
collect our data, which is really exciting.

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Yeah. So have you always I
mean, the focus of today's episode

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is rattlesnakes. Have you grown up
around rattlesnakes. Do you have a lot

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of like personal experience with them outside
of research or is it just like research

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base that you've interacted with them.
I never saw ratlesnake as a kid.

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My first rattlesnake that I saw was
in college when I was in the class

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and we went on a field trip
down to Palm Springs area and I saw

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a most beautiful red diamond rattlesnake crossing
the road and I was just in awe

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of that animal. And so all
my ratl snake experience, which has become

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extremely extensive, has been since then, both studying rattlesnakes for my PhD at

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Arizona State University to now going on
almost twenty years of working with them and

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studying them at cal Poly. But
it hasn't just been research. I have

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a consulting company that helps people coexist
with rattlesnakes peacefully and safely here in the

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central California coast. I teach rattlesnake
safety classes all over California. So I

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do a lot of work on the
kind of human wildlife conflict sides of things

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with rattlesnakes in addition to the research
that I do, and I mean,

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we also have to talk about your
new book that as we're recording this came

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out a few days ago. So
please tell us about your new book.

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Thank you. I'm so excited.
I just had my book launch party yesterday

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and it was awesome. I gave
a talk on the secret lives of snakes

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associated with my book, California Snakes
and How to Find Them. So it

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is a not really a field guide. There are accounts of each species,

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but instead of having just scientific information
and like scale counts and ranges, it's

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more stories about each snake and beautiful
photographs that my colleagues have taken and graciously

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allowed me to use in their book. So it's really good for someone who

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is becoming interested in snake hunting.
So maybe for like a teenager or someone

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visiting the state, or even an
experienced herpetologists will like it because of the

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beautiful photos and the funny stories,
and so it's kind of an ode to

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snakes and how to find them in
the wild. I'll tell you something,

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there's a lot of gatekeeping and herpetology
where someone who's interested in learning how to

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find snakes will ask someone can they
come with them? Or where do they

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go to find them? And people
rightfully won't tell them where to go to

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find snakes because if you give away
your secret spots, they might get ruined

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by somebody, whether it's on purpose
or not. So people have to learn

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on their own. And the book
is just full of how to's, how

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to find snakes by flipping pieces of
tin, by hiking, by road cruising

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at night, a lot of discussion
of the ethics of should we pick up

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snakes or not? And the short
answer is sometimes, but be judicious about

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it. Right. We love to
hold snakes in our hands so that we

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can see them up close, and
that's something I'll never argue with. But

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sometimes if we actually just let them
go about their business, we can see

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really really cool things happening. And
so that's what the book is about.

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And it has counts of over fifty
snakes in California, including some introduced ones,

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but mostly our wonderful native snakes,
and it's just a big celebration of

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snakes. Have you yourself ever been
bitten by a rattlesnake in your line of

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research? Yes, I have.
I was bitten when I was a graduate

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student in the year two thousand,
about two years after I started working with

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ratile snakes, and it was devastating. Not so much medically. I had

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all rail snake bites or emergencies,
but I had a relatively low severity bite

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and I recovered after one night in
ICEEU and fifteen viiles of anti venom,

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which is pretty basic bite. But
my ego has never recovered. I was

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one of the ral snake biologists who
was a female, and of course I

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got bitten right away. I'm just
kidding. My ego has definitely recovered.

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But what happened was it actually really
impacted me because it changed the way that

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I see ratl snakes, you know, and the snake was defending itself I

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was working with in the lab.
It was a bite to the hand.

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I spent all day every day handling
rail snakes to get blood samples and et

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cetera. And I made a mistake. It's always a mistake of the person

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really, because the snake is just
defending itself. What it did was it

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really dictated to me new methods for
snake safety. And so that's why I

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teach snake safety classes to construction workers, military personnel, biologists, you know,

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community members all over California. At
now is how to safely, like

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uber, safely catch that ratle snake
and remove it from because it turns out

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that killing rattlesnakes is actually really dangerous
too. We'll get bitten a lot when

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I try to kill them. So
I have learned now, partly because of

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the mistakes I made when I was
a young young adult, how to be

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exceptionally safe. And that's something I'm
really proud of and that I really enjoy

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spreading around our beautiful state of California. Nice. So, speaking of the

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snakes in California and the snakes in
US as a whole, so can we

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break down the different species of rattlesnakes
we have in the US, and then

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how many of those are venomous?
Are they all venomous? How many venomous

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snakes do we have going on in
California and the US as a whole.

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That was a lot to throw at
you, But I might love talking about

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venomus snakes. This is what I
do, so I'm happy to answer your

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question. So taxonomists argue a lot
about what's the species versus a subspecies,

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So I'll could you kind of a
general answer, there's depending on your philosophy

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of species, there's about twenty or
maybe a few more species of rettlesnakes in

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the United States, since seven of
those occur in California, and then there's

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a few more additional venomous snakes,
So there's a two species of copperhead and

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two species of cotton mouths or water
moccasins, those are the same thing,

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and then a few species of coral
snakes. So those comprise all the venomous

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snakes, maybe about thirty or so
in the United States. Cool. So

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I guess to backtrack a little bit
too to stuff that you're working on,

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because I don't want to get past
this. Can you tell people a little

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bit about the work that you were
just doing before this week that we're recording

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and where people can tune in to
that work that you were doing, Ashley,

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I am so excited. This is
something I have been building up to

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for so long and I just can't
believe that it's happening. So people can

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go to retlcam dot org, which
is the website for project ratlecam, which

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is our major community science project with
live streaming on rattlesnake dens. And so

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we're using this as an opportunity to
learn about what snakes do when you don't

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walk up to them and bother them. Right, Their behavior changes when they're

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scared of people walking up to them. So we can actually study what rattlesnakes

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do in these communal dens with ay
bask out in the front of them.

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The pregnant females will stay there and
they'll have their babies this summer and we

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can watch them taking care of their
babies, which is something really interesting that

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rattlesnakes do. A lot of people
don't know that, and the kind of

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history of this, the brief history
is that we put these cameras, these

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live streaming cameras. The first ever
one's on snake dens outside of a small

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snake den and communal nest. It's
called a rookery in California three years ago.

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I've been watching that ever since.
It streams live to YouTube. People

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who are watching on YouTube can ask
the controller, hey, can you pan

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or zoom that camera in? Because
it's not just a static camera. We

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can control it and we can follow
animals around, so the person really feels

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like they're they're watching and part of
it with the animals. And we just

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recently last week in Colorado went out
and installed a really high tech, advanced

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new live streaming camera system and a
prairie rattlesnake mega den. And a mega

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den is a word that we developed
so we can say it's whatever we want

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to say, but it's defined as
a huge den, one that's full of

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dozens or hundreds or maybe even thousands
of individuals. And so pretty soon here

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we're just optimizing the settings. But
any day now, sometime in mid May

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twenty twenty four, we are going
to make it live on redelcam dot org

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where people can just watch twenty four
hours a day. It has infrared at

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night, so we can see what's
visiting the dens at night, wo we

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can see what the snakes are doing
all the time, and just for a

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sneak peek. We were there last
week for five days. This is in

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high elevation northern Colorado, and we
got snowed out two of the days,

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but on the other three days that
the snakes were out because it was sunny,

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which is crazy, there's like snow
all around them, but they're out

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in the sun. We saw just
piles of rattlesnakes and then even bigger piles

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of western terrestrial garter snakes that hibernate
with the rettlesnakes, and we noticed some

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really interesting social behaviors between the two
species that we haven't really been able to

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see before, so it's just a
hint of what we'll be able to do

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with this live stream. Nice.
Yeah. So I have patrons that wrote

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in questions from patreon dot com,
and one of them was like, I

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don't have a question, but I'm
so excited for this live cam, Like

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this is gonna be great. So
people are into it, and I before

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we start recording, we were talking
about the shirt that I'm wearing, which

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has snakes on it, and I
forgot to tell you I have a rattlesnake

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tattoo that I got specifically, I
mean, I have a whole sleeve of

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animals that people don't really like,
so I got a rattlesnake tattoo because I

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was like, they're great mothers and
there's so many reasons to like them.

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But I feel like the rattlesnakes make
great moms, and like they often have

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young that like follow them around stuff. This is supposed to be like a

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timber rattlesnake, So I'm not sure
if that's true for all rattlesnakes, But

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that's like my little tidbit of like, hey, I know that you might

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not like them, but here's a
few reasons to like them. So I

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also use any excuse I can get
to talk about them. Well, that's

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really awesome and it's intuitive. So
a couple things from that that you'll love.

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Most of the research that has been
done on young following the adults to

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their dens was done on timber rattlesnakes, so you're right on there with the

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species choice. Beautiful tattoo by the
way, thanks. And the second thing

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is that you basically just propose a
hypothesis that telling people that rattlesnakes take care

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of their babies and they had these
social systems can actually change people's minds about

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rattlesnakes. And we tested that hypothesis
in a study. It was just published

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a couple weeks ago in plus one
and sure enough it's true. So people,

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especially women, react really strongly to
that, and it can improve the

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perception of retlesnakes. We also looked
at ecosystem services, so telling people that

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rettle snakes help control rodent populations help
prevent the spread of disease that was actually

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even more effective, but primarily among
like older people and men. So it's

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just an interesting study because people can
read it and find out what the best

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strategies for outreach are it depends on
who you're talking to. Yeah, yeah,

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to customize it, right, which
is why podcasts are great because we

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can lay out so many facts that
will appeal to so many different people.

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That's right. So speaking of that, one of our patrons, Tarn,

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actually had a great question, which
is, what are some common misconceptions about

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rattlesnakes? How much time do you
have? I know that could be the

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whole episode, honestly, yeah,
it really could be. I do a

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talk sometimes called Mythbusting Rettlesnakes, and
it's like a whole hour and a half

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long just going through ralsnake myths because
I like to say that everything you've heard

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about rattlesnakes is not true. There's
usually some sort of tiny grain of truth,

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but then it's blown out of proportion
and the majority of it's not true.

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So the most common myth, which
is an obvious one, is that

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ral snakes want to bite people or
dogs. They don't. They want to

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use their venom for their own prey, and they are only ever dividing biting

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to defend themselves. So the idea
of calling rattlesnakes aggressive is really just a

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misnomer. They are defensive and understanding
that you and your podcast do a good

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job of saying, even though we
say animal attacks, many of these attacks

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are defensive attacks. Of course,
so that's really true of rattlesnakes. They

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don't actually attack people, They defend
themselves. That's one the most widespread myth

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about rattlesnakes is that the babies are
more dangerous than the adults. And this

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myth comes in many forms, everything
from they can't control their venom, or

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they interject more venom, or they're
more likely to bite, or etc.

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Etc. None of that's true.
So baby ral snakes can control their venom,

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they do not inject as much of
it as adults, and the grain

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of truth is that their venom can
be more toxic drop per drop, but

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that's completely irrelevant when the adults inject
so much more venom. So, in

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fact, the snake bite severity scores, which is like a medical conglomerate score

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of how severe the bite was,
is higher for adult snakes than baby snakes.

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I'll do one more myth just in
the nature of time, and that

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one is that there's a myth going
around now that rattlesnakes have started to evolve

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to not rattle or to lose their
rattle comes in both of those flavors,

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and that's not true either. So
the idea here goes that, oh,

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people are going to kill ratle snakes
when they see them. So if a

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rattle snake is less likely to rattle, then it doesn't get killed and it

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passes on the genes for not rattling
to its babies, whereas the ones that

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rattle give themselves a way they get
killed. So that's a very interesting hypothesis,

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really hard to test, but we
have no evidence for it. And

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you get this confirmation bias where someone
has heard that and then they see a

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rat snake that doesn't rattle, which
spoiler, rattlesnakes usually don't rattle. They

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just don't. So if you see
one that doesn't rattle, you're like,

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oh, look see they're losing their
ability to rattle, and it's just not

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true. Yeah, we have no
evidence for that. Rattlesnakes do not want

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to draw attention to themselves. Their
first line of defense is camouflage, and

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they only are going to rattle if
they feel like you've invaded their space.

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So there you have it. Those
are some common myths that we can bust

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right away. Yeah, that was
perfect because the next question was from Robin

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who asked which rattlesnake rattles the loudest, and then I added on to it

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and said, why do they rattle? Yeah, really good question. So

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I don't know the first answer,
which was which one rattles the loudest.

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I don't think anyone has ever studied
that. That would be a really cool

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like Master's thesis. I would suggest
that it's probably gonna be one of the

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bigger rattlesnakes. So the bigger the
snake, the bigger the rattle, and

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the louder the noise. So something
like a Western diamondback rattlesnake and Eastern diamondback

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rattlesnake, timber rattlesnake, those are
the three biggest ones that occur in the

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United States. And rattlesnake that has
a high body temperature and that is very

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very threatened, we'll have a very
loud buzz of a rattle. Tiny little

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rattlesnakes have this like high pitch Z
because of their rattles are so small.

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And it's actually crazy because some older
people who've lost that frequency can't hear them

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rattle. Oh boy, I know
anyway, So rattlesnakes rattle as a warning.

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Rattlesnakes rattle when they are scared,
when they feel threatened because they see

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us or predators or livestock or dogs
that are about to step on them or

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sniffing them as threats. They see
these big, giant, you know,

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warm blooded animals coming at them,
in our case, hairless apes coming at

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them as something that is going to
kill them. And you know, rightfully

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so because oftentimes that does happen.
So the rattle is a sign that the

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rattlesnake is scared. There's actually a
really interesting thing that happened in an outreach

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event that my friend attended recently where
they were talking to kids about rattlesnakes and

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they had a live rattlesnake. It
was rattling away. One of the kids

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in the audience looked at that rattlesnake
very thoughtfully and pensively and said, you

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know, that rattle sound is not
one of forrociousness. It's the sound of

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the rattlesnakes screaming. Oh my god, I get like shivers whenever I hear

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that. Because I think people don't
see it that way. People see it

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as like a sign of aggression,
when really it's just a terrified rattlesnake very

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nicely telling you to back away and
then there'll be no problems. Yeah.

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Oh wow, that is a really
smart little kid. Jeez. I know

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I want like that kid to come
to college and be my student. Yeah

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righth yeah, my gosh. And
I think this is a good point to

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talk about too. So here in
New England we have milk snakes and many

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people don't know that milk snakes are
not venomous, but they do rattle as

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like a psych out for getting you
to stay away from them. So are

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there other snakes out there that mimic
that rattle without having the venom to back

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it up. This is such a
good question actually, because people argue a

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lot about whether we can actually call
that behavior mimicry. So let me explain.

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So, all snakes, or most
snakes will shake their tail when they're

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stressed out, and so this goes
back evolutionary long before the split between all

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these other species of snakes and ratl
snakes. In other words, the shaking

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of the tail when a snake is
stressed is basal, and then the lineage

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that led to rattlesnakes just evolved this
morocca on the end of it that could

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make a lot of noise. So
all these snakes do it when they're stressed.

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So the question is does that mean
it's a mimic. Probably not,

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because it evolved beforehand. At the
same time, there are some species,

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especially ones that look a lot like
rattlesnakes, Like out here are gopher snakes

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that shake their tail in the brush
and also spread their head wide to make

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it look more triangular shaped. They
even have this special tissue inside their throat

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that can cause them to make a
loud, hissing noise that sounds kind of

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like a rattle. So those snakes
are definitely rattlesnake mimics that have benefited over

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evolutionary time by a hawk or maybe
a badger or something seeing them and thinking

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that's not worth it today to a
spicy noodle. Today, I'm gonna avoid

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that spicy meal and maybe go and
so they benefited that way. Unfortunately,

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it also means that they sometimes are
per secuted more by people. People see

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a snake that's shaking its tail,
I think rattlesnake, but really it's the

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presence or absence of the rattle on
the tail that indicates whether it's a rattlesnake

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or not not the shaking of the
tail gotcha very cool. So besides the

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rattle, obviously rattlesnakes have venom to
back up their bite. So can we

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talk a bit about what is the
purpose of venom? And also is venom

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the same in every venomous snake or
does it differ by snake. Sure,

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so venom evolved to kill and maybe
tenderize prey depending on the species. So

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there are many, many species of
venomous snakes throughout the world and a huge

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diversity of venoms. And I will
talk a little bit about just about the

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diversity even within rattlesnakes in the United
States, which have been heavily studied.

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So rattlesnake venom tends to consist primarily
of toxins, multiple different types of proteins

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that will kill prey by, for
example, interfering with blood coagulation or blood

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clotting, so that this mass dose
of venom into something like a mouse causes

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it to kind of bleed to death
immediately. There's also some in some populations

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of ral snakes, there's some neurotoxins
that will interfere with the ability of that

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rodent to be able to breathe,
and it will suffocate lots of different things

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that are in these snake venoms.
Also, ral snake venoms have these myotoxins

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which basically start to kind of break
down muscle. And whether or not that's

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actually helping to kind of pre digest
the food or to prevent this giant meal

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the snake eventually swallows from kind of
rotting inside the belly, we don't really

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know for sure, but we know
that it's all contributing to what they're eating.

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And then secondarily, the venom is
used for defense. So the reason

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that rat snake venom is so toxic, and this is probably something that's true

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for snakes around the world because it's
like way more toxic than it needs to

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be to kill like a lab mouse, is that actually in the wild,

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the prey that have co evolved with
the rettlesnakes and so a lot of prey

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actually have some sort of resistance to
rettlesnake venoms. So we should stop short

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of calling it immune, but we
can say resistance. Sometimes they may survive

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a bite, and so through natural
selection, if you have a prey that

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is largely resistant to the real snake
venom, it will survive a bite,

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and it will pass on its genes
for resistance to its offspring, and then

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through random mutation, a retl snake
develops a more toxic venom, and then

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that rattle snake is able to kill
and get more food and so on.

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So you get this co evolutionary arms
race where the venom gets more toxic as

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the prey becomes more resistant. And
that's why people who did not co evolve

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with rettle snakes and therefore do not
have resistance are suffer so dramatically when they

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are invenomated by a red snake.
And I'm sure're going to talk about snake

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bites to people later, so I'll
hold off on that, but for now.

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Yeah, even within just rettlesnakes in
California as an example, the venom

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varies dramatically among snakes, by species, among populations, among individuals within that

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population, and even within an individual
as it ages, the venom changes dramatically,

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so you can't really make You can
make generalizations, but you can't make

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specific predictions based on any one part
of the venom. It's really cool This

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whole field I've been discussing is called
venom ecology, somewhat new field. I

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know. It's just amazing, isn't
it. I really want to get into

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it. Like I don't have really
any background in hormones or anything like that,

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but like the just studying venom sounds
so cool to me. I would

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love to do that. It's so
neat. It's one of the things that

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I think about sometimes where I'm like, if I could go back to grad

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00:23:22,480 --> 00:23:25,359
school, maybe it would have been
cool to study venom. I'm like,

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no, I like the path I
took, but that would have been really

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00:23:26,799 --> 00:23:30,240
cool. I do have some studies
that we've done with venom. It's mostly

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been with colleagues of mine study venom
where we've collaborated together, but I'm not

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a venom scientist per se myself.
Yeah, we are going to get into

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later in this conversation about like what
you should do if you're bitten by a

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venomous snake, because I know that's
a question so many people have for us.

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So continuing on this little bit,
Kim, one of our patrons asked,

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is there any animal that is immune
to a rattlesnake bite which you kind

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00:23:56,079 --> 00:23:59,200
of just answered, but could you
name some of those animals that are like

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in that arms with rattlesnakes against their
venom. I love this question so much

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because it really shows that we are
just starting to research this. When I

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say we, it's the royal we, I'm not researching what my colleagues are.

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So this has all been really new
science, this field of venom ecology

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to be able to understand that certain
prey species of rettlesnakes and also predators of

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retle snakes who have co evolved with
them for millions of years, have developed

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types of resistance, even in the
sense that we could call it immunity.

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Immunity implies like fully being fully immune, which is probably not usually the case.

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I'm not gonna say never, but
here's a few examples of animals that

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are maybe highly resistant to rattlesnake venom
who could survive a bite. Predators of

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rettlesnakes, like the Californic kingsnake,
are highly resistant to rettlesnake venom. Oh,

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I know, it's so cool.
So there's been just a couple of

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studies showing that, and then we've
all many of us have observed it,

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you know, I've seen rettlesnakes bite
king snakes and they're tolly fine. But

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there's a currently there's a graduate student
who is really tackling this to study howt

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works other predators like possums and potentially
badgers, although I don't think people have

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actually studied whether badgers are resistant because
you have to get a blip sample from

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a badger, which is really not
easy, but anyway, so whereas other

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predators like hawks and owls are not
resistant, and so they will actually just

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rip the head off of the rattlesnake
before they take the body away to eat

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it, showing that they kind of
know where the spicy end is and then

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some prey. So a lot of
the work has been done on California ground

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squirrels and Northern Pacific rattlesnakes showing that
there's a high resistance from Californic ground squirrels.

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Those little ground squirrels are resistant to
rat snake bites. It means that

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an adult might survive a bite,
not always, but it might survive,

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but only to the venoms of the
rattlesnakes from their population. So if you

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inject them with venom from a population
elsewhere in California. They're not resistant to

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00:25:48,960 --> 00:25:52,480
those, so it really shows that
coevolution. Let's see what else can I

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00:25:52,519 --> 00:25:56,359
think of. I know that there's
a number of studies ongoing on other prey

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items like wood rats and other animals, showing that it seems to be really

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00:26:00,359 --> 00:26:07,480
common that there is resistance to the
snakes the snake predator's venom in many many

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prey. It's just a really early
burgeoning area of study. So anyone out

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there who is interested in venom and
who wants to go to grad school should

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consider looking into the labs of some
of these venom scientists because there's so much

400
00:26:18,559 --> 00:26:21,519
left to do. Yeah. Oh, that's so exciting. I love when

401
00:26:21,519 --> 00:26:23,000
I talk to biologists and they're like, actually, no one studied this,

402
00:26:23,000 --> 00:26:26,599
because I'm like, get out there
and do it, please, someone do

403
00:26:26,640 --> 00:26:30,799
it. Yeah, yep. So
I guess a question I have based off

404
00:26:30,839 --> 00:26:34,559
of that is do you know how
anti venom is made? And is anyone

405
00:26:34,559 --> 00:26:38,680
looking at these animals as a way
to like help humans become more resistant to

406
00:26:38,880 --> 00:26:42,480
rattlesnake venom. So I can tell
you the answer to the first question.

407
00:26:42,720 --> 00:26:49,160
The second one is more difficult because
I am not a specialist in the biomedical

408
00:26:49,200 --> 00:26:52,160
side of it. I certainly can
provide some general answers to some of your

409
00:26:52,240 --> 00:26:56,960
questions about the biomedical aspect, but
I'm more of an expert on the rattlesnake

410
00:26:56,960 --> 00:27:03,000
biology itself. So anti venom would
which is just such an amazing, amazing

411
00:27:03,279 --> 00:27:10,480
medicine, is produced by injecting venoms
from snakes that are venomous obviously into large

412
00:27:10,519 --> 00:27:15,000
animals like horses or sheep, and
so don't worry, it's not like they

413
00:27:15,079 --> 00:27:18,279
inject a ton of the venom.
It's a tiny amount of venom. And

414
00:27:18,319 --> 00:27:21,960
then those large animals are not really
affected by that venom because they're huge,

415
00:27:22,039 --> 00:27:26,279
but their immune systems recognize those proteins
and produce antibodies against those and these animals

416
00:27:26,319 --> 00:27:32,559
immune systems are so much more advanced
than any lab technology we currently have at

417
00:27:32,599 --> 00:27:36,799
being able to produce any bodies against
all of those proteins and that complex cocktail

418
00:27:36,839 --> 00:27:40,279
that is a venom. And then
after they have produced as antibodies, the

419
00:27:40,720 --> 00:27:45,079
scientists will draw the blood from them, purify it, and basically do some

420
00:27:45,119 --> 00:27:47,720
extra steps, and then that is
anti venom. And so it's anti venom

421
00:27:47,799 --> 00:27:51,680
is going to be kept usually for
most including rettlesnake anti venoms, which there's

422
00:27:51,720 --> 00:27:56,960
two kinds in the United States available, will be kept refrigerated at hospitals and

423
00:27:56,119 --> 00:28:00,039
is delivered via IV by an er
physician. So this is not something that

424
00:28:00,079 --> 00:28:03,000
people can buy and carry around with
them on a backpacking trip or anything like

425
00:28:03,039 --> 00:28:08,279
that. So it's highly effective.
The red anti venoms in the United States

426
00:28:08,559 --> 00:28:14,279
will cure almost any red snake bite
if the person gets treatment really soon.

427
00:28:14,880 --> 00:28:17,720
And in addition, I should say
they're not just for rattlesnakes. So all

428
00:28:17,839 --> 00:28:21,039
pit vipers in North America, which
includes the rettlesnakes, the copper heads,

429
00:28:21,039 --> 00:28:25,039
and the cotton mouth all of their
venoms are used multiple species of retle snakes,

430
00:28:25,079 --> 00:28:26,640
and then those cotton mouths and copper
heads are all used, and so

431
00:28:26,759 --> 00:28:32,119
the anti venom is effective against all
bites from those organisms. Oh cool,

432
00:28:32,519 --> 00:28:36,079
that's awesome. Yeah. This makes
me think of all the people who have

433
00:28:36,200 --> 00:28:40,079
venomous snakes from other parts of the
world, and I always wonder, like,

434
00:28:40,480 --> 00:28:42,640
if you have I don't know,
like a black mamba or something like

435
00:28:42,680 --> 00:28:45,640
how do you know I don't know
if you know the answer this question,

436
00:28:45,680 --> 00:28:49,119
but like, if you have a
venomous snake from another part of the world.

437
00:28:49,839 --> 00:28:52,480
Have you got to like contact your
hospital and like make sure they have

438
00:28:52,519 --> 00:28:56,240
the anti venom or you just like
gotta hope you don't get bit because there's

439
00:28:56,240 --> 00:29:00,799
nothing similar to that venom around.
Yeah, so in most states, having

440
00:29:00,279 --> 00:29:04,680
exotic venomous snakes is illegal, but
it certainly is legal in some states,

441
00:29:04,680 --> 00:29:10,480
and furthermore, some people just keep
these snakes illegally. Is unfortunately a growing

442
00:29:10,519 --> 00:29:15,039
problem because what usually happens is that, especially with the people who are keeping

443
00:29:15,119 --> 00:29:18,960
them illegally, they're not very likely
to be doing the responsible thing, which

444
00:29:18,000 --> 00:29:22,839
is actually stocking and keeping and maintaining
their own supply of anti venom. That's

445
00:29:22,880 --> 00:29:26,599
what zoos do, and zoos keep
anti venom in case one of their reptile

446
00:29:26,720 --> 00:29:30,559
keepers is in'tvenomated in an accent,
and so the problem arises that if someone

447
00:29:30,640 --> 00:29:34,200
is invenomated by their pet cobra or
black mamba, like you said, then

448
00:29:34,319 --> 00:29:38,519
oftentimes they will go to the hospital
and they'll immediately begin searching the physicians for

449
00:29:38,720 --> 00:29:41,440
anti venom anywhere in the country that
can be flown in for that person,

450
00:29:41,720 --> 00:29:45,160
and of course a lot of times
it comes from the zoos, and then

451
00:29:45,200 --> 00:29:48,599
that puts the zoo keepers at risk
because you're taking the anti venom away from

452
00:29:48,599 --> 00:29:52,880
the responsible parties of the zoos.
So it is a really big problem.

453
00:29:52,000 --> 00:29:56,720
People definitely should not be keeping those
animals unless they have the proper permits and

454
00:29:56,799 --> 00:30:00,440
are following the proper procedures of being
responsible for their own medical care for sure.

455
00:30:00,640 --> 00:30:04,279
Yeah. Hell yeah. So moving
back towards wild snakes, So one

456
00:30:04,279 --> 00:30:07,599
of our patrons, John asked,
I know that venom producing creatures can and

457
00:30:07,640 --> 00:30:11,640
often do limit the amount of venom
injected due to the sheer amount of energy

458
00:30:11,640 --> 00:30:15,480
it takes to produce the venom.
So how often do quote dry bites occur

459
00:30:15,680 --> 00:30:18,440
where no venom is injected. Yeah, this is an awesome question too.

460
00:30:18,960 --> 00:30:25,480
So figuring out how many times dry
bites occur in nature is really hard,

461
00:30:25,599 --> 00:30:27,440
yep, right, because I mean, how do you study that? Just

462
00:30:27,440 --> 00:30:30,640
think about it. So there's been
estimates that have ranged, you know,

463
00:30:32,200 --> 00:30:36,519
from just a few Mainly it's it's
pretty rare a few percent of cases in

464
00:30:36,519 --> 00:30:40,240
predatory bytes because the snake, especially
something like a rel snake, it just

465
00:30:40,279 --> 00:30:41,759
sits there in weights, and it's
so rare for something like a rodent to

466
00:30:41,839 --> 00:30:45,960
run by. They're gonna make sure
they envenomate that rodent, they're not going

467
00:30:45,039 --> 00:30:48,799
to try to, you know,
hedge their bets. So dry bites are

468
00:30:48,799 --> 00:30:52,480
pretty rare in nature for predation.
We think they're a little more common in

469
00:30:52,680 --> 00:30:59,079
defensive bytes, like to people's ankles. So about studies have shown across snakes

470
00:30:59,079 --> 00:31:03,160
that are about ten ten percent of
venomous snake bites in the United States are

471
00:31:03,720 --> 00:31:07,920
dry bites. And there's a lot
of misinformation about what a dry bite is.

472
00:31:07,279 --> 00:31:11,279
A dry bite is defined as the
fangs have penetrated the skin and then

473
00:31:11,400 --> 00:31:15,960
but there's no venom, so literally
you're having no reaction to the venom,

474
00:31:15,000 --> 00:31:18,319
no swelling, no effects on the
blood, nothing. So some people say

475
00:31:18,319 --> 00:31:22,240
that a mild and venomation is a
dry bite without swelling, et cetera,

476
00:31:22,279 --> 00:31:26,200
and that's not true. So one
thing about the idea of the venom is

477
00:31:26,240 --> 00:31:32,160
that there's been one study on how
much energy it costs on rettlesnakes to produce

478
00:31:32,200 --> 00:31:34,599
their venom, and it was fascinating
because on the one hand, they showed

479
00:31:34,640 --> 00:31:41,000
that it actually takes surprisingly little energy
to make that venom. However, however,

480
00:31:41,680 --> 00:31:45,599
your patron is absolutely correct in the
sense that the venom is highly valuable

481
00:31:45,039 --> 00:31:48,640
because if they were to expend all
of their venom, then they wouldn't have

482
00:31:48,720 --> 00:31:52,839
it anymore for a few days,
and that could result in lost opportunity.

483
00:31:52,440 --> 00:31:56,440
So a prey item could come by
and they wouldn't be able to kill it

484
00:31:56,480 --> 00:31:59,720
because they didn't have enough venom,
and then that would be a major energetic

485
00:31:59,720 --> 00:32:04,559
cost. Yeah. Right, So
rattlesnakes and other snakes do meter their venom.

486
00:32:05,200 --> 00:32:07,359
They bite, and they only inject
part of their venom. This is

487
00:32:07,400 --> 00:32:09,759
again true of baby rattlesnakes too,
and if they were to bite over and

488
00:32:09,759 --> 00:32:14,559
over again in succession, then usually
each bite would have less and less and

489
00:32:14,599 --> 00:32:16,759
less venom and it would kind of
peter down to being a very small amount.

490
00:32:16,920 --> 00:32:20,640
But the only way to have a
rat snake completely get rid of all

491
00:32:20,680 --> 00:32:22,920
of its venom is when people are
milking them and they kind of squeeze the

492
00:32:23,000 --> 00:32:28,400
venom glands and really just get it
all out naturally, That probably wouldn't quite

493
00:32:28,440 --> 00:32:30,519
happen, and then it just takes
a couple of weeks for the snake to

494
00:32:30,559 --> 00:32:35,440
regenerate full venom stores after that.
Yeah, and how often did they have

495
00:32:35,519 --> 00:32:37,440
amas? This probably depends on those
species, but like how often did they

496
00:32:37,480 --> 00:32:43,359
have to eat. You're gonna be
shocked by this answer. So it definitely

497
00:32:43,359 --> 00:32:45,920
depends on species. But when you're
looking at rattlesnakes, which are low energy

498
00:32:45,920 --> 00:32:50,039
specialists. This is actually a study
that one of my graduate students, Haley

499
00:32:50,079 --> 00:32:53,240
Krow, did for her master's thesis
at cal Poly. She looked at these

500
00:32:53,279 --> 00:33:00,160
rattlesnakes with their incredibly low metabolic rates
and used data from temperature data logger that

501
00:33:00,160 --> 00:33:05,200
we had in rattlesnakes here in central
California and their metabolic rates based on their

502
00:33:05,240 --> 00:33:07,559
mass and to just plug and shrug, you can get this estimate of how

503
00:33:07,640 --> 00:33:09,640
much they need. And we did
it in terms of California ground squirrels,

504
00:33:10,039 --> 00:33:14,920
so their main prey. We had
to estimate how many calories were in a

505
00:33:14,920 --> 00:33:17,519
California ground squirrel. It was a
fun, fun story, never mind on

506
00:33:17,559 --> 00:33:22,720
that. And then so the crazy
answer is that it's about one per year.

507
00:33:23,279 --> 00:33:27,519
Ground squirrel is all they need.
Now there's a caveat to that,

508
00:33:27,559 --> 00:33:30,400
because that's just to fuel their basal
metabolism. You know, if rattlesnakes are

509
00:33:30,400 --> 00:33:34,680
crawling around a lot, or especially
female rattlesnakes that need to make babies,

510
00:33:34,680 --> 00:33:38,279
which is incredibly energetically expensive. That
costs a lot more, but just a

511
00:33:38,279 --> 00:33:42,279
really small amount is all they need. Now they will eat more, right,

512
00:33:42,319 --> 00:33:45,160
and they'll get fatter and they'll grow. But right now, this summer,

513
00:33:45,200 --> 00:33:49,279
we're actually doing an interdisciplinary study with
some statistics students and faculties at cal

514
00:33:49,319 --> 00:33:53,720
Poly where we're going to be modeling
rattlesnake energetic needs through the entire United States,

515
00:33:53,799 --> 00:33:57,880
using data sets from all of my
colleagues, and looking at how climate

516
00:33:57,960 --> 00:34:00,519
change will impact rattlesnake energy budget.
It's which I'm really excited about. That's

517
00:34:00,559 --> 00:34:05,759
so exciting. It's great that there's
so much good research to dude being done.

518
00:34:05,839 --> 00:34:07,679
That's awesome. It's time for a
quick ad break, but once we

519
00:34:07,719 --> 00:34:13,360
come back, we'll talk more about
rattlesnakes, doctor Taylor. Okay, So,

520
00:34:13,559 --> 00:34:16,599
Macie, one of our patrons asked, how do rattlesnake bites affect animals,

521
00:34:16,679 --> 00:34:22,199
more specifically dogs? And I didn't
know this existed, but what does

522
00:34:22,199 --> 00:34:28,320
the rattlesnake vaccine do for dogs?
Well, rattlesnake bites to dogs and also

523
00:34:28,480 --> 00:34:32,599
cats and livestock, especially small livestock. It is a medical emergency. And

524
00:34:32,639 --> 00:34:37,960
that's because just like us humans.
You know, dogs and cats did not

525
00:34:37,440 --> 00:34:43,719
evolve with rattlesnakes. I mean sometimes
they might actually have some level of partial

526
00:34:43,719 --> 00:34:46,320
resistance because of their ancestry, you
know, with like wolves and wildcats that

527
00:34:46,400 --> 00:34:50,840
may have evolved eating ratl snakes,
but they're definitely not resistant. And there's

528
00:34:50,840 --> 00:34:53,480
a lot of deaths due to snake
bite. A lot more dogs get bit

529
00:34:53,519 --> 00:34:58,519
in the United States every year by
rattlesnakes than people do. Something about one

530
00:34:58,559 --> 00:35:01,360
thousand or so rattlesnake bites out of
eight thousand total venomous snake bites in the

531
00:35:01,440 --> 00:35:07,079
United States to people, and there's
probably like thirty thousand at least railshack bights

532
00:35:07,360 --> 00:35:09,400
to dogs. Yeah, rail snakes
are copper heads, cotton mouth I should

533
00:35:09,400 --> 00:35:14,360
say. Lots of dogs are bitten, wow, and so they swell up.

534
00:35:14,360 --> 00:35:16,519
It's incredibly painful. People should if
their dog gets bitten, they should

535
00:35:16,559 --> 00:35:21,320
immediately remove the collar to avoid problems
with swelling around the neck, and they

536
00:35:21,320 --> 00:35:24,559
need to rush the dog to the
emergency veterinarian who has anti venom available just

537
00:35:25,199 --> 00:35:28,559
like our just like us. It's
a different brand, but it's the same

538
00:35:28,599 --> 00:35:30,840
sort of thing, and the anti
venom is pretty effective, so most dogs

539
00:35:30,840 --> 00:35:34,880
who can get treatment right away,
their lives can be saved. But I

540
00:35:34,920 --> 00:35:39,599
will say that the treatment has changed
a lot in recent years based on studies

541
00:35:39,639 --> 00:35:43,559
that people have done. So there's
been actual studies showing what works and what

542
00:35:43,559 --> 00:35:46,519
doesn't work in terms of treating dogs
and cats, and a lot of veterinarians

543
00:35:46,559 --> 00:35:51,639
out there went to school before some
of these studies were done, and so

544
00:35:51,719 --> 00:35:53,480
some of them may actually not know
some of the current methods. And we

545
00:35:53,519 --> 00:35:58,840
see that there's a lot of drugs
that are given, like steroids and benadryl,

546
00:35:58,840 --> 00:36:01,639
which are actually not appropriate it for
snake bite because the swelling that happens

547
00:36:01,800 --> 00:36:07,960
for snake bite is not mediated via
histamine for example, that venadryl would help.

548
00:36:07,559 --> 00:36:12,440
And so in addition, there's this
vaccine which there's no evidence that it

549
00:36:12,480 --> 00:36:15,599
works, so people should not get
the real snake vaccine. There's actually evidence

550
00:36:15,639 --> 00:36:20,199
that it can actually sensitize your dog
so that if it did get bitten after

551
00:36:20,199 --> 00:36:22,280
it had the vaccine, they can
have an allergic reaction. So all this

552
00:36:22,360 --> 00:36:28,039
information that I just told you I
learned from the nonprofit National Snake Bite Support

553
00:36:28,360 --> 00:36:32,519
and I would strongly recommend that you're
listeners who are interested in snake bite prevention,

554
00:36:32,639 --> 00:36:37,199
treatment, et cetera. Join the
Facebook group called National Snake Bite Support

555
00:36:37,400 --> 00:36:40,239
because it's not just any old Facebook
group, it's a nonprofit. And the

556
00:36:40,559 --> 00:36:44,599
reason we're on Facebook is because they
can link easily to people. So if

557
00:36:44,639 --> 00:36:45,840
someone is bitten, or if their
dog is bitten, they can post on

558
00:36:45,880 --> 00:36:51,280
there and right away be connected with
these medical or veterinary toxicologists who will kind

559
00:36:51,280 --> 00:36:52,960
of cut through the bs and say
this is exactly what you should and shouldn't

560
00:36:53,000 --> 00:36:57,440
do, which is basically, don't
do anything. Don't do anything. Don't

561
00:36:57,440 --> 00:37:00,119
do it. No tourniqueits no cutting
and sucking, nothing, just go to

562
00:37:01,440 --> 00:37:04,840
doctor. I'm getting ahead of myself. This was supposed to be a pets

563
00:37:04,840 --> 00:37:07,519
and I'm talking about people. That's
okay, So I will hold off and

564
00:37:07,639 --> 00:37:10,159
we can talk about that when the
time comes. Perfect. Yeah, we

565
00:37:10,199 --> 00:37:14,039
have a little bit more in animals. So Patty asked, I've heard that

566
00:37:14,079 --> 00:37:16,920
when some venomous snakes bite an animal
and then that animal dies, if another

567
00:37:16,960 --> 00:37:21,280
animal comes to scavenge on the carcass, they may also get affected by the

568
00:37:21,360 --> 00:37:23,960
venom. Is that true and is
it true of rattlesnakes. Okay, So

569
00:37:24,000 --> 00:37:28,239
I don't know the answer to this
question. I have never heard of that,

570
00:37:28,519 --> 00:37:31,119
and so I don't want to say
it's not true because I could be

571
00:37:31,159 --> 00:37:35,079
wrong. I do want to say
that to me, at least, when

572
00:37:35,119 --> 00:37:37,920
it comes to rattlesnakes, it sounds
like it sounds improbable, and I will

573
00:37:37,920 --> 00:37:42,360
say I'll explain my reasoning at least, and then we can look and see

574
00:37:42,400 --> 00:37:45,159
if that's true other snakes too.
So a venom has to be injected,

575
00:37:45,559 --> 00:37:52,159
whereas a poison has to be ingested. And this venoms are made of proteins

576
00:37:52,199 --> 00:37:54,360
that our stomach would break down,
or an animal stomach would break down.

577
00:37:54,719 --> 00:37:59,000
So if let's say that an animal
gets injected with venom and it dies,

578
00:37:59,079 --> 00:38:00,679
and before the rattle snake eat it, some hot comes and picks up the

579
00:38:00,679 --> 00:38:05,440
mouse and eats it. That mouse
goes into its stomach where those venom proteins

580
00:38:05,480 --> 00:38:08,440
get digested. So, in other
words, the venom being ingested can't hurt

581
00:38:08,840 --> 00:38:12,880
the prey. It would have to
be injected into the bloodstream. You can't

582
00:38:12,920 --> 00:38:15,599
hurt the predator. Sorry, So
that's why I think it could be improbable.

583
00:38:15,639 --> 00:38:16,840
Now, whether there's an exception to
this. I don't know, so

584
00:38:16,880 --> 00:38:21,360
I think it'd be really interesting to
look into that. Yeah, so John

585
00:38:21,519 --> 00:38:23,440
once again asked, is it often
that animals as big as like a bison

586
00:38:23,760 --> 00:38:28,079
or something like a grizzly might get
killed by in venomation? So obviously they

587
00:38:28,079 --> 00:38:31,440
wouldn't be the likely target for being
eaten by a snake, but like if

588
00:38:31,440 --> 00:38:35,519
they were to get bitten, we
were talking kind of about like horses and

589
00:38:35,519 --> 00:38:37,519
stuff like that. They're so big, But could venom kill something like a

590
00:38:37,519 --> 00:38:40,400
bison or a grizzly. This is
a good, great question. There's not

591
00:38:40,400 --> 00:38:43,840
a lot of data on it,
again because you know, you can't it's

592
00:38:43,920 --> 00:38:46,400
unethical. You can't go out and
just inject these animals with venom to see

593
00:38:46,440 --> 00:38:50,599
what happens. So a lot of
it is based on just observations over the

594
00:38:50,639 --> 00:38:53,800
past, which suggests that no,
it's not very likely that these large animals

595
00:38:53,840 --> 00:38:58,800
would die from a snake bite.
It's probably true that bison were regularly and

596
00:38:58,880 --> 00:39:02,559
venomated right as they walked through the
grasslands of North America. There's probably ral

597
00:39:02,639 --> 00:39:07,480
snakes sitting there. But these animals
are so large that the venom probably had

598
00:39:07,480 --> 00:39:10,760
this solution effect. Even in a
horse, by the way, and this

599
00:39:10,840 --> 00:39:15,000
is a very broad generalization. If
a horse is bitten on its belly or

600
00:39:15,000 --> 00:39:17,920
maybe its leg or something like that, it's gonna swell and be painful,

601
00:39:17,920 --> 00:39:22,599
but the horse will very very likely
survive that. The problems with horses come

602
00:39:22,880 --> 00:39:25,199
when the horse is bitten on the
nose, like if they're sniffing or grazing

603
00:39:25,239 --> 00:39:30,119
and they're bitten, and that's because
the swelling will block the horse's nostrils,

604
00:39:30,400 --> 00:39:34,199
and horses cannot breathe through their mouths, so if their nostrils are blocked,

605
00:39:34,320 --> 00:39:37,199
then they suffocate. So treatment for
a snake bite and a horse is literally

606
00:39:37,199 --> 00:39:40,719
to shove a little hose up its
nostril to prop it open so that it

607
00:39:40,760 --> 00:39:45,760
continued to breathe until the venom exits
the body. So yeah, I think

608
00:39:45,800 --> 00:39:50,360
that in venomations to large animals may
happen, for example, when the snake

609
00:39:50,440 --> 00:39:52,719
is defending itself from trying to be
being eaten by a mountain lion or bear,

610
00:39:53,400 --> 00:39:57,440
or when it's being stepped on by
a large hooved animal, but they

611
00:39:57,480 --> 00:40:00,679
probably just swell up and then get
over because of their large size and the

612
00:40:00,679 --> 00:40:05,360
dilution of the venom. Yeah.
Well, then let's just get right into

613
00:40:05,440 --> 00:40:07,880
what happens when people get bit So, if you're a person and you get

614
00:40:07,880 --> 00:40:12,679
bit by a snake, what's the
thing to do. There's so much misinformation

615
00:40:12,800 --> 00:40:16,159
out there, and there's developing misinformation, and there's debunked misinformation. So the

616
00:40:16,199 --> 00:40:20,800
good news is that all of your
listeners really just need to remember that they

617
00:40:20,960 --> 00:40:23,639
just need to call name on one
if someone is bitten by a retl snake.

618
00:40:23,880 --> 00:40:28,760
On the hand, they should take
off any rings or watches or constructive

619
00:40:28,840 --> 00:40:31,840
jewelry that could become a problem when
the swelling commences, and then they should

620
00:40:31,880 --> 00:40:36,599
call name on one and get an
ambulance or even a metavac helicopter if they're

621
00:40:36,639 --> 00:40:39,639
out somewhere far away, to get
to the hospital right Away's and that's it.

622
00:40:39,800 --> 00:40:45,320
That's literally it for rattlesnake bites.
Specifically, first aid on the way

623
00:40:45,360 --> 00:40:50,000
to the hospital, the limb should
be kept at heart level, not below

624
00:40:50,039 --> 00:40:53,679
heart level like used to be recommended. At heart level, and then scientists

625
00:40:53,719 --> 00:40:59,599
recommend that after being treated with anti
venom and during recovery, that the limb

626
00:40:59,599 --> 00:41:05,400
be to reduce the swelling because that
seems to benefit the outcomes of these bites.

627
00:41:05,800 --> 00:41:08,679
But in terms of just getting medical
care, the only medical care is

628
00:41:08,719 --> 00:41:15,599
anti venom and the person should never
consider things they may have heard like tourniquets

629
00:41:15,159 --> 00:41:22,000
or cutting and sucking or snake bite
suction kits. Throw those in the garbage.

630
00:41:22,000 --> 00:41:24,320
They don't work, they make it
worse, they cause inflammation. And

631
00:41:24,320 --> 00:41:28,519
then there's a new one that is
like developing and going around that I'm really

632
00:41:28,519 --> 00:41:30,760
trying to get out ahead of and
say no, this is not true,

633
00:41:30,119 --> 00:41:37,079
which is electric shock. What So
people now believe that if they're envenomated that

634
00:41:37,159 --> 00:41:43,000
they can either tase themselves or worse, hook themselves up to their car battery

635
00:41:43,039 --> 00:41:45,960
and how that somehow would stop the
venom. But it doesn't work. There's

636
00:41:46,000 --> 00:41:49,639
a case study, a medical case
study of someone who has bit in the

637
00:41:49,639 --> 00:41:52,760
face by a retl snake. He
was teasing or trying to kiss his pet

638
00:41:52,800 --> 00:41:58,800
retal snake and then he had his
friend warning cringe. He had his friend

639
00:41:58,960 --> 00:42:04,199
attached his lip via jumper cables to
the car and turned on the car to

640
00:42:04,280 --> 00:42:07,119
shock him, and so he went
to the hospital with not only a severe

641
00:42:07,119 --> 00:42:10,039
and venomation to the face, but
also with severe burns. So don't do

642
00:42:10,159 --> 00:42:15,199
any of those things just go to
the hospital. Yeah, I mean,

643
00:42:15,199 --> 00:42:17,320
in the time it would take you
to hook up your car to your lip,

644
00:42:17,400 --> 00:42:21,199
I think you could call nine one
one and probably get the ambulance there

645
00:42:21,199 --> 00:42:23,239
faster than trying something out like that. I think so too, and I

646
00:42:23,280 --> 00:42:25,559
think it's worth mentioning. I mean, you know, we make fun of

647
00:42:25,559 --> 00:42:30,400
these sort of situations, but honestly, a rattlesnake of venomation is a very

648
00:42:30,440 --> 00:42:35,199
serious medical problem, and people panic
and people freak out when it happens,

649
00:42:35,400 --> 00:42:38,000
and it's especially scary when it happens, which it so often does out in

650
00:42:38,119 --> 00:42:40,280
nature. You know, someone steps
on them on a trail and then they're

651
00:42:40,280 --> 00:42:43,920
panicking what should I do? Or
if they don't have cell service, what

652
00:42:43,960 --> 00:42:45,960
do I do? And by the
way, the answer to that is if

653
00:42:46,039 --> 00:42:51,039
you don't have cell service, many
of the newer cell phones smartphones actually have

654
00:42:51,079 --> 00:42:53,559
an SOS built in, so you
can learn how to use that before you

655
00:42:53,639 --> 00:42:55,480
go out in the wild, so
that anywhere you are, even if you

656
00:42:55,519 --> 00:43:00,000
don't have a cell signal, you
can send this SOS message out to get

657
00:43:00,079 --> 00:43:04,800
help. But if you don't have
that, then there are satellite GPSS that

658
00:43:04,840 --> 00:43:07,440
you can like a spot GPS that
you can keep with you to be able

659
00:43:07,480 --> 00:43:10,480
to get that message out, because
if you're bitten far from a trailhead in

660
00:43:10,519 --> 00:43:13,960
a remote area, you're probably not
gonna be able to make it back on

661
00:43:14,000 --> 00:43:16,400
your own, either due to the
pain or the disorientation that can come from

662
00:43:16,480 --> 00:43:20,599
snake bite. And it's really key
that people just get to the hospital as

663
00:43:20,639 --> 00:43:23,639
quick as possible redl Snake bites don't
result in the whole like being uc on

664
00:43:23,679 --> 00:43:27,199
TV where someone is bitten and they
take two steps and then they fall over

665
00:43:27,239 --> 00:43:30,039
dead. That's not how it works. It would be a long, slow

666
00:43:30,159 --> 00:43:34,719
process that could lead to death if
not treated, or could lead to more

667
00:43:34,840 --> 00:43:40,360
likely somebody recovering but undergoing severe severe
pain and maybe even disability from the effects

668
00:43:40,360 --> 00:43:44,639
of the venom on the tissue of
the venomated finger, for example, things

669
00:43:44,679 --> 00:43:47,880
like amputation or just not full function
gain. So getting to the hospital really

670
00:43:47,960 --> 00:43:52,199
quickly is more just to prevent any
of those things happening. The vast majority

671
00:43:52,199 --> 00:43:55,079
of people who get to the hospital
and get anti venom right away, like

672
00:43:55,239 --> 00:44:00,440
for example, within a few hours, fully recover. Wow. That's awesome.

673
00:44:00,599 --> 00:44:01,639
Yeah, I mean, I guess
to break it down a little bit,

674
00:44:01,679 --> 00:44:06,000
how many people are bitten in the
US by venomous snakes each year,

675
00:44:06,000 --> 00:44:09,280
and then how many people die from
those bites. There's around eight thousand venomous

676
00:44:09,280 --> 00:44:13,000
snake bites per year in the United
States, about a thousand of those are

677
00:44:13,000 --> 00:44:16,280
from rettlesnakes, and about five people
on average it usually range from about three

678
00:44:16,320 --> 00:44:21,679
to twelve every year die and most
of those are from rattlesnakes, not copperheads,

679
00:44:21,679 --> 00:44:23,920
so that the most severe bites are
from rel snakes. It's the least

680
00:44:23,960 --> 00:44:28,960
severe, although still medical emergencies are
from copperheads, which are over in the

681
00:44:29,000 --> 00:44:32,119
eastern US and Midwest. And I
should say that of those five people,

682
00:44:34,000 --> 00:44:38,320
usually several of them at least didn't
get medical care so for various reasons.

683
00:44:38,360 --> 00:44:42,079
Either they were too far away from
it to get it in time, or

684
00:44:42,119 --> 00:44:46,079
they refused it for religious or financial
or other reasons, or you know,

685
00:44:46,079 --> 00:44:50,599
again, there's just other reasons.
And so with this anti venom, it's

686
00:44:50,639 --> 00:44:52,679
just very very rare somebody would die. Yeah, that's great to hear,

687
00:44:52,920 --> 00:44:54,880
you know, I want to say
something about that. Actually, this is

688
00:44:54,880 --> 00:44:58,920
actually really important. I think that
you know your listeners will like this.

689
00:44:59,440 --> 00:45:02,840
So anti venom was developed in the
nineteen fifties, and so nowadays that we

690
00:45:02,920 --> 00:45:07,719
have this rattlesnake bite is seldom fatal. But I want you to everyone to

691
00:45:07,760 --> 00:45:10,880
think about, like their grandparents before
the fifties, or great grandparents or whatever,

692
00:45:12,639 --> 00:45:15,880
snake bite was a very different threat
back then. Yeah, And so

693
00:45:15,559 --> 00:45:20,559
when you think about people's attitudes towards
snakes and how much they hate rattlesnakes or

694
00:45:20,599 --> 00:45:24,239
they're scared of them, it's still
very much based on that reality that is

695
00:45:24,280 --> 00:45:30,079
now passed because the fear of snakes
is culturally transmitted by a families and via

696
00:45:30,079 --> 00:45:32,920
the media. So things are changing
now because of that. Rattlesnakes are becoming

697
00:45:32,920 --> 00:45:37,360
recognized as being really important members of
ecosystems and they are no longer as big

698
00:45:37,400 --> 00:45:42,599
of a threat as they once were. And so for that reason, rattlesnakes

699
00:45:42,599 --> 00:45:45,000
have kind of gotten a rebrand recently, something that I'm very passionate about.

700
00:45:45,039 --> 00:45:47,360
So I wanted to be sure to
mention that everyone kind of think, if

701
00:45:47,400 --> 00:45:51,639
you're scared of snakes, where did
that come from? It came from these

702
00:45:51,719 --> 00:45:55,960
fears that from your parents, grandparents, whatever, that have now changed fundamentally

703
00:45:57,039 --> 00:46:00,880
as you learn the reality. Yeah, thank you for saying that because so

704
00:46:00,119 --> 00:46:04,280
on my shirt is a corn snake, because I have a corn snake.

705
00:46:04,800 --> 00:46:07,320
And my grandma, who was born
in the thirties, is like, I

706
00:46:07,360 --> 00:46:10,599
am not coming over your house until
you do not have a snake because she's

707
00:46:10,599 --> 00:46:14,480
so afraid of them. And I've
never been able to understand because she's from

708
00:46:14,599 --> 00:46:16,639
Maine, and I'm like, you
don't really have venomous snakes that you are

709
00:46:16,679 --> 00:46:20,480
walking around near. But that makes
a lot of sense if you know,

710
00:46:20,639 --> 00:46:23,000
back in the thirties that was a
thing that you probably wouldn't be able to

711
00:46:23,039 --> 00:46:28,039
get treatment for. You'd have to
walk like fourteen miles to a hospital to

712
00:46:28,079 --> 00:46:30,119
try to get some help for it. So it makes a lot of sense,

713
00:46:30,360 --> 00:46:34,039
definitely, all right. So John
asked would it be in one's best

714
00:46:34,039 --> 00:46:37,079
interest to use something like a walking
stick to poke ahead of them on a

715
00:46:37,119 --> 00:46:39,440
trail when in rattlesnake country? So
he was thinking along the lines of,

716
00:46:39,480 --> 00:46:43,840
like you were about to step on
a rattlesnake, is it more likely to

717
00:46:43,880 --> 00:46:47,199
strike out at the stick rather than
you if it was in your path and

718
00:46:47,239 --> 00:46:52,199
you didn't see it. So this
is really complicated questions like this. People

719
00:46:52,280 --> 00:46:54,480
hate my answers. Because I'm a
scientist, so I do the whole it

720
00:46:54,519 --> 00:47:00,639
dependens thing, yep. And that's
because rattlesnakes all have different personalities, they

721
00:47:00,199 --> 00:47:06,199
react differently to threats and to stimulus. They're unpredictable in terms of their defensive

722
00:47:06,199 --> 00:47:08,559
behavior. So there's no rules when
it comes to retl snake. So I'm

723
00:47:08,559 --> 00:47:14,360
going to tell this is your patron
here my opinion, which is that no,

724
00:47:14,519 --> 00:47:16,840
it's not worth doing that. Here's
why. First of all, most

725
00:47:16,880 --> 00:47:22,119
popular trails are clear and you can
see in front of you. And so

726
00:47:22,320 --> 00:47:25,719
if you are paying attention to your
surroundings and wearing proper footwear, which means

727
00:47:27,360 --> 00:47:30,039
full solid leather hiking boots that cover
your ankles and feet, so none of

728
00:47:30,079 --> 00:47:34,880
these breathable mesh panels that prevent your
feet be from becoming sweaty, deal with

729
00:47:34,880 --> 00:47:37,840
the sweaty feet and wear prepper footwear, then you should be fine. Right,

730
00:47:37,880 --> 00:47:42,480
you should be completely fine. Situational
awareness, those types of things,

731
00:47:42,800 --> 00:47:45,480
and the other reason that I wouldn't
say, well, a couple other reasons.

732
00:47:45,719 --> 00:47:49,199
It just sounds like a hassle to
have like a stick in front of

733
00:47:49,199 --> 00:47:51,239
you the whole time you're hiking,
Like that would ruin it for me.

734
00:47:51,880 --> 00:47:55,119
But the other thing about it is
that sometimes retel snakes are sitting in the

735
00:47:55,119 --> 00:47:58,920
middle of a trail, and if
you go buy them, they don't even

736
00:47:58,920 --> 00:48:01,119
budge might step right over them.
I want to see you. But if

737
00:48:01,199 --> 00:48:05,360
enough people step over them, or
if they're harassed by a stick first,

738
00:48:05,639 --> 00:48:07,639
they get aroused by that, they're
stressed out, and then the foot comes

739
00:48:07,639 --> 00:48:10,039
by them, then they might be
more likely to strike. So in other

740
00:48:10,039 --> 00:48:15,280
words, there have been some stories
that rattlesnakes that are not seen by somebody

741
00:48:15,400 --> 00:48:17,039
in a group. The first person
steps over them, the rattle snake is

742
00:48:17,079 --> 00:48:20,239
like, hey, what's that.
The second person steps over them, the

743
00:48:20,239 --> 00:48:22,639
rettle snake starts to get freaked out. The third person steps over them,

744
00:48:22,639 --> 00:48:25,039
and it strikes. So I'm not
saying that's a rule. I'm just saying

745
00:48:25,079 --> 00:48:29,800
that's a scenario that could happen.
I'm just a big advocate of proper footwear.

746
00:48:30,320 --> 00:48:32,159
The only scenario where I would say
that it might be worthwhile to be

747
00:48:32,239 --> 00:48:36,280
poking around in the brush poking out
with a stick is in a tall brush.

748
00:48:36,519 --> 00:48:38,360
So if you're clearing out brush in
your backyard, you may want to

749
00:48:38,360 --> 00:48:43,039
poke around heavily in there to see
if you hear something rattling before you get

750
00:48:43,039 --> 00:48:45,599
your hands in there to start moving
it around. Yeah, and I would

751
00:48:45,599 --> 00:48:49,079
add onto that too, like if
John is curious like what to do while

752
00:48:49,079 --> 00:48:52,320
you're hiking, don't listen, don't
have headphones in or have music blaring so

753
00:48:52,360 --> 00:48:55,320
that you can hear things like if
it was to rattle, so that you

754
00:48:55,320 --> 00:49:00,639
can hear the rattle. So it's
a good warning side exactly. He that's

755
00:49:00,679 --> 00:49:04,440
a great segue into his next question, which is what is the best method

756
00:49:04,559 --> 00:49:07,280
to deter rettle snakes from your property
without causing harm to them? And then

757
00:49:07,480 --> 00:49:09,960
if you do have one on your
property and you would like to remove it,

758
00:49:10,000 --> 00:49:15,679
how can you safely do that?
On my website Centralcoassnakeservices dot com,

759
00:49:15,719 --> 00:49:19,840
there's a press and links section that
has a bunch of articles I've written and

760
00:49:20,079 --> 00:49:24,159
YouTube presentations I've given recordings of those
that talks about those exact same things,

761
00:49:24,159 --> 00:49:28,480
those exact things. So I invite
people to go look at those and some

762
00:49:28,599 --> 00:49:31,280
tips that I can give you right
now is that you can make your yard

763
00:49:31,559 --> 00:49:36,039
less attractive to rettlesnakes by removing a
lot of the things that they like,

764
00:49:36,440 --> 00:49:39,480
which are three things. Water is
one thing, so if you have leaky

765
00:49:39,480 --> 00:49:45,280
faucets or bird baths pools, those
will all attract rettlesnakes. Food, so

766
00:49:45,400 --> 00:49:49,519
rodents is another thing. Things like
bird feeders that have seeds that attract rodents,

767
00:49:49,960 --> 00:49:52,800
or woodpiles or other things that attract
rodents will also attract reil snakes.

768
00:49:52,960 --> 00:49:55,119
And then the third thing, which
is by far the most important, is

769
00:49:55,119 --> 00:49:59,840
what I call low shade, so
low to the ground shade, not you

770
00:49:59,840 --> 00:50:01,480
know, shade from a big tree, but something on the ground that's providing

771
00:50:01,519 --> 00:50:07,400
a hiding spot for those snakes.
This includes woodpiles, pieces of tin,

772
00:50:07,599 --> 00:50:09,760
or boards laying around. By the
way, those of us who like snakes,

773
00:50:09,760 --> 00:50:14,679
we put out skin or boards to
attract snakes, so you definitely want

774
00:50:14,719 --> 00:50:16,880
to get rid of those if you
don't want snakes. Also, having crawl

775
00:50:16,880 --> 00:50:22,119
space under your house that there's holes
that rodent snake down into their squirrel burrows,

776
00:50:22,119 --> 00:50:25,880
all those things will attract rattlesnakes.
So keeping those things under control are

777
00:50:25,920 --> 00:50:30,039
going to help you a lot.
Another thing is the landscaping, So big

778
00:50:30,079 --> 00:50:34,920
bushes that provide a lot of shade
for rettlesnakes are going to be places where

779
00:50:34,920 --> 00:50:37,239
they can hide, and people who
live in rel snake country, we recommend

780
00:50:37,280 --> 00:50:40,000
that they consider to have tall,
spindly plants that don't cast a lot of

781
00:50:40,039 --> 00:50:45,000
shade instead of like big bushes like
lantana or rosemary or other classical retal snake

782
00:50:45,039 --> 00:50:51,199
attracting plants. People who live in
rel snake country who have severe problems with

783
00:50:51,280 --> 00:50:53,800
rattlesnakes coming into their yards can also
build a fence around their yard that keeps

784
00:50:53,880 --> 00:50:57,840
rat snakes out. My company is
one of many that does this around the

785
00:50:57,840 --> 00:51:01,079
country, and it's called rettlesnake exclusion
fencing or redl snakeproof fencing, and it

786
00:51:01,079 --> 00:51:05,760
can be added to any existing fence
to keep redlesnakes out. What was the

787
00:51:05,760 --> 00:51:07,559
second part of his question, Yeah, he also is curious, like,

788
00:51:07,599 --> 00:51:12,039
what is the best method to remove
them from your yard if you do find

789
00:51:12,079 --> 00:51:15,800
one. Yeah, great question.
So the approved method by most states in

790
00:51:15,840 --> 00:51:20,840
the United States is a relocation of
retel snakes, which means that the ratle

791
00:51:20,880 --> 00:51:23,199
snake needs to be captured and relocated
a short distance away, which is usually

792
00:51:23,199 --> 00:51:28,039
defined as about a quarter mile to
a half mile away into like a wilderness

793
00:51:28,039 --> 00:51:30,880
area. Most people who get snakes
in their yards are going to be living

794
00:51:30,920 --> 00:51:34,199
near some type of wilderness area that
the snake came from. So usually it's

795
00:51:34,239 --> 00:51:36,800
pretty easy to do that. Now
it might not be so easy for people

796
00:51:36,800 --> 00:51:38,840
to catch the retl snake, right. That's sometimes a scary thing for people.

797
00:51:39,280 --> 00:51:43,639
So people who are worried about snakes
in their yards or who find one,

798
00:51:43,760 --> 00:51:47,559
they can find help by going to
a website called free Snake Relocation dot

799
00:51:47,679 --> 00:51:51,719
org and there's a map there where
they can click on it and see if

800
00:51:51,719 --> 00:51:54,599
there's someone near them. And in
most major areas where there's lots of snakes,

801
00:51:54,800 --> 00:51:58,639
and there's also cities, there's going
to be somebody who can do that.

802
00:51:58,920 --> 00:52:00,719
For example, my company is that
here for free in San Luis,

803
00:52:00,719 --> 00:52:06,079
Obispo and Santa Barbara counties. Also, a lot of people offer classes for

804
00:52:06,239 --> 00:52:08,239
those who want to learn how to
do that themselves. So I teach snake

805
00:52:08,280 --> 00:52:13,880
safety courses. I do one a
year for community snake handling, where people

806
00:52:13,920 --> 00:52:17,119
can learn to relocate the reddle snakes
in new yards themselves. And then there's

807
00:52:17,159 --> 00:52:21,960
a number of organizations, including the
redl Snake Conservancy and Save the Snakes that

808
00:52:22,039 --> 00:52:24,599
offer courses in other parts of the
state or the country where people can learn

809
00:52:24,639 --> 00:52:28,679
how to do that themselves. If
that's something they want to do, awesome.

810
00:52:29,679 --> 00:52:31,880
Well I will end on a fun
one. Taran asked, can you

811
00:52:31,920 --> 00:52:36,960
share any surprising or less known facts
about rattlesnakes that most people wouldn't know.

812
00:52:37,360 --> 00:52:39,320
Let's do two here. So the
first one I kind of mentioned before,

813
00:52:39,360 --> 00:52:44,079
but I want to say it again, which is that rettlesnakes are highly social

814
00:52:44,119 --> 00:52:46,239
animals. It turns out so even
if they do spend a lot of their

815
00:52:46,239 --> 00:52:51,400
time solitarily, more and more we're
learning now have these really neat social behaviors

816
00:52:51,400 --> 00:52:55,480
where rettlesnakes have, as we heard, parental care of the babies, but

817
00:52:55,639 --> 00:52:59,880
also that they have friends and family
members that they choose to hang out with.

818
00:53:00,079 --> 00:53:02,559
So we're only learning that through recent
studies where we can do the genetic

819
00:53:02,880 --> 00:53:07,400
parentage. But we see in the
field, especially on things like the live

820
00:53:07,440 --> 00:53:09,719
cam, which again you can all
watch soon at reddalcam dot org, we

821
00:53:09,760 --> 00:53:13,800
see the individuals like to hang out
together. And so for example, I've

822
00:53:13,840 --> 00:53:15,840
seen on the live stream two females
who always need to be touching each other.

823
00:53:15,880 --> 00:53:20,079
They're like besties, and when another
female approaches, they literally do this

824
00:53:20,199 --> 00:53:24,039
like body bridge thing that is clearly
showing like, no, you can't hang

825
00:53:24,039 --> 00:53:29,320
out with us girls. So it
is, it really is. It's crazy.

826
00:53:30,039 --> 00:53:31,320
So that's one thing, is just
that we're just starting to learn about

827
00:53:31,320 --> 00:53:35,280
the social behavior of these rattlesnakes.
But the second thing I wanted to mention

828
00:53:35,400 --> 00:53:38,000
that is a really fun fact that
everybody should know, is I already alluded

829
00:53:38,039 --> 00:53:42,840
to the fact that there's very few
snake bite deaths from any vendom snakes,

830
00:53:42,880 --> 00:53:45,480
including rattlesnakes, and in the United
States. That's not true in the rest

831
00:53:45,480 --> 00:53:49,039
of the world, where there's a
lot more bites and there's less medical care,

832
00:53:49,199 --> 00:53:52,559
but in the United States it's true, luckily. And so what's happened

833
00:53:52,599 --> 00:53:55,599
now is that retlesnake venom is actually
saving more lives than it's taking, which

834
00:53:55,639 --> 00:53:59,360
people don't know that. So I
want to share that. And that's because

835
00:53:59,400 --> 00:54:02,119
there's a number of drugs now that
are made from rattlesnake venom. And so,

836
00:54:02,440 --> 00:54:07,719
for example, if you know anyone
who has been treated for a heart

837
00:54:07,719 --> 00:54:09,400
attack, who maybe who had a
stint put into their heart, or who's

838
00:54:09,440 --> 00:54:13,800
at high risk for blood clots,
it's very probable that they might be taking

839
00:54:13,840 --> 00:54:17,679
a drug called eptipavitide, which is
literally made from pigmy relsnake venom, and

840
00:54:17,719 --> 00:54:22,079
it's because those rattlesnake venoms have those
anti coagulants in them, which are designed

841
00:54:22,119 --> 00:54:27,800
evolutionarily to cause massive bleeding in their
prey, but when harnessed by a pharmaceutical

842
00:54:27,880 --> 00:54:30,360
company, can provide an effective means
of reducing the risk of blood clots in

843
00:54:30,440 --> 00:54:35,599
patients. And so rettlesnakes are super
important to conserve for these reasons. Like

844
00:54:35,599 --> 00:54:37,679
what other secrets lie in their venoms. A lot of people are studying them

845
00:54:37,719 --> 00:54:42,920
for anti cancer effects now and those
sorts of things. So that's another thing

846
00:54:42,960 --> 00:54:45,719
that you can share people can share
with others when explaining why rattlesnakes matter,

847
00:54:45,760 --> 00:54:51,719
why they're important, and what is
your favorite interaction you have ever had with

848
00:54:51,960 --> 00:54:57,239
a snake while doing research. I
have this story I've told a few times.

849
00:54:57,239 --> 00:55:00,559
It's just was the most amazing experience. Actually, it was one of

850
00:55:00,599 --> 00:55:04,199
the first times that I got to
go to the Prairie rettlesnake Megaden in Colorado.

851
00:55:04,480 --> 00:55:06,480
And this was during May. It
was the end of May, and

852
00:55:06,519 --> 00:55:08,639
so it was when all the snakes
are there. It was before the males

853
00:55:08,639 --> 00:55:13,519
and the non pregnant females leave to
go hunt in the prairie. So everyone

854
00:55:13,559 --> 00:55:15,719
was there, pregnant females, non
pregnant females, big males, baby REDTL

855
00:55:15,719 --> 00:55:19,719
snakes from the previous year. Everyone
was there. And when you go up

856
00:55:19,719 --> 00:55:22,760
to this den, the snakes all
like freak out. They're super scared,

857
00:55:22,800 --> 00:55:24,559
and there's this logjam of snakes trying
to get down the little holes, which

858
00:55:24,599 --> 00:55:28,840
is adorable, but they all dived
down the holes. So what I did

859
00:55:28,880 --> 00:55:32,840
one day was I went over there. The pile of probably about one hundred

860
00:55:32,880 --> 00:55:36,800
and fifty snakes all dove down the
hill, and I sat down and crossed

861
00:55:36,800 --> 00:55:38,719
my legs and I just sat there
was still, and then slowly they started

862
00:55:38,719 --> 00:55:42,039
to come back out. And when
they first started to come they kind of

863
00:55:42,039 --> 00:55:45,039
gave me the side eye, like
that piece of the landscape wasn't there before.

864
00:55:45,679 --> 00:55:49,079
But then they slowly I wasn't moving, so they got used to it

865
00:55:49,079 --> 00:55:51,880
and they just came out. And
they all just came out and like curled

866
00:55:51,960 --> 00:55:54,480
up all around me, this ocean
of snakes just all around me. And

867
00:55:54,480 --> 00:55:59,079
I sat there for like two hours
just watching them slowly curl up, watching

868
00:55:59,119 --> 00:56:00,920
them interact. And then they just
forgot I was there. I just became

869
00:56:00,960 --> 00:56:05,079
part of the background for them,
and it was so amazing to be right

870
00:56:05,119 --> 00:56:07,719
there next to them and to watch
them do their thing and watch them how

871
00:56:07,760 --> 00:56:12,599
peaceful they are and how they are
the exact opposite of the stuff you see

872
00:56:12,599 --> 00:56:16,679
on TV where they're rattling and striking
and being ferocious because people have harassed them

873
00:56:16,679 --> 00:56:20,840
into those sorts of behaviors that people
want to see on TV. I believe

874
00:56:20,880 --> 00:56:23,079
that people really would like to see
something like what I saw, which is

875
00:56:23,119 --> 00:56:28,760
the snakes acting peacefully and socially,
which is why we've developed this Ral Snake

876
00:56:28,800 --> 00:56:32,480
livestream so soon everyone can virtually join
me on that hillside and see the snakes

877
00:56:32,519 --> 00:56:36,599
all in a big group together.
Well, I really hope that does the

878
00:56:36,639 --> 00:56:40,400
work of making people interested rather than
scared of them. Like I cannot wait

879
00:56:40,440 --> 00:56:43,679
to tune in. I think it'll
be so neat, and I hope it

880
00:56:43,719 --> 00:56:45,760
makes people a little less afraid of
them in the process. You know,

881
00:56:45,800 --> 00:56:49,000
that's part of the point of what
we do this for. Right, We

882
00:56:49,480 --> 00:56:52,079
eagerly engage in any sort of thing
about getting the words out about word out

883
00:56:52,079 --> 00:56:55,519
about these ral snakes maternal behavior or
their social behavior. And so like,

884
00:56:55,559 --> 00:57:00,079
one last fun tidbit for you about
this, which is very exciting, is

885
00:57:00,119 --> 00:57:04,760
there's a documentary coming out in probably
the fall. It's called The America's and

886
00:57:04,800 --> 00:57:07,639
it's going to be on NBC and
it's the biggest nature documentary ever made,

887
00:57:07,920 --> 00:57:14,360
like huge, and it's gonna be
ten ten episodes series of everything from the

888
00:57:14,519 --> 00:57:20,039
Arctic to the Antarctic in North America
in South America, and there's gonna be

889
00:57:20,679 --> 00:57:22,360
you know, ten episodes. One
of them is going to be in Grasslands

890
00:57:22,440 --> 00:57:30,000
slash Deserts and they filmed with us
the rattlesnakes at this site and we have

891
00:57:30,079 --> 00:57:35,239
the story of the mother Rattlesnake going
to be on this high end documentary series.

892
00:57:35,920 --> 00:57:43,079
And Ashley, the narrator is Tom
Hanks. Oh my god, I

893
00:57:43,159 --> 00:57:46,519
just can't wait to hear Tom Hanks's
voice. He's like the voice of America

894
00:57:46,639 --> 00:57:52,559
right telling the world about the wonderful
mother Rettlesnake. It's just so exciting.

895
00:57:52,639 --> 00:57:54,000
I can't wait. And you get
to be part of it. Congratulations.

896
00:57:54,000 --> 00:57:59,039
That is so well. It was
really fun. And again the reason I

897
00:57:59,039 --> 00:58:02,280
bring that up is just because he
will and they will, through this documentary

898
00:58:02,280 --> 00:58:06,800
have such a huge impact because of
the reach that they have, So thank

899
00:58:06,840 --> 00:58:08,880
you for doing this podcast as well
anything that we can do to be able

900
00:58:08,880 --> 00:58:13,840
to get the word out that these
snakes are not these devilish beasts that they

901
00:58:13,840 --> 00:58:16,400
are portrayed to be. It's really
something that's important work that I try to

902
00:58:16,440 --> 00:58:21,000
do and I appreciate your assistance in
helping with that. Yeah, well thanks

903
00:58:21,000 --> 00:58:23,480
for coming on and speaking of that. Where can people find your work and

904
00:58:23,559 --> 00:58:28,360
especially where can they find your book
that is out now. So there's one

905
00:58:28,360 --> 00:58:30,400
website that is the hub to all
of my projects and they can find that

906
00:58:30,440 --> 00:58:35,679
at Emily Taylor Science dot com.
But they can find information on project Redalcam

907
00:58:35,679 --> 00:58:37,880
there, they can find information on
Central Coast Snake Services on my lab at

908
00:58:37,880 --> 00:58:40,920
cal Poly. They could also find
information on a link to my book.

909
00:58:42,039 --> 00:58:45,119
The book is available online at all
major bookstores including Amazon, or if people

910
00:58:45,159 --> 00:58:49,719
want a signed copy, they can
order it from my website at Central Coast

911
00:58:49,760 --> 00:58:53,360
Snakeservices dot com and then click on
shop and I will send them a sign

912
00:58:53,440 --> 00:58:58,239
copy. And we also have other
swag like limited this, some T shirts

913
00:58:58,280 --> 00:59:00,800
with the Snakes of California and other
fun things. And all of the funding

914
00:59:00,880 --> 00:59:05,880
all the funds we raised from them
go to outreach, rescue and rehabilitation of

915
00:59:05,920 --> 00:59:07,920
snakes here on the central coast of
California. That is so cool. Yeah.

916
00:59:07,920 --> 00:59:10,280
I always want to give people a
way to get involved in this kind

917
00:59:10,280 --> 00:59:15,079
of stuff. So just buying cool
stuff help support snake research and rehabilitation,

918
00:59:15,119 --> 00:59:17,519
which is so neat, So thank
you. Yeah, that's a great way

919
00:59:17,519 --> 00:59:21,840
to do it. People can also
look at the support nonprofits, including things

920
00:59:21,840 --> 00:59:25,320
like Advocates for Snake Preservation, Save
the Snakes, the Orient Society, the

921
00:59:25,360 --> 00:59:30,079
rel Snake Conservancy. There's so many
more that people can support with small donations

922
00:59:30,119 --> 00:59:32,039
and they do a lot of amazing
work. Nice, awesome, Well,

923
00:59:32,039 --> 00:59:35,679
thank you so much Emily for doing
this. And that was my interview with

924
00:59:35,719 --> 00:59:37,400
You're welcome. It's nice chatting with
you. Right after we talked, I

925
00:59:37,480 --> 00:59:42,519
ordered her book California Snakes and How
to Find Them from her website and it

926
00:59:42,639 --> 00:59:45,639
is a signed copy and it also
came with some stickers. It's also just

927
00:59:45,679 --> 00:59:50,199
a really nice quality book, like
I love touching the cover of it and

928
00:59:50,239 --> 00:59:52,360
the pages are so nice. And
even though I live on the opposite side

929
00:59:52,360 --> 00:59:55,960
of the country in New Hampshire,
as someone who loves snakes and books.

930
00:59:57,239 --> 01:00:00,840
I'm really enjoying it, and I'll
add a link on where purchase a signed

931
01:00:00,880 --> 01:00:05,280
copy in the episode description. And
as she mentioned, I highly encourage you

932
01:00:05,320 --> 01:00:07,719
all to check out rattlecam dot org, where you can watch a live stream

933
01:00:07,840 --> 01:00:12,760
of Prairie rattlesnakes in Colorado right now, and in July you'll be able to

934
01:00:12,760 --> 01:00:16,440
watch Western rattlesnakes in California. Either
way, if you're someone who's afraid of

935
01:00:16,440 --> 01:00:20,280
snakes, I hope you came away
from this episode with a little less fear

936
01:00:20,280 --> 01:00:22,840
and a little more compassion for them. And I know it can be easier

937
01:00:22,840 --> 01:00:25,599
said than done, but I really
do think if you tune into something like

938
01:00:25,679 --> 01:00:30,159
rattlecam that it may help to lessen
your fear of snakes. It's also almost

939
01:00:30,159 --> 01:00:34,760
officially summer here in the Western Hemisphere
and I have already seen snakes around my

940
01:00:34,840 --> 01:00:37,199
property, so they are definitely out
moving around. So keep an eye out

941
01:00:37,239 --> 01:00:42,159
for them whether or not you like
them, but mostly leave them be if

942
01:00:42,199 --> 01:00:45,000
they're not in a place that's dangerous
for them to be, or inside your

943
01:00:45,039 --> 01:00:47,639
house if you don't want them there. So thank you all so much for

944
01:00:47,679 --> 01:00:51,440
listening to this episode. Check out
the episode description for links and where to

945
01:00:51,440 --> 01:00:53,760
find Doctor Taylor on social media and
where to find us on socials, on

946
01:00:53,840 --> 01:00:58,960
Patreon, and our website. Thank
you so much to joshuallsh for making our

947
01:00:58,960 --> 01:01:01,480
inter music and his brother Jesse Walsh
for his help in editing. And we'll

948
01:01:01,519 --> 01:01:09,960
be back in two weeks with a
new animal attack story. See yam