Good Neighbors Help Each Other Out

by Holly Schubert



Last spring, I got to have an up-close-and-personal encounter with some of the wildlife of Lutherlyn in the garden shed at Terra Dei.  

A few times when I went into the shed, I had noticed some items on the floor of the shed, when I thought I had left them on the shelves. I chalked it up to my own carelessness and put them back on the shelf, but found them on the floor again not long after. I wondered if some critters were to blame...  

Not long after that, I posted this to my facebook page:  

  

May 22, 2015 

I found out who has been knocking things off the shelves in the garden shed. Look closely - not everything that looks like a hose is a hose!  

Snakes among hoses

What appeared to be two black rat snakes had taken up residence in the corner of the shed. I had only seen one head, but traced the length of the bodies down to two tails. I was pretty sure there were two large snakes, one with its head buried in the hoses and other garden equipment piled in the corner. It seemed to really like being entwined through the openings of a plastic crate.  

Though it made my heart pound a bit to see them in such close quarters (and getting planting trays out of the corner of the shelf was a delicate procedure!), I thought they were pretty cool and liked having them as neighbors.  

Snake on a rake.

Since we garden organically at Terra Dei, we rely on natural means for controlling pests. Often this means encouraging predators to live near the gardens who will eat the pests. Black rat snakes are great for controlling small rodents like mice and voles which might eat our garden veggies before we have a chance to. We like having snakes around! They especially like to hang out in the large compost piles next to the garden, where the black plastic covering and the heat from the decaying matter makes for a nice warm nest.  

Large compost bins where the snakes like to hang out.

About a week later, I saw that one of the snakes was poking its head out of a pile of blueberry netting that had been wadded up in the plastic crate. (You can see the pile of netting in the picture of the emptied shelves above, it's the black tangle of stuff just below the rake in the left of the picture.) In the next day or two, I noticed this snake seemed to be in the same place every time I came into the shed, and wondered if it was stuck in the netting.  

Since I hadn’t seen it move in a day or two, I decided to try to pull out the netting out of the corner to see if the snake was stuck or not. When I did, I got a surprise! THREE snakes! All of them very very stuck in the netting.

One head, three tails. The head that is circled in red is the first one I noticed

poking out of the netting, and my first indication that the snakes might be stuck. 

I later learned that it is very common for snakes to get caught in netting like this. The openings in the netting are very small, less than an inch square. The snakes go forward through the openings with their narrow head, then get to a point where their bodies are too large to go any further. But then, they are in too tight to back out, because their scales catch on the netting. The netting is made of plastic that doesn't stretch or break easily and will not biodegrade for a long time, so once they are in it, the snakes are totally stuck. 

I hated the thought of the snakes caught like this. The netting was pretty tight around their bodies, and I was afraid it was hurting them. As I mentioned, we want the snakes around the garden because they are helpful; and also, I had become attached to my new neighbors over the last week or so, and I didn’t want these “friends” of mine to suffer. So I decided to try to cut the netting away from the snakes to free them.  

The snakes were held so tightly by the netting that they were unable to move their heads at all, which made it easier for me to get close enough to cut away some of the netting. I reached out at arms-length and started snipping to try and loosen the knotted tangle of netting. I made some progress. However, as I cut away more netting, the snake’s bodies were freer and they were able to move more, which made me more uncomfortable with getting close enough to their bodies to cut the parts that needed to come away to free them.

In the picture above, and in the one marked below, you can see one whole snake tail-to-head from the bottom left to top right of the pic. (This is the smallest of the three.) Another has its head leaning on the end of the broom, and its body is curled up near the snake on the right. A third head is completely entangled just down and to the left of the head in the top right. The body that reaches into the corner of the shed at the top of the picture belongs to that head.

This is about as far as I got in my attempts to free them on my own, tentatively leaning in and snipping at arms length! 

It was time for a break to get some dinner and enlist some help!

I called our friend April Claus from Fern Hollow Nature Center, who is a herpetologist and specializes in salamanders and snakes.  

It was April who told me that this situation is very common - she said she rescues snakes stuck like this all the time. She suggested I find someone to hold the head of the snake in a thick towel, while I cut the netting out from around the snake’s body to free it.  

I got in touch with Chris Piatt, our amazing environmental education intern for the spring, who was living onsite (and therefore was around even though it was Friday at dinnertime) and who I knew to be sympathetic to snakes. He agreed to come to the garden after dinner and help me out.  

Snake pile and water dishes. Giving water dishes to snakes in my shed and
trying to get them to drink is one of the stranger things I've ever done!

I had learned from April that the snakes would probably be very dehydrated, from being stuck in place and from struggling to get free, and I should try to give them water. So while I waited for Chris to arrive, I put out water for the snakes and tried to get them to drink. (I soon realized the best way for them to drink water was straight from the floor.)    

The snake in the right of the picture is thirstily slurping water off the floor.

Chris to the rescue! Snake selfie. Snelfie?

When Chris arrived he put on gloves, started talking soothingly to the snakes, and with slow, gentle, careful movements, got right up next to the snakes and started cutting the pieces of netting around their bodies. He held them gently with one hand and cut with the other. 

Look how tangled this poor guy is in the front of the picture. The netting was so tight around their bodies and necks. 

They were very docile and didn’t snap or display any aggression. Occasionally they would start twining their tails around, sometimes wrapping around tools and other things in the shed. When they would do this, I would hold the tail ends of the snakes (sometimes in a bucket!) to keep them from moving too much or getting tangled in a way that would make things harder. It was amazing to feel their strong smooth muscles working, and to safely be in such close contact with such beautiful wild creatures.  

Snake #1 is free.

It was slow meticulous work but eventually, snake #1 was free! Moments later it slithered away into the tall weeds. Happy moment! 

A little while later, snake #2 was free!  

When I talked with April she had explained to me that the three snakes were probably gathering in the shed to mate. The female (probably the largest of the three) would have arrived first and released a scent to attract the males. When two males responded, the female would choose one of them to mate with. Snakes #1 and #2 were probably the males vying to mate with the female. 

Snake #2 is free. You can see it's already getting dark out.

It was 9:30 by the time we got snake #3 free, the largest, and probably the female. It was getting dark so we moved closer to the house so we could use the outside lights to help us see. Again, I got to hold the tail as Chris worked at loosening the netting around her head. She was so strong and beautiful!

We were nearly ready to let her go when we realized that there was a final piece of netting tangled near the snake’s face. It appeared to be snagged on a tooth inside her mouth! I was skeptical about removing the netting from the mouth - I was thinking "surely it'll just fall out on its own eventually...." But Chris was persistent and willing to work at getting it loose. When the snake wouldn't open its mouth, he gently pried it open with a small plastic garden row marker! I've never seen anything like it - snake dentistry! 

The last piece of netting came loose and we sent her slithering on her way!  

By the time we released snake #3, it was completely dark outside.
You can just barely see the last snake slithering away in this picture.

Snakeskin found in compost bin, probably
from the largest snake.

I saw the largest snake a few more times in the weeks after that, and it was a little like visiting an old friend! The shed felt surprisingly empty now that my neighbors were gone. Twice we found snakeskins in the compost pile - one large, and one smaller. 

The pile of blueberry netting was of course so cut to bits that we threw it all out. But I also looked around the shed to see if there was anything else that could similarly act as an unintentional trap. There were a few rolls of plastic fencing with fairly small openings, so I brought these inside and put them in closets in the house where they can’t potentially harm snakes. I’ll store them in the shed only during cold months when snakes won’t be around.

I have since learned that some people intentionally use piles of netting like this to trap snakes, when they don’t want them around to harm things like chickens. Not only is this a cruel way to trap snakes, it is also potentially dangerous if the snakes you catch are venomous. Once trapped, the snakes will obviously not die right away, and a hurt, trapped, and fearful snake is a snake that may strike. Pets, children, and others who are not aware of the danger of the snake could be bitten, with serious consequences.  

Snakes are good and helpful creatures, and gardeners in particular should be happy to have them around. Like spiders, even if they seem “creepy” to us, their natural behaviors do quite a bit to help us out by controlling the populations of other critters that can cause us problems. Even if snakes aren’t your thing and you’d rather keep your distance and never see them, they are a natural and important part of the ecosystems where they live. To keep snakes safe, if you use netting to keep birds away from blueberries or other plants, try to tie it off above the ground where snakes are less likely to get into it. Store netting and other similar items in places where snakes cannot get into them. 

The Lion and the Mouse

A friend of mine told me this story reminded her of Aesop's fable about the mouse and the lion. The lion, who could easily kill the mouse, lets the mouse go when the mouse claims he will repay the lion by helping him someday. The lion is skeptical that this could ever happen, but it does – in some versions of the story the mouse releases the lion from a trap by chewing through the ropes, and in other versions removes a thorn from its paw. 

My friend thought we were the lion, and now that we've released the snakes when we could have easily killed them instead, they had to come back and help us out somehow! And in a way that is true and they do, because they are one of our important garden partners. While I don't have any proof that they have been killing pests, it is a good guess that a six-foot long blacksnake near the garden seriously cuts down on the number of small rodents! Thank you snakes. And while I'm sorry they got caught in our netting, I am glad they were all successfully released, and glad we had the chance to have such a close encounter with some of the wonderful nature of Lutherlyn.