Do not kill Portland snakes! Yes, they look scary, yes some of them are dangerous, but there
are more beneficial snakes than harmful ones. The rats in your roof are more of a danger
to you than the snake in your yard. In fact, if you have a snake in your yard, you probably
have fewer rats which is a good thing. Snakes are nature’s way of controlling vermin populations.
They are built to rat and mouse hunt. Since most human settlements have mice and rats, the snakes
you commonly find around humans are the rat and mouse eating variety. This means that they are
generally not venomous, and are actually doing you a favour by keeping the Oregon rat and mouse population
down.
It is dangerous for you to try to kill a snake. Snakes will always protect themselves and if you are
seen as a threat, they will attack you. Most Portland snake bites, according to emergency room attendants, happen
when someone is either trying to catch or kill a snake. The best option is always to either leave the snake
alone and let it go away by itself, which they usually do, or to keep it confined to an area away from children
and pets, and call wildlife experts or the police. Always let an Oregon professional deal with a snake
problem.
Most of the time snakes are simply passing through your yard on their way out of urban areas. They need very
specific habitats to live in and when urban development disturbs them, they usually try to move to a more
hospitable area. Since they can’t fly that means they have to slither across people’s yards. Often human
habitats aren’t suitable for Portland snakes, especially if there are no handy holes to hide in, nowhere warm to
sleep and no food for the Oregon snake. Then it will simply move on. This isn’t a Hollywood horror film with vindictive
snakes out to kill the human race. Snakes really don’t want to have anything to do with us, and usually just want
to be left alone.
Of course if you are hell-bent on killing a Portland snake a lot of people use garden spades or shovels to chop their
heads off. Usually the snake is perfectly harmless. Before you kill an Oregon snake, try identifying it.More often than
not you’ll find it’s not a threat to anything larger than a rat.
Visit our Portland wildlife trapping home page to learn more about us.