In many regions, just before winter, snakes migrate from considerable
distances to shared dens. In some places even kingsnakes that eat other
snakes den harmlessly with species they would eat at any other time of the
year. Harmless snakes can be found denned by the thousands with
rattlesnakes by the hundreds. During the migration process snakes will be
crossing the small properties of housing developments that never used to
be there -- same goes for newts & toads migrating en masse to breeding
swamps at winter's end, arriving from miles around, formerly passing
through forests on their way to the Call Of The Orgy, but nowadays passing
through suburbs & being crushed by the thousands crossing highways.

Snakes returning from the edges of their dispersal pattern to the
centralized winter den tend to make this journey over a slightly lengthier
period than toads & newts or ambystamid salamanders who species by species
are all on the move for scant days trying to arrive at ponds
simultaneously. They'll appear en masse, then be gone just as suddenly.
Snakes can be passing through for a few weeks.

Hopefully the snake den is not discovered by children, nor by adult
snake-haters with dynamite, so that the den continues to be of use even
with human settlement encroaching. Some of these dens are used for
generations, conceivably for centuries. New ones tend to be established at
the foot of stone landslides & if not extremely old will have smaller but
still impressive hibernation populations.

When a den is discovered in the midst of a development area, even if there
are no poisonous snakes in the area, some ignorant goon is apt to poison,
burn, or blow it. Such depravity has caused the destruction secondarily of
many garden & orchard trees when after the mass snake extermination the
rodent population rises so dramatically it can no longer feed itself, & so
eats the bark from around the bases of trees, with increased health risk
to humans from zoonotic diseases carried by said overpopulation.

Also field studies have shown these animals can become befuddled by
changes in landscape. Salamanders can become confused and never find their
way back to their traditional breeding ponds if they have to cross
farmland that was for years plowed south to north, but then one year is
plowed east to west, implying some visual & landmark recognition for these
local migrations. Snakes too, finding their areas of passage inexplicably
broken up by new housing & roads, may never again find their traditional
den, & will have to make due in the basements of houses.

When eventually the den is molested or destroyed by harmful humans, the
next time a snake migration heads to winter hide-away, they will be forced
to seek out new lodging willynilly all over the place, singly or in small
clusters. There is no reason they MUST den en masse, & the only thing that
makes their situation difficult to adapt to is the human tendency to smash
them all to hell with shovels. Their den having been lost or destroyed
thanks to human decimations, snakes begin entering the crawlspaces or
basements of houses when autumn temperatures drop & the hibernation spot
that served thousands of snakes for generations can no longer be located.
Dispersed through development areas & slowed down by autumn temperatures,
they become easy pickings for pets, birds, children, & adults that keep
diminishing ophidian populations & their environments.

In deserty areas where rattlesnakes may be at issue, or near southern
wetlands with water moccassins, fears of snakes may have a survival value
for humans. In other places where racers, garter snakes, & harmless
constrictors are the only snakes ever to be encountered, the human desire
to kill them on sight is not beneficial to human survival, as our
destruction of all things of nature does come back to haunt us eventually,
in ways that afflict our own health & well being.

As kids none of us were afraid of snakes. Adults told us never to harm
them. Everyone's gardens, fields, ponds, & nearby run-off ponds had at
least garter snakes, which everyone WANTED in their gardens because they
eat slugs. Why this old attitude has been supplanted with a preference for
wacking them with shovels would seem to have very little to do with our
evolution breeding fear into us because in some places they're poisonous,
& everything to do with the human population's decreasing familiarity with
the natural world. Most mammals from lowest to highest fear what is new to
them. It's easier today for humans to overcome fear of loud noises &
instant death wrought by guns and automobiles or warmongering presidents,
which are too familiar to frighten us as they should. Yet if a totally
harmless & even beneficial garter snake wiggles out in front of us, it's
instantly "omigod what the hell is that get me a sledge hammer!"

Add to that the pure destructive meanness of omnivores for which anything
that exists, whether it can move or can't move, is fair game for
destruction, & the only reason we don't stuff it all in our mouths after
it's mashed is because the microwave oven is more than fifteen steps away
& we're already stuffed with McGreasy Burgers & pizzas, just like that
well-fed pitbull won't stick around & eat the child it just mauled to
death.

-paghat the ratgirl

--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
See the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com/