REGRETS OF A SNAKE WRANGLER by Ann Linder
In the parking lot of a Holiday Inn, in Florida, I ran the bottoms of my tan hiking boots back and forth across the pavement wondering why I’d worn them for what I was told would be a classroom training. But now we were standing in crescent shape around the back of a deep green SUV, and the instructor was searching through his trunk and taking out large coolers. They were different sizes; most of them hard plastic with bright red lids. I looked at the clasps that hinged and held them together. I didn’t realize what was happening until they called my name. The agency I was interning for had signed me up for this training. Of course they knew that this was not a classroom training but “a field training exercise.” Of course they knew I didn’t know. Of course they’d laughed about it.
The instructor opened the cooler and the snake came spilling out onto the asphalt. The juxtaposition of red and white hard plastic and the depth of her brown iridescent skin made for an unnatural mix. And in truth – there was nothing natural about this. This snake belonged in a warm hole of a hollowed-out tree on the banks of the river in Thailand. Far away from this man and the empty bottle of Mountain Dew he kept in the cupholder.
It was there near the sweet tall grass that she should have hatched, using her egg tooth to poke a hole in the milky shell that held her, until a soft glow became sunlight, until she could feel the warm heavy air. She would stay here curled up in the egg shell until she was strong enough to venture out of the nest, until she was ready to shed her first skin, exchanging a faded layer for a vibrant new one. She would spend her days sun- soaking on rocks and branches, warming herself from the outside in. And if she was lucky enough to escape the sharp bills of birds and the sharp claws of lizards, she would spend the winter months curled up in a hollow tree by the river – slowing her metabolic rate to a crawl, resting to conserve her energy in the cold.
The demonstration was quick. People backed away as the snake shimmied forward and back looking for a way out of this strange circle, but the instructor leapt on her; using the short end of a pole, he pinned her head to the ground holding the shiny chrome rod at the start of her neck.
“You want to make sure and pin them like this right behind the base of the skull, there is a depression there where the neck starts. That way they can’t get away, they’re trapped.”
I believed him. She immediately began throwing her body around violently trying to free her head from the cold metal he was holding. She used the ground for leverage to push off, making taller and taller loops with her body, flashing cursive letters. What was she trying to say? I didn’t want to know.
“Once you’ve got them pinned, you need to grab them tightly by their neck at the base of the head. It’s all about controlling the head – you gotta know where the head is at all times. If you control the head, you control the snake.” The instructor reached a large, calloused hand towards her thin brown neck, pinching it tightly between his thumb and forefingers, before removing the silver pole that he had been using to hold her down. “See? Control the head and you control the snake,” he said, lifting her up and pointing her head around the circle. Most of her hung largely limp as he said this, but her tail began grasping for something solid to hold on to as she was suspended in the air, made to look at each one of us crowded around the circle.
The next step, the instructor explained, is getting your snake into a pillowcase. And you must be careful to tie it off quickly, before they find their way back out. He went on about how pillowcases are the easiest, cheapest way to store snakes in the field. They still get enough air through the fabric, he says, scanning the other containers in his trunk. There were too many for me to count at a glance.
How strange plastic must feel when you are used to silk reed and tree bark. Today, in Thailand, there are fewer and fewer hollowedout trees with resting pythons in them. In their native forests and marshes, Burmese pythons are in danger of extinction, a risk brought on by overhunting for their meat and for their skin, which is shipped to fashion houses and wrapped around stiletto heels or intricately cut into the shape of women’s hands, for gloves. They are also threatened by a thriving trade in live wildlife that drives collectors to pillage their nests to supply demand from those who find dogs and cats all too ordinary. Most of these, in the pillowcases in the coolers in the trunk, were probably pets or the progeny of pets.
The US brings in tens of thousands of these snakes to sell to consumers every year as they’ve skyrocketed in popularity, bought at pet stores or fairs, brought into single-family homes – ramblers with flat driveways and full basements where they live in a tank barely bigger than their own bodies. In this glass cube, under orange artificial light, are painted backgrounds decorated with cartoon versions of plants that they might have once encountered, near a river, if they’d had better luck, or if we hadn’t found them so interesting.
And when these snakes grow too big, or too boring, or too inconvenient, they’re loaded into cars, driven, and dumped someplace where they can either survive or die as someone else’s problem. By some accounts, the population of exotic snakes in Florida increased dramatically when a breeding facility, supplying pet stores in the region, was destroyed by Hurricane Andrew – releasing hundreds more of the animals into the wild. Always much easier to blame a natural disaster.
Whatever the truth – these creatures were brought here to entertain us. We found them fascinating or unsettling or thought that taking pictures with them would help us get more traction on our dating profiles. Or perhaps we felt better about ourselves when we were in proximity to a “wild” animal. Pet snakes are turned loose everywhere across America – and usually they freeze or starve – but in South Florida, they can survive, disappearing into this thick river of 122 grass. And there are enough other snakes who faced similar fates that they can find each other, mate, and reproduce, eating the warm, white eggs of waterbirds, predating on marsh rabbits and iridescent little green herons, who hold themselves motionless on the lowest branches of the mangroves waiting for fish.
Today there are 6,767 invasive species of wildlife in the United States, more than double the number of native species, and many were brought here intentionally in service of human need either to use or to admire or to shoot.
In many cases, we don’t much distinguish the two groups. Ringnecked pheasant hunting is a celebrated Thanksgiving tradition, but these birds are native to eastern Asia – China and Japan. Which seems so insultingly obvious when you see their ornamental feathers – in shades of deep green and brilliant red, colors that feel so out of place against the light tan tones of Midwestern Novembers, feathers that make such easy targets in fields of Nebraska or Iowa. But I never knew this growing up among those same corn fields. And even though these birds are invasive, when it comes to ring- necked pheasants, and other select species, we don’t seem to notice or care – we just love shooting them so much. Hundreds of thousands of pheasants are bred in captivity each year for the pleasure of hunters. Some are tended by taxpayer dollars at facilities run by state Departments of Fish and Game, though the animals diminish and degrade ecosystems that these agencies were created to protect. These birds cannot survive long in the wild. Almost all of them are dead before the snow seeps into the wet ground in spring. And, in fact, these longtailed showboaty birds are so hapless and helpless that often states will release them just hours before hunting season begins – not wanting to lose too many to “natural causes.” But unlike the pythons in the Everglades, these birds bring in dollars – hunting licenses to pay for the production of more birds and the salaries of the men who set the quotas.
Years before, in a swimming pool with my sister, I heard gunshots. The man on the dock next door was shooting into the water. His pink sunburned face screwed up in concentration staring down, his sherbet button-up shirt open and flapping wildly in the breeze. I was too scared to talk to him. I asked my partner to go over.
“What are you shooting at?” he asked casually. I never would have thought to phrase the question this way – “What are you doing? Why 123 are you shooting things? What is wrong with you?” But my partner was collected, his voice navy blue, an antidote to the pink- tempered man with a gun.
He was shooting at iguanas that were swimming past his dock. “Those things are invasive – they can eat 60 bird eggs in a night. Every time I see them, I shoot them.”
I hadn’t expected this answer. Of all the reasons to be shooting into the water in a residential neighborhood, I guessed this was a good one? I watched him bury lead bullets in the soft white ocean sand, and I felt sickened the rest of the trip every time I saw one of the lime green lizards scurry under the shade of the pink azalea bush. “Don’t go that way,” I pleaded silently. “He’s going to kill you. Go the other way.”
By all accounts, the presence of snakes like the snakes in the coolers has been devastating for native species. In some areas, raccoons, bobcats, and opossums have all but disappeared, as if these snakes could unhinge their jaws and swallow an ecosystem whole. Hundreds of thousands of pythons swim in the brackish water of the Everglades now – and the Fish and Wildlife Agency has declared all- out war on the animals, using dogs, drones, and trackers to root them out, even exchanging notes with their colleagues across the world who are trying to figure out how to save the species in its native home. There are agencies that pay members of the public for each snake that they remove from the wild and host contests, tournaments, roundups, and rodeos. Magazine covers feature smiling faces of the winners with an enormous snake looped across and between their shoulders like a Christmas garland.
In the Holiday Inn parking lot, far away from the sweet tall river grasses of Thailand, and eighty- six miles from the sulfuric smells of the Everglades swamp, I felt a swirl of excitement and dread. Sunlight squinted through the trees onto the unwarmed pavement. It was January. A few minutes later the lazy sun broke over the tops of the longleaf pines, lending us long shadows as we stood huddled in the parking lot.
“Remember that these snakes are non- venomous,” the instructor said, “but they are constrictors, so they’re going to try to wrap themselves around you as you’re shoving them into the sack. Don’t let them get a good grip on you. If they start to wind, you start to unwind. Got it?”
I stepped forward nervously when he called my name – I don’t know what I said. I wasn’t expecting to be on the list, and I had already decided not to volunteer. Perhaps my supervisor’s joke wouldn’t be complete without ensuring that my name was there and I perform the task. The man handed me a soft pillowcase and a hard metal snake hook. I was too embarrassed to say “no,” too worried that I would cause a scene or disappoint someone – a feeling by now, I know, never to trust.
“Don’t embarrass yourself,” I thought. “Just focus and do what you were told.”
I held the middle of a metal “snake hook,” a straight cold piece of metal with a small branching “y” at one end. I didn’t know what this branching part was for – were you supposed to use that to support part of the snake? Why do we make “snake hooks” anyway? From what I could tell, the branching part was just a distraction, and I needed to just use this “hook” as a bar to hold the animal down.
“Remember the steps,” I thought. “Pin, grab, put it in the sack.”
What kind of snake would they give me? How big would the snake be? From what I could tell, the instructor seemed to be choosing each snake based on the size of the person. I was tall, but I was not strong. I hoped that the instructor would factor that in.
And then he came tumbling out – a tangled mass of middles, where was his head? He would show me soon. Looking around, he saw a gap between two people on the other side of the circle and urged himself towards it – his vibrant brown body stretching long with effort. For a moment, I stared.
“Don’t let him get away. Don’t be like that other lady,” I told myself. Before me, another woman “had let her snake” get all the way to the grassy edge of the parking lot before the instructor had to step in and collect them. “If you let him get out of the circle it’s over,” I thought. “You’ve failed.”
So I moved quickly and put the pole of my snake hook behind his head, pushing it towards the ground. I didn’t want to hurt him, but I couldn’t have him get away.
Did the rough asphalt hurt his skin? Of course it did, I thought.
“Focus!”
I was so relieved to have pinned him that I realized I was taking too long to do the next part. I made an awkward claw with my left hand and grabbed his neck. “How tight was tight enough?” I had no way of knowing. “How strong or fragile was this creature’s neck?” I didn’t know. I remembered the man saying “firmly enough that they can’t move their head, but not so tightly that you kill them.” God, how horrible. I think, looking back, that I held him tighter than I should have because I was so scared – scared enough to temporarily forget that he was more scared.
I was struck by the very realness of him, his muscles flexing and unflexing against my own. He began winding my arm as I tried to maneuver him into the pillowcase. It felt kind of sweet actually. I plunged my hand still clenching his head into the pillowcase. “When do you let go of the head?” I wondered. I did not want him coming back out, but I couldn’t unwind myself with only one hand. I think one of the instructors might have helped me. I don’t know. It all happened quickly, but I tied the knot. I was done. And afterwards, I marveled at the weight of his body hanging there suspended in the pillowcase above the ground. It was impressive.
As I stepped back to my original place in one of the faraway spots of the circle, I felt a flush of relief, tinged with pride. My part was over, and I had done it. Now, I could say that I had done it. What a crazy thing – something I could tell my mom and my boyfriend about, and they would be impressed. The adrenaline of my story carried me home, driving the speed limit in my grandfather’s long white sedan that fit in so well with the other cars on the wide roads near Fort Myers.
A month later, I gathered with the other students in a warm beige auditorium in Boston, where we were to present on our internship experiences. I told my snake story. Everyone laughed. Weaving out of the auditorium through rows of worn fabric seats, I caught up with my friend who grew up in Florida, near the area where I’d been working.
“What do you think they do with those snakes after?” I wondered aloud to her, “Do they sell them as pets or do they go to zoos?”
She looked at me. “I’m pretty sure that they kill them, Ann.”
The words seemed to crash and bounce on the floor, but all at once, it seemed so obvious. All at once I felt so stupid. Of course, they kill them. What sort of a fairy tale did I think this was? Believing that they got to live out their lives in captivity – sure, that wasn’t perfect, but they got to live out their lives, didn’t they? Of course they didn’t. There are so many of these snakes, how could anyone find homes for all of them? And what if some of those homes just released them back into the wild like other people had done? Why would they ever put more snakes in circulation?
But if they killed them, I thought – then it all felt so different. No longer was this a catch and release exercise – a temporary stress, endured by the snake as penance on their way to somewhere else. This thing we used them for, this exercise, was now the last thing they did before they died. A final terrible experience. A disorienting moment of distress and confusion. A last unnatural insult before we kill them.
Of course, my own role suddenly felt so different too. I had harmed a creature who was doomed. It was not fair play. He was already set to die, and instead of being granted any dignity in this position, if such a thing were possible, I had toyed with him – used him for an exercise. I’d held down his fragile milky yellow throat, pressing it against the craggy asphalt of a parking lot of a Holiday Inn, with tacky red letters scrawled across coral stucco walls. I hated it. I hated myself.
There is no dispute that these snakes are disrupting native ecosystems and harming indigenous wildlife. But I didn’t take a snake from the wild. I recaptured a captured one in a hotel parking lot. This helped exactly no one. The unfairness of it all was overwhelming. It shouldn’t have happened. It made no sense. He never wanted to be in that parking lot. He never wanted to be a pet.
It was use; it was always use. How could I have thought it was okay to harm this animal when he’d done nothing to me, when I’d dedicated my whole life, my whole career to protecting animals? What was wrong with me? Why had I gone along with this? And even felt proud of it. My god, how gross.
I thought about bullfighters who “fight” a bull, who has already been fatally wounded, stabbed through their warm black skin before ever stepping out into the arena. Dark blood dripping into the dust, too far away for the spectators to see. I thought about a photo I had seen of trophy hunters at night in an overbright flash smiling thickly as 127 they held in their hand the spotted tail of a giraffe. Cut free from the body behind them, the animal splayed out in a puddle of legs, like a crumpled-up spider.
There is a photo of me from that day that I hate very much to look at. I’m in a t-shirt and jeans, bent forward on one knee, with his thick body slung around me – my face focused, my brow furrowed. For a long time, I thought of this story as an ice- breaker – a funny anecdote – a way to wink at people and show them that I’m in on the joke, that I know how ridiculous my career sounds. And as for what it said about me? I hoped it might say that I’m adventurous and brave, that I’m quirky, that I’m not squeamish, that I don’t just do “desk research,” that I care about serious environmental issues, not just soft animals. I thought of this training as an experience – one that made my life richer, that made me a more interesting person. But now, I’m pretty sure that none of that is true.
Working in the field on animal protection, I spend my days being relentlessly confronted with the worst parts of our own species. The way we treat the more than 85 billion animals we raise to eat each year. The glue traps we use to kill mice. Distorted bodies of deer rotting in the median. Coyote pups dynamited in their dens. And, worst of all, the normalcy with which we treat all of these things. I walk around completing ordinary daily tasks, haunted by these things that almost no one sees and even fewer seem to feel.
Though I am encouraged in my work to look at issues on a systems level, to see the broader picture of environmental harms, sometimes all I can see is a snake trapped inside a faded yellow Target pillowcase – desperately trying to find his way out – searching for an opening as the folds of fabric swirl around him. There was never a way out of the parking lot, for him.
Ann Linder’s work has appeared in Science, The San Francisco Chronicle, Lewis and Clark Law School’s Animal Law Review, and Orion Magazine.