That house was a snake hibernicula and it makes me not only feel sorry for the occupants, but the snakes who depend on dens for surviving the winters. There is one state, and I forget which, where their local garter is going extinct mostly because they are killed by humans. No, I don't expect the family to have to co-exist with hundreds of snakes but neither did I appreciate they killed over a hundred harmless garter snakes when they knew full well what they were getting into. I have a garter snake up in one of my g'houses now. It has decided that laying on the benches daily is a good thing to do and I work around wherever it happens to sun itself. Last year it was a big rat snake who lived there. I also have a resident black snake in the cellar and we just watch what we pick up. Obviously I am not afraid of them and appreciate their role in prey/predation. No, I don't relocate them. We did remove any delapidated outbuildings on our property so they wouldn't be drawn to occupy structures near the house. It's rare now to have one 'get in' the house and if one does, my husband leaves it to me to pick it up and remove it. LOL.

i talk to anoles, too. :) in fact, we- me & the kids- put them and green tree frogs in the cool greenhouse for the winter to help with bugs. don't know that it's worked, but it is fun looking for them. the big male likes to sun on my bird's perch, and he likes to flirt with me, bobbing his provocative throat pouch at me so i'll be impressed. i bob back at him and tell him he's handsome. hb- i can't say that i'm too surprised the racer was striking under those circumstances. i think i'd try to bite, too. lol. glad he didn't take off. i haven't seen ours around since he got in the net, but didn't see him before that either, so no biggie. we sight a big king snake once or twice a summer- i think it's probably the same one we've been seeing for a number of years. we kept a couple rough green snakes as pets for a summer in our terrarium with some anoles and skinks, and they were so cool. they hung out and curled up into knots together- the thing that surprised me most- and were like living sculptures. the anoles got used to them within a day or 2. they were also complete pigs, which is part of why we let them go, fat & sassy, ready for fall. when we released them, they hung out in the same tree for a couple of days- i guess they thought it was a big cage. we got some good pix of them there. my kids and i wouldn't mind having another snake, but i don't want anything that eats furry things, which eliminates most of them, unfortunately. as an aside, i haven't found a single garter snake in the 13 years we've lived here. lots of other kinds, but no garters. i thought they were ubiquitous. probably one of the coolest was the ultra tame milk snake we found one day. gorgeous markings! worm snakes are cool, too. tam

I get garters, bulls and rattlers. Problem being that some of the bulls are so alike in color to the rattlers that I am not sure sometimes if I should let it go... or let it go headless. I wouldn't mind a few more around my place, I can pick them up at the swap lol. If you think about the phobia issues in this country there are quite a few: snakes, spiders, rodents, roaches, geese, horses, cows, dogs, etc. I think there is a phobia for just about everyone. I try not to let phobia get to me, but every so often, it sneaks up on me too. oakiris - holly- did you grow up in Maine? That is the only state I have heard of that does not have a poisonous snake. Just curious as to where else gets to make that claim. I grew up in AZ where I sometimes thought we had the most different types of poisonous snakes known to any region. Don't know if its true, but the one website shows 18 and somewhere around 50 non-venomous. Billie - Belinda

It was probably some type of mammal that caused your large koi to go missing. It could have been a heron or there is a slight chance they were eaten by a water snake if you live near water. Only water snakes and garter snakes would go after fish. There's probably at least 4 species of nonvenemous water snakes in GA plus the water mocassin. They're much better at catching frogs than healthy good size fish. A her0n though would have no problem.