Rattlesnakes are starting to venture out of their dens in the Lethbridge coulees. Local snake wrangler Ryan Heavy Head says he has seen a couple out this week, but he expects them to stick close to their dens for the next few weeks before migration starts. Heavy Head says residents do not need to fear the reptiles but should be aware of them.
“You can trust that a snake is never going to aggress on you. I have been around now thousands of these snakes, these rattlesnakes, and I have never had one come after me, try to close the gap to come and bite me,” he says. “You have to almost touch the snake, or touch it, to get bit so you have to be the aggressor basically. If you see one and you are a few feet away from it, you are completely safe. It’s not going to come after you.”
The coulees are rattlesnake territory, and Heavy Head says it is important to remember wildlife can be encountered at any time. It is very rare for a person to be bitten by one of the snakes, but he says there are around 100 cases of dogs being bitten each year. The best way to keep your dog safe is to keep them on a leash when in the coulees.
“Typically dogs will survive rattlesnake bites anyway, dogs and cats. They have a greater kind of immunity to the venom, it’s not as toxic to them as it is to us,” Heavy Head says. “But if your dog gets bit, it’s still going to be in a veterinary hospital probably for a couple nights—it’s going to be an expensive treatment.”
Once the snakes become more active, they will move away from their dens to hunt. Heavy Head says many of them move up the coulees to find ground squirrels and the animals are habitual in their migration.
“A snake that has been going up on the rim is going to continue to go up every year and maybe year five, six of its life or something it’s going to encounter some kind of new development that wasn’t there before and maybe encounter people,” he says.
He adds new developments near the coulees impact the snake population and this can have broader impacts on the ecosystem, both obvious and not so apparent. He says some people believe rattlesnakes play an important role in reseeding the prairies by eating rodents that have seeds stored in their cheeks. When the seeds pass through the snake digestive system, they are not broken down and Heavy Head says this means the seeds can be carried and moved. Rattlesnakes are also food for many birds and predators.
Heavy Head runs a relocation program every summer for snakes that end up in yards and other areas they are not wanted.
READ MORE: Lethbridge rattlesnake wrangler prepares for annual migration