I'm totally bummed...

Today, we had some hired help doing the yard work. When the guy was about halfway finished mowing the back yard, he comes around front to ring the door bell. When I answer the door, he tells me with a very deeply concerned expression that he's just killed a snake in the back yard.

:tears:

I'm immediately just as deeply concerned, but I know right away it's not for the same reasons. I tried not to get mad at him. He saw the kids' bikes and dog house, and the guy only knows what society teaches about snakes. Snakes = danger to unsuspecting kids. So he truly thought he was doing the right thing to kill the snake he'd found in our back yard. I had to just keep telling myself that...over and over.

I asked to see it. He said, "Of course, it's still back there, but you won't be able to recognize it without a head."

:tears:

Of course I went to see it anyhow. He'd taken one of our garden hoes and driven it so deeply across the neck that the head had just...disappeared...driven into the ground, I guess. I never did see the head...just the body that was left.

It wasn't even a snake. It was a beautiful dark green Glass Lizard. So harmless. So beautiful.

:tears: It's really neat to know that I have Glass Lizards in the back yard. But I'm so sad that the little creature had to die just because it looked like a snake.

Some ppl are just ignorant...
They are so quick o kill everything what in they imagination could be dangerous to them...
For most ppl this is not big deal.. we have this luck to be reptile lovers and this is why is so sad for us...
Only right education could change things.. but with this country economy problems i dont see that coming in near future... and that what make me sad even more...:(

For this reason when I have anyone come to work around my house I tell them that they are NOT to kill anything they see, but to immediatelly come get me, because there are several endangered species in the area and Fish and Game keep an eye on them via tracking gadgets sometimes. If it's one and they kill it, major jail time etc etc.

It's total bullpuckey. But so far it's saved one tortoise from being taken home as a "pet" and two harmless non-venomous snakes from being hacked up. Of course, it's possible that I've had other critters killed and they just hid them or whatever. But I figure it might save a few and if the rumor spreads it might save a couple more.

Poor wild creatures. Yet they'd think a raccoon would be "Cute" while it could be spreading rabies or bite someone and give them infections. Stupid scaled fears.

So sad :(

Not everyone sees the beauty in reptiles. It took me 46 years. I swerved off the road the other day to miss hitting a black snake a year ago I would have probably tried to hit it. Thanks to the internet, BP.net and six awesome snakes I have a totally new outlook for all reptiles.

It's a shame both that it was needlessly killed and that as a local resident, he didn't know what it was.

Very sad indeed :tears:

Ignorance is the most cruel of all human mistakes IMO

That truly is very disheartening.

:( Did you say anything to him at all about it? I know you didn't want to seem mad but next time, please tell them don't kill anything :(..