Do you kill snakes you find in your yard?

[anatess]

Mike, seems like you and I are the practical cold-hearted ones out here.

Okay guys, I hear ya... the only bad snake is a dead snake.

BUT... listen. I have a 5 and 7 year old. Yes, they know A LOT about snakes - from the books they read. Have they ever seen a diamond back? Yeah, in the book. Maybe in the zoo (do they have one in the zoo, Mike?). A water mocassin? Yeah, at the pet store. A coral snake? Yeah, in the book and that one Bindi the Jungle Girl episode. Would they recognize one if it slithers down the backyard? Well..... I'm not leaving that up to chance. So yeah, they probably won't die if they get bit - PROBABLY. Am I going to take that chance? HECK NO. Nobody dies from falling off the swingset too. But, when my son flew off the swing and shattered his elbow, I cannot begin to tell you how difficult it was for my husband and I to sit there and wait while my son went to surgery - all these dreadful things going through our heads - would he have any bad reactions to general anesthesia, what if he doesn't wake up, what if the bone cannot be set and he'll lose mobility in that arm. Anything can happen out there. I am not about to willingly put my kids through that experience if I have anything to do about it.

I live in the city. We don't usually go out the backyard and see a copperhead. Most of our neighbors have young kids as well. We are one of the very few in our 150+ family neighborhood who can identify a racer snake. I feel that it is even more of a danger for my little kids to see a hot one out there because they THINK they know everything about it and have that "false confidence". There's a reason you have to be certified to own a hot - because you have to know what you're doing before you go "snake hooking" it. I don't know of anybody in my neighborhood who has that certification. I can see this now - people saying - that's why you need to educate your kids about not touching hots... Okay, try that on 5 and 7 year old boys and let me know how it works out for ya...

So, if I ever find an aggressive water mocassin in the backyard while the kids are out playing and the husband is not around, I'm fairly certain he's going to be fish food. It is EXACTLY the same thing if I would be driving, and an animal - be it a dog, a cat, or whatever - crosses the road, and I have kids in the back, and I can't be confident that if I apply the brakes or swerve that the car won't turn turtle, or skid, or whatever, heck - I'm running over that thing whatever it is. The safety of my kids ALWAYS come first. ALWAYS.

By the way, those of you who said to call animal control or whatever to relocate the snake - have you ever done it? Because I have (before I found out that the racer snakes living in my hedge are non-venomous), and they charge $425.00 to take the snake out.