Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Kids get lessons on snake safety

Readers at the Cabe Library in Gurdon were told about the four categories of poisonous snakes in Arkansas at the Tuesday afternoon presentation, June 20, but advised that the best course of action when coming across any snake "is dont touch it!"

Jason Parrie, an interpreter from DeGray Lake Resort State Park, talked to approximately 20 youngsters and Julie Watson, the childrens librarian in charge of the summer reading program.

Parrie said about 8,000 people get bit by a snake per year in the United States, 500 go to a hospital and five die of snake bite.

"This is small if you compare it to dogs," he said. "Over a million every year get bitten by a dog. There are two million dog attacks and 800,000 victims end up going to the hospital. Of those, there are 20 people who die every year of dog bite."

Parrie said his point is not all dogs are mean and neither are all snakes. But people feel more comfortable trusting dogs because of familiarity.

Parrie said the four poisonous snakes in Arkansas are the cotton mouth or water moccasin, the copperhead, the coral snake, and rattle snakes  specifically pygmy, diamond back and timber.

Parrie said to tell if a snake is poisonous, you must first know what kind of snake it is.

He said a poisonous snake has one row of lines on its tail scales.

"Obviously, you would have to be too close to the snake to find this out," he said. "All snakes can bite. The best thing to do is not pick up a snake and to stay away from them. Most of our people who get bit by a snake are trying to pick it up."

Parrie said there are 50 types of snakes in Arkansas. They eat meat, including frogs, lizards, eggs, fish, birds, rats, worms, insects and other snakes.

"Some of them have sharp teeth," he said. "But nature is surprising. A mouse can kill a rattle snake if the mouse bites him a certain way in the head."

Parrie named three techniques a snake can use to catch its prey. Some snakes squeeze their prey and suffocate it. Others grab the prey and go off with it. But the venomous snakes leave poison after a bite.

Parrie passed around a snake skin from a rat snake he brought to show the children. The snake skin was 5 feet in length.

Then he brought the rat snake out of its cage at the screams of the audience. Parrie asked for volunteers to pet the snake and got several takers.

At the request of Parrie, Watson put disinfectant on each childs hands that touched a snake.

"We always do that because a snake can carry the salmonella disease," Parrie said. "We dont want to take any chances of one of you catching anything."

Parrie said the rat snake gathers rats and mice to eat by the squeezing method. It can eat three or four a week, but is harmless to people.

"Even the rat snake could bite you so it is really never a good idea to pick one up, but I will today to demonstrate to this group," he said.

Parrie put the rat snake back in the box and got out his second snake for demonstration. The second one was a king snake, which can eat other snakes.

"I have been bit before," Parrie said. "But the snakes I brought today have been gentle so far."

More than half of the crowd attempted to pet one or both of the snakes brought to the reading program. No biting, or attempted biting, on the part of the snakes or the children was observed.

The Tuesday, June 27, the 2 p.m. program was scheduled with the Clark County museum.