Yesterday found the RAR crew in Nipissing First Nation for another fun-filled day of reptile education and for the first time, a day without car trouble. Every time the key of the van was turned in the ignition, a delightful car-starting sound ensued. This was followed by our vocalizing our excitement and in at least one case, tears of joy. Because of the cooperation of the van, we arrived in Nipissing on time and proceeded to pass around the snakes to some pretty enthusiastic kids. Some kids (and quite a few more adults), however, were very concerned about being bitten. There are about a half a dozen issues revolving around this topic that could be addressed, but I'll try to stick with the facts: Snakes will generally bite for one of two reasons. The first has to do with food, as yes, they do indeed bite when they are eating. We bite when we eat as well! In fact, we bite more than snakes do when we eat, as we have to crush and tear apart our food in our mouths by chewing it a few dozen times, whereas snakes only have to bite their food once in order to get the swallowing part started up (people are much more dangerous than snakes!). A snake will not bite us for this reason because we just are not something that they are interested in eating. It would be like us biting a tree – trees are not our food, so what would the point be?
Snakes will also bite out of fear. We are often told of 'aggressive' snakes that have bitten people in the wild when picked up. Wild snakes, however, are no different than wild chipmunks or wild raccoons. If you try to pick one up, they will try to bite you in order to protect themselves. As chipmunks and raccoons have wonderful teeth meant for cracking and chewing, this works really well for them. Unfortunately, with snakes, this is a terrible defence as their teeth are so small that they cannot even be seen in many cases. Also, their bite is designed to help them hold onto their food, not tear it apart. As a result, the aggressive wild snakes are really not aggressive at all! They are reacting out of fear to the aggressive people trying to pick them up, who for all they know might be really interested in eating them! Our snakes, however, are very accustomed to being handled by terrifying frightening people, and are not scared of us. Therefore, they will not bite us for this reason either. Besides, being bitten really isn't that bad. In my opinion, mosquito bites are about 100 times worse. As for being pooped on... We can never guarantee whether or not that will happen...
- Brittany