I Hurt a Snake

CEFR Level B2-C1

This is not a sponsored post.

I was tired of fighting with the groundhog over who gets to eat the produce of my vegetable garden. I wish the groundhog no harm and don’t begrudge it the need to eat, but I also want to eat what I plant, ideally without any parasites from groundhog droppings. After a few years of the groundhog thanking me for giving it a safe enclosure to eat all the tender plants its great big rodent heart desired, I bought a raised garden bed from Garden-In-Minutes. 

Now, this raised bed is three feet tall. The configuration I used makes it 1.5 feet wide and 4 feet long. I’ll let you do the math to figure out how many cubic feet of soil would fill up that thing. The important part is, I’m not rich enough to buy that much soil.

Snake photo below the break

For better or worse, I decided to fill up most of the volume with cardboard and newspaper. Fortuitously, a friend had recently moved house and happily gave me as much cardboard as I could stuff into my vehicle.

The day I picked up the cardboard, I got home late. I wanted to pull as much tape and labels off as possible before I put the cardboard into the garden bed, so I unloaded the vehicle, told myself to deal with the pile that weekend before it turned into prime snake real estate, and went on with my evening.

Then Hebrew class took my every waking and sleeping minute. Then it rained. Then it was three weeks later. I wasn’t feeling my best and was so, so tired, but it was a perfect October day and I knew if I checked one thing off the list, then my brain could relax a little. I went out to deal with Cardboard Hill. 

I gingerly started lifting soggy cardboard and stuffing it into the raised garden bed. I knew it was only a matter of time before I found a snake. I just hoped it was a Dekay’s brown snake, not a copperhead. It was easier to fold and manipulate the cardboard without gloves, so I didn’t wear them. 

One Amazon box was particularly challenging to get into the right shape to slide under the support rods of the garden bed. While fighting with it, I stabbed my finger, but since it didn’t bleed, I figured the prick was from that wire thread that goes into heavy-duty tape. I finally got the box into place, went to the stack to get another box, came back to decide where to put the new box, and screamed the loudest, longest scream I’ve ever made. 

Yes, friends, there was a snake right in the spot where I got pricked. I frantically looked at my finger, trying to remind myself to breathe normally so that my heart rate would slow down. Intellectually, I know that bites from copperheads are rarely fatal and the greatest risk for a generally healthy person is infection at the bite site. Emotionally? I prefer not to meet one, no matter how calm their reputation is.

The prick on my finger didn’t appear to go beyond the first layer of skin. Slightly calmer, I examined the snake. Its head was pushed into a fold of cardboard. It appeared to be a Dekay’s brown snake. Its tail whipped around, but its head stayed inside the cardboard fold. I sent a photo to my Master Naturalist group, asking for an ID.

While waiting, I went inside and washed my finger with soap and water. The prick truly appeared to be only in the first layer of skin. This reassured me. Even if the teeny, tiny hole in the top layer of skin was made by a snake tooth, I get more damage from chronic dermatitis than this prick gave me.

I returned to look at the snake. It hadn’t changed position and I wondered if its head was stuck. Had I smashed its head while folding the box?

I got a rake and tried to lift the cardboard. The snake didn’t release itself. I tried to gently pull it out with the rake tine. That didn’t work, either. I started to feel guilty for half-killing a living creature, then leaving it to suffer with a smashed head. My efforts to free the snake gave me a better view of its body and I sent a photo directly to the snake expert in the Master Naturalist group.

I tried again to get the snake out. I considered leaving and letting it get out on its own once it felt safe, but the more I looked at the position of its head and the flat shape of its body, the more I wondered if it were stuck, perhaps long before I started working that morning. 

I hadn’t gotten an ID response yet, but I felt certain this was not a copperhead. That’s the only venomous snake around here, at least naturally occurring. 

Take a deep breath, I got my garden gloves. I would have preferred fully leather gloves, but I had to make do with what I had. If it was stuck, I couldn’t leave it to dehydrate to death. If it was stuck and injured and I left it, I would be responsible for torturing a living creature to a slow death. 

Carefully, heart pounding, I unfolded the box until I could fully see the snake. Its head and much of its body was stuck to the packing tape! Its top jaw moved and the end of its tail swiped, but the snake was stuck. What to do?

It’s illegal to kill a snake in Virginia. Even if it wasn’t, I don’t kill living things if I can help it. 

I watched the snake. Yep. Stuck.

Praying that I wasn’t being an idiot, I pulled the tape off the box, then cut out the part the snake was on. Yes, I panicked multiple times during the process, including dropping the snake-tape. If the snake wasn’t stressed before, it surely was now. Eventually, I got the snake-tape moved to the ground, in the shade, and away from my work area. 

I finished putting the boxes into the raised bed. I soberly accepted that my delay in dealing with the pile had caused this living creature distress. That might seem excessively conscientious, but I believe that all living things were created and given life by God. To care for anything God created is to honor God and care for what God cares for. In order for that to be more than a nice thought limited to verbal piety, it has to affect the way I think and feel and what I do.

By the time I finished with the stack of cardboard, I had gotten a response from the Master Naturalists. I was right with my ID: Dekay’s brown snake (Storeria dekayi). One of the herpetologist specialists said that the snake needed to go to a rehabber who could get it unstuck. She sent me the number of one, but said she might be able to come if that person couldn’t help.

I contacted the rehabber and he told me to put the snake in a cardboard box. Just so you know, even tiny snakes have weight. There was no way for me to pick up the snake-tape without picking it up by the tail and head end, at least not if I wanted to avoid potential injury to the snake. Yes, I dropped the poor thing, then had to reach in next to its head (okay, 6 inches away, but at its head-end all the same) and reposition it so that its head wasn’t lower than the rest of its body. I don’t know if that matters for snakes, but it felt important. 

The rehabber and I arranged a meeting place and I put the box with the snake-tape into the back of my vehicle where I hoped it would stay in the shade. Thirty minutes later, I pulled into a deserted gravel parking lot and stopped next to an SUV. A man got out and vaguely looked like the rehabber I had met once, several months ago. 

He handed me a clipboard to fill in the “finder” details. Seriously, y’all, certified rehabbers get extensive training and are official about things. They aren’t merely kind-hearted citizens doing what makes sense to them. These are trained professionals, even if it is citizen volunteer work. 

While I filled in the form, he examined the snake. I offered to pay for any expenses involved in treating the snake. After all, the snake wouldn’t need help if it weren’t for my actions. He said all it would take was olive oil and some time, but the snake looked to be in decent condition.

Less than two hours later, I got a text saying that the snake was free from the tape and would be given water and observation, then released. It was a happy ending, but it doesn’t change the fact that I caused a living creature harm and distress.

Theological Connection

​Now, I’m not over here sobbing in emotional self-flaggelation. I understand that in some ways, this was an accident. I also understand that in some ways, I could have taken steps to avoid it. 

My point in sharing this long story is partly to provide a public service announcement about sticky tapes and the potential harm to wildlife. It’s partly to create awareness of the existence of certified wildlife rehabilitators (and the fact that the finder is responsible for transporting the animal, if at all possible). It is also to give an example of theology in action. 

Whatever your religion is or isn’t, you have beliefs about what makes the world work and about what values are important. If those beliefs don’t motivate you to action, then do you really believe them?* If the values don’t apply to even those things that make you scream in fear, then are they actually what you value?

For me, my theological beliefs that God created and loves all living creatures means that I have to act with respect and care for living creatures. There is nuance, of course. I’m not suggesting that someone go into debt to operate on the family pet or put themselves in danger to save a wild animal. I’m also not saying that someone shouldn’t do those things. The right decision will depend on a holistic consideration of one’s beliefs, values, responsibilities, and abilities. What I am saying is, whatever we claim to believe, a true belief will result in action, even for something as seemingly insignificant as a harmless snake. 

* I’m scared to publish this statement. I don’t want someone believing that certain people deserve to be harmed acting on their beliefs. Still, from an academic perspective, the point stands. From a moral perspective: Don’t hurt people, y’all.