Texas’s annual rattlesnake roundup just ended, state to cull thousands of snakes

Sweetwater City in Texas just end on Sunday its “World’s Largest Rattlesnake Roundup” with thousands of rattlesnakes thrown in a pit and culled. The 59-year tradition is similar to Florida’s Python Challenge which draws out-of-state participants and yielded 106 loose snakes in its 2016 edition.

But Sweetwater’s version, initiated by the Junior Chamber of Commerce, or Jaycees, to reduce the area’s large population of reptiles, is bigger than Florida’s. In 2015, the hunt netted 3,780 pounds of rattlesnakes. Out-of-state participants join the hunt and the final event in which the snakes are killed, cooked and its skin saved, draws more than 25,000 visitors, reports The Washington Post.

The Jaycees launched the annual hunt because the snakes killed their cattle and bit dozens of people annually. However, the Advocates for Snake Preservation, disagrees with the hunt. Melissa Amarello, co-founder of the group, notes that most of the snakes in the pit are swollen and bloody from being restrained or thrown by handlers. A lot of the rattlesnakes are dead, dying, too weak or stressed to defend itself, the conditions are unsanitary and the practice is cruelty and dangerous to the public.

While 7,000 to 8,000 Americans are bitten annually by venomous snakes, according to the Centers for Disease Control, only six die. The number of people killed by lightning strikes in four times bigger. Auburn University wildlife biologist David Steen points out that most of rattlesnake bite victims are drunk people, exterminators or people who mess with snakes.

“If you don’t do any of those thing, the risks of getting bitten by a snake are really low. What does a snake have to gain by attacking you? It’s not going to try to eat you,” says Steen who specialises in reptiles and amphibians.

The pit has been compared by a reporter for the Midland Reporter-Telegram to a “spaghetti of writhing angry reptiles. The air reeks of “a strange dense smell with an evil vomit-like edge to it.” The Jaycees first behead the rattlesnake, stripped of its skin and their innards taken out. The heads are collected “in a gory pile.” The skin is sold, the meat is fried and eaten and the venom sold for research. There is even a Miss Snake Charmer competition, with the winner getting a scholarship.

Amarello explains that “Rattlesnakes rattle when they are terrified, not angry or preparing to attack.” She adds, “The sound of rattling at these roundups is in fact a thousand snakes screaming.”

Only six state still hold snake roundups, most of them in the south. Besides becoming out of fashion since urbanisation have driven the snakes out of their habitat, there is also a growing complaint over the hunt promoting cruelty and a dysfunctional relationship with wildlife.

The annual roundup, according to an analysis, raised $8.4 million into Sweetwater’s economy which the Jaycees used for its community projects such as feeding people on Thanksgiving.