Indeed, but I'm warming up to the idea of people keeping them. They don't seem very difficult as captive bred.
I don't know how much the people here know about Finnish society, but almost every Finnish family has a small summer cottage in the countryside, usually by a lake or the sea. Ours happens to be in on an island in the Gulf of Finland (60.12.54 N, 25.57.59 E according to Google Earth). There hasn't been more than one or two snakes on that island since my grandparents first started building there some 30 or 40 years ago, but last summer I found 5
Vipera berus and one huge
Natrix natrix within 10 meters of the house. Got a few pictures of the
Viperas, but not of the
Natrix. Anyway, the area is crawling with voles and frogs, so it's really no wonder that both species thrive. We saw that grass snake a couple of times, it was well over a meter long (
N. n. natrix doesn't normally get nearly as big as
helvetica iirc), really beautiful grey with small black markings along the body.
As a sidenote, I found a dead vole maybe 2 meters from where I found one
Vipera berus and of course the snake became the main suspect.
Personally, I feel very lucky to be able to see these snakes in the wild.
I have no idea why I decided to tell this little anecdote. Maybe because it's around 3:30 AM and there was a bit of partying going on earlier in the evening.
ps. pictures of one
Vipera berus and a nearby
Rana temporaria in the gallery.
