fairly horrific.

[kerensa]

LOL. I'm not so good with Venemous snakes now either. although the first snake I ever held was a copper head. I was 5. Thats when Mom made dad make sure there were pad locks on ALL snake enclosures. I don't remember it but Mom says she had nightmares about it for years.

[EasternGirl]

I would def do venomous snakes as well if I had some training in handling them. We do have copperheads and timber rattlers around here...but I have never seen either and I have lived here my whole life. Now I have seen cottonmouths in the lower part of the state...but I would not deal with them! Most of the time when someone has an unwanted snake in their yard or basement around here...you are dealing with a garter or a rat snake...occasionally a black racer...and they can be aggressive...but I have dealt with them.

[kerensa]

well I have "some training" it was impossible liking reptiles in my family growing up and not getting some training from my father in how to deal with the venomous ones... I'm still not going to go out hunting them, which my father did for fun. (he would catch, measure, weigh, milk and release. and photo any he thought interesting and did not want to keep)

[Thamnophis]

This indeed is a very unfriendly way to prevent snakes to come in your house etc. I thought in the USA there also are laws to prevent animal cruelty?
I know for 99 % that this method would not be allowed in the Netherlands. But it will not be used here since we only have three snake species here in the wild and they almost never will come in the neighborhood of people's houses.

[Chondro788]

After high school I worked at a local pet store that used glue traps for rodents. When we found rodents on the traps, we would euthanize them in a fairly "humane" manner. Unfortunately, as humans we sometimes have to kill animals that are pest. We would sometimes catch snakes on the glue traps as well, and the vegetable oil worked pretty good. Usually after just one shed, the snake looked fine and suffered no side effects. I never had a snake die that was caught in the trap. So although the traps seem bad, they may not be as bad as they seem if the person is willing to take the time and free the animal with some oil. I agree, however, that there is probably not a need for a "snake trap"...

[Spankenstyne]

I often wonder if we just look for reasons to be outraged. It's not as bad as it looks, it's one of the more humane trap methods out there if properly monitored and the literature on the site explains how to humanely release the snake afterwards.
The first paragraph even says: "Snakes have always played an important role in helping maintain nature's ecological balance. Through predation, they help keep rodent and other pest populations under control, helping prevent the damage that can come from rodent and insect over-population."

It's also a way some use to catch escapees as well, with some vegetable oil the snake comes free quite easily usually with very little damage.

Beyond the best case scenario of just leaving the snakes alone, or having someone come in and manually capture & relocate it's one of the more humane ways of dealing with it. There are some truly cruel & terrible traps out there, this one's not so bad by comparison. Obviously I'd rather nobody ever used any traps period but it's much better than home owners going after the snakes with garden tools. This way the snakes get to live another day.

[snake man12]

That is simply terrible to get them stuck on glue. I personally have seen snakes stuck on adhesive and it is not pretty and certainly not humane. End of rant