Wildlife expert said snake season started earlier this year in Central Virginia

CHESTERFIELD COUNTY, Va. — Whereas “snake season” tends to start as spring does, Virginia Wildlife Administration and Management mentioned they’ve already been coping with report quantities of requires snakes over the winter that they predict will proceed within the hotter months.

“It does worsen and worse yearly,” mentioned Virginia Wildlife Administration and Management Proprietor Richard Perry. “For snakes, we all know it’ll be a nasty one.”

However many could be questioning why it appears there are extra snakes in Central Virginia yr after yr.

“I believe it is a mixture of a whole lot of issues, climate clearly, probably the most notable issue, but additionally the constructing happening,” mentioned Perry. “I imply, as you recognize, we’re simply doing a whole lot of loopy growth and every little thing, so it is sort of drawing issues out.”

In Central Virginia, Perry mentioned Woodlake, Brandermill and Salisbury are the worst neighborhoods relating to requires snakes.

“We’re on excessive alert on a regular basis, and we train our children to acknowledge when there is a snake and to have the ability to determine it too,” defined Brandermill mother Monica Kincaid.

She and her household love the neighborhood’s picturesque waterfront views and tree-lined streets, however the Kincaids say they share their yard with Copperheads.

“We noticed one within the lifeless of winter,” Kincaid famous. “It was freezing exterior. We’re very cautious after we go and get our firewood as a result of we do preserve that within the tree line. We simply ensure that we go we have now flashlights or we carry them over within the daylight first, or I make my husband go get it.”

For many who have bother telling the distinction between venomous and non-venomous snakes, Virginia Wildlife Administration and Management labored to create Virginia’s first 24/7 snake identification hotline a couple of years in the past.

“We instantly determine the snake as both being venomous and non-venomous,” Perry defined. “After which in the event that they want us to return on the market and take away it, then sure, then we’d dispatch a unit out to take away the snake.”

It needs to be famous it’s unlawful to kill a snake in Virginia until it is threatening you or your animals or makes its approach inside your private home.

Whereas there isn’t a product that may actually preserve snakes from making house in your yard, Perry mentioned there are some particular belongings you could be unknowingly doing to draw them.

“They love piles of leaves, they love brush piles, they love log piles, they love brick work, stonework, any of that sort of stuff,” Perry famous. “They simply like to gravitate in direction of these areas. What occurs now within the springtime, lots of people are doing their spring cleanup. They’re reducing their hedges, trimming bushes and bushes and whatnot, and they tend to depart these brush piles there as a result of they’ll get to them slightly bit afterward. The longer you permit them there, it’s actually a welcome mat to snakes.”

For those who need assistance figuring out a snake, you’ll be able to textual content an image of it to (804) 617-7086, and Virginia Wildlife Administration and Management will let you recognize whether or not you have to be involved.