Sure. It remains a fact that 2 or 3 people die from snakebite in Australia yearly though, as opposed to thousands in Asia and Africa.
My father was brought up on a dairy farm in the first irrigation project in australia, which was very much snake central, and in his youth the attitude was to kill snakes at any opportunity. He says he regrets it now.
Your experience is doubtless great and mine minimal, and where children are involved obviously anyone would consider they come first, but I am still told snakes mostly leave you alone if you leave them alone.
I'd agree with that. I can remember the last snake I killed. Don't know why I had never thought about not killing one before but I for some reason I decided I really had no reason to kill it, and actually felt quite bad about having killed this one. That was about 20 years ago. Now i tend to remove them by other means. Eg. One day my son was outside ( age about 6 ) and I heard him start to scream in terror, when I ran outside he was running toward me yelling snake and in a panic. I grabbed him, in a bit of a panic myself, and gave him a shake and said "where did it bite you!", he stopped and said rather clearly and in the calmest voice "oh no dad it didn't bite me" at which I calmed down too
We then retraced his steps and found the snake. And watched it for a while as it headed toward a damp shaded part of the garden. It was a pretty dry period and we figured he was thirsty so we turned on the mist sprinklers, in a spot not far from him. In a few minutes he was in that spot and just basking in the drips of water and taking in as much as he could. When he'd had his fill he moved of and I never saw him again. Besides we had an huge ( 8 to 9 foot ) diamond python living at our place ( in the roof space mostly.) he tended to shift off the interlopers and was an "ok" rat catcher before we got cats.
Apart from their venom, they were really not much different from our somewhat tame diamond python, so we thereafter shift them rather than kill them. Better to train the kids than attempt to kill all snakes is probably the best way. As i said in an earlier post my reaction these days is usually just to start a bike up ( I usually seem to have one at hand ).
But to be honest, if hit, I still think its better to not rely on the thought that there will be imminent medical attention. I had a grand uncle who was chopping wood in his youth, he was bitten by a snake as he grabbed the next piece to split. According to my grandfather the uncles next action ( on the down stroke of the ace was to take off the bitten finger). It was the area to the northeast of Lismore NSW ( kinda near Andyroo ) so the trip to Lismore Hospital was an "iffy" few hours, and I gather there were no antivenins back then.
Regardless of whether or not we believed him as children the fact was that he was there to tell us the story, and since he told us the story we tended to take on the ethos of "act fast and don't wait for "help", in some occasions" ..... I'm still a bit like that today really. I think the biggest mistake you can make is think " she'll be fine an ambo will come .... " .
So don't worry, I'm not a snake killer. When I say "start a bike" its just to scare a snake off, its just the vibration of the engine thumps to scare them away ........ non-contact. Snakes have every right to exist by me. I've even removed a shoelace sized one peaceably, from inside the house, discovered in the strobe flash of a lazer tag set whilst the kids had all the lights off and playing ...... but thats another story. I'm even careful when slashing/mowing these days, not for my sake but for the snakes, folk forget that sure snakes can be dangerous ........ but humans are a far greater danger to them.
Besides they do good, they eat rats ( I don't need rats, nor their damage, and feel no remorse over their demise ), and the baby snakes will even eat funnelwebs ....... those I can't abide.
