Are Garter Snakes Dangerous?
Most people have a wrong understanding of most snakes in our country. What people do not realize is that many snakes have a very positive effect on our environment. What my generation needs to do moving forward is ask these questions when coming in contact with a snake, Does it have a triangular head? Can you tell what kind of snake it is before making the action to harm it? Is this snake really going to mess with me if I don’t mess with it?
The Garter snake is an example of a snake that is misinterpreted because most people do not have much knowledge about snakes. Garter snakes are a type of snake that is not poisonous and has a huge impact on killing rodents and other insects that might have a negative impact on our environment. If a Garter snake were to bite a human, nothing really would happen to us other than a scare from the teeth of the snake.
Once in my life, I was bitten by a Kingsnake on my foot. I was very scared at first because I did not know how my body would react to the snake bite but I concluded that the only reason I was bitten by it is that I stepped on the snake unexpectedly. These snakes in general do not like to pester humans and for the most part, like to be in wooded areas where most of their food lives.
Garter snakes enjoy eating things like grasshoppers, frogs, and mice which can be a total pest for humans. I know many people that kill a snake right when they see one instead of inspecting the snake to see if it is poisonous or not. People need to realize that all snakes are not bad, and a majority of snakes in North America help our environment out instead of hurting it.
I can recall a time when I was young when I saw a snake in our garden. I ran inside and got my dad to come look at it to see what kind of snake it was. He told me that it was a Garter snake that did no harm to us. I asked him, “I thought snakes were bad” and he told me that these snakes were a good thing for our garden and our yard in general.
It is time for people to become educated on whether or not a snake is poisonous or not. If people keep killing every snake they see, there will be a multitude of rodents invading on our property which will cause many more problems for people in this country. In conclusion, No, Garter snakes are not a dangerous snake. They do more good than they do bad. We must leave these snakes along unless they are in our house or another man-made form of our property. Nature is supposed to run its course without any interruption and if we do not obey this natural rule, the future will hold many more problems than it does today.
