I get soooo annoyed by some of the local, "grown-ass" men that were born and raised here in the South that go out of their way to kill non-poisonous snakes because they're too lazy to try and know enough to be able to identify them. Hell, there's so few here that are poisonous compared to non-poisonous it would be very easy but all their lives they have been hearing and repeating that "the only good snake is a dead snake" bullshit they heard their equally uninformed grand-daddy or daddy spew.
I'm not a snake expert, snake handler, snake nut, etc. but I like to think they have a purpose just as much as I do and unless it's poisonous AND near my house I leave it alone and it leaves me alone. I turned 75 this past week and that outlook with snakes and critters in general has served me well.
FWIW, my "snake" post summer of '23:
Last week I shared my install of a little TP-LINK Tapo cam to watch the status LEDs on my fiber modem. Nothing much going on until about 9:19 PM Sunday night when
Blue Iris sent me a motion alert. I walk into the office, look at the screen and here's this rat snake crawling up the back board and...
ipcamtalk.com
I agree 100% & go out of my way not to harm snakes. Living on a farm, and taking care of a lot of rural client properties, I know snakes are an essential part of the ecosystem. Only snakes I've had sometimes had problems with are copperheads. I leave them be whenever possible, but sometimes they get close to the house and show their a$$es, so to speak. Their motto is bite first, ask permission later. I can usually persuade them to move along, but sometimes they just don't get the message until I "make the point". I spent 30 min untangling a helpless black rat snake that chased a mouse into one of our barns, got tangled up in bird netting. Took scissors and a pocket knife, and precision trimming to finally cut him free. He was so exhausted from struggling, he didn't even attempt to bite or "skunk" me. Once free of the netting, carried him out to pasture, set him loose. He looked at me as if you really aren't just going to let me go are ya, then slithered on off into tall grass. I accidentally ran over a Garter snake while mowing. Had a pretty nasty cut on his back. Took a few weeks, but nursed back to health. Almost became a pet.. interesting how they have personalities, all different. Working on an old log cabin, one of the workers (BIG tough guy) uncovered a nest of Ring Neck snakes. I heard him shriek like a school girl around the house. I laughed my butt off when I saw what he was so terrified of... a few little ring neck snakes, not much bigger than night crawlers. Good grief.
Some places where I work have Timber Rattlers. I leave them alone too. They can be very aggressive if cornered (what animal isn't?); but generally they just want to get away. I'm not about to handle them, and have never had one get close to a dwelling, or even our barn. Sadly, I see them run over in the roads too often. Stopped once to get a large black snake out of the road, early morning. As I was about to move the cold snake to safety, some idiot in a truck swerved over right in front of me, nearly hitting me (caught corner of my jacket). He ran over the black snake, flipped me off, & sped off. He was lucky I wasn't carrying, otherwise would've been digging a hole to bury his chickensh*t a$$.
Here area couple of Rattlers I ran into while working for a mountain top client. The male was 6ft, female 5.5 ft. Neither rattled at me, or acted aggressively. I left them alone, but most construction workers will kill any snake on sight. Guess they'd rather have rats & diseases they bring. My helper the day I spotted these rattlers ran back to the truck, wouldn't come out. Told him come on, snakes cannot fly. Not going to bother you. His response was how do you know? Finished the job alone.