Russ Cavender, a local snake chaser, handles a catch. He says these days he can barely keep up with all the animal removal calls.
Business is booming for Russ Cavender of Longs. He's The Snake Chaser and these days, he can barely keep up with the calls.
"Last year I was busier than I have ever been and this year, I'm twice as busy as I was last year, as far as snakes go," Cavender said.
The explosion of snake calls is probably due to a sort of perfect storm of weather factors, Cavender said. It started with back-to-back cold, wet winters. Snakes get a lot of energy when they come out of hibernation, he said, and they begin reproducing.
"Then we had a nice spring, so that spring gave them all the frogs, toads, lizards, mice and all the other sources of food that they need, so they're prolific."
But what has really brought snakes out of the woods has been an unusually dry May and early June, the beginning stages of drought. That brings snakes out seeking water, because like humans, they need to hydrate.
"And if there's no hydration, all the ditches are dry, the water sources are starting to decline, you got to think, watering your yard, having garden ponds, just a leaky faucet is going to attract a snake from a long distance," Cavender said.
Cavender and his assistant are handling close to 30 animal removal calls per day, most of them for snakes.
Debbie Wardell of Surfside Beach made one of those calls Monday. She came home one day last week "and all of a sudden I saw this little head popping out from underneath my door."
It was a garter snake and Wardell spent a week hoping it would go away on its own. It didn't, so she called The Snake Chaser.
"I wasn't going to try to catch him myself or kill him myself. I just wanted him gone."
Cavender made quick work of snatching the small black reptile from its hiding place under Wardell's threshold and dropping the snake into a cloth bag. The Eastern garter is harmless, Cavender said, but it still scares a lot of people.
Other species are more dangerous. Cavender said one of the most common snakes he sees this time of year is the copperhead, which has a bite that injects a necrotic venom into its victim, killing living tissue.
"They're not deadly, but they will put a hurting on you and you will have to visit a hospital room and you will not enjoy it."
Other dangerous species that show up around the Grand Strand include the canebreak rattlesnake and the cottonmouth or water moccasin.
Snakes can smell water, so to keep them at bay, Cavender suggests minimizing water sources around your home, like leaky air conditioners or dripping garden hoses. He says snake repellent can also be helpful. But in the end, he said, there's little you can do.
"If a snake wants to come to your property, it's going to."
