You might be wondering why on earth anyone would want to purposely ROUND UP a bunch of rattlesnakes. After all, most people do their best to avoid them. But if you're a rancher or farmer in Sweetwater, Texas who lose cattle to these vipers, you look forward to getting rid of as many as possible. Since 1958, the World's Largest Rattlesnake Round-Up has been held annually on the 2nd weekend in March at the Nolan County Coliseum. The Round-Up was started as a way to control the population of snakes in this area of Texas, and has turned into a popular annual event sponsored by the Sweetwater Jaycees.

Today, the Rattlesnake Round-Up draws over 40,000 visitors per year and is fun for the whole family. You can expect a Snake Safety Demonstration , Fried Snake Meat, Vendors of all kinds, a Carnival, Flea Market, a Miss Snakecharmer Pageant, a Gun Knife & Coin Show— lots of things to see and do. But even with all the other things going on, the rattlesnakes are the main attraction. Bus tours take people out on tours so you get a feel for the rattlesnake's habitat. It's really educational!

The Jaycees purchase about 5,000 pounds of rattlesnakes each year from private hunters who trap them. Not to worry, as you'll see in the video, everyone coming into contact with these fearsome creatures uses snake bite protection such as snake chaps and long-handled snake hooks.

After being "rounded up" the venom is removed from each viper. Then they are weighed, measured, and sexed. The data is used by the wildlife department. The rattlesnakes then literally lose their head, but nothing is wasted. The hides are used for wallets and belts and other decorative items. The meat becomes part of the BBQ menu that Texas is known for.

If you've never been to Sweetwater, the city is located in Nolan County, 40 miles west of Abilene, 75 miles north of San Angelo, 125 miles southeast of Lubbock, 130 miles of Odessa and 190 miles west of Ft. Worth. The landscape is predominantly rolling uplands to the north, with plateaus traversed by valleys in the south. The agricultural economy centers around cattle and live-stock products, but 50 percent of the annual agricultural income is from crops, especially cotton, wheat and sorghum that favor loamy soil. Wind power is fast becoming an alternative energy source of choice— Nolan County is one of the Top 10 largest wind farms in the United States.

If you like history, you'll enjoy the stories that put Nolan County on the map. The first Anglo settlers, mostly buffalo hunters, came to the area after the Civil War. Knight's store on Sweetwater Creek was started in a dugout in 1877 to serve the buffalo hunters . The county's first post office was opened in 1879 in the village of Sweet Water, which was two words until the spelling was officially changed in 1918. The original name of the post office was Blue Goose, derived from a story that the first postmaster ate a blue crane that cowboys told him was a blue goose. The townsite was on the Texas and Pacific Railway, which had built into the area in March 1881. The first newspaper was published that same year.

If the World's Largest Rattlesnake Round-Up sounds oddly interesting and you would like to learn more about the snakes and safely see them close up, mark your calendars and visit Sweetwater, Texas next year. The event is always held the second weekend of March.

We all know that there's a specific purpose to a snake's rattle— to scare larger animals and humans away. And it generally works! Hearing that rattle signals immediate danger and most of us move away as quickly as possible. But what if you couldn't hear the rattle and be warned? What if you sat down on a log or were walking down a trail and didn't know that a snake was inches from you because there was no warning rattle?!  Some experts say that's what is happening with the Crotalus Viridis¸ or the prairie rattlesnake in the Black Hills of South Dakota.

Over the past couple of years, naturalists have noticed many rattlesnakes with “curly-Q” tails, like you find on pigs. The tail muscles on these snakes have atrophied and can’t move the rattle. Snakes that have this genetic defect are the ones that are surviving. They reproduce and pass along that genetic defect to their offspring. The benefit to the snake is that if they are not heard, they are not killed. Because when most people hear that chilling rattle, if they have a garden shovel or gun available, it's all over for the snake.

Most people WANT to hear the rattle. It's helpful to both snakes and humans. These reptiles don't really want to bite humans— that would be a waste of venom on something they can't eat. So rattling warns us to get away, saving both species. Two hundred years ago when Native Americans were the only people in South Dakota, a rattlesnake would rattle and they would respect it and leave it alone. When white settlers moved in, however, and heard a rattlesnake rattle, they instantly killed it. So perhaps this genetic abnormality is actually saving rattlesnakes from certain death by humans?

There is no scientific data to back up this theory other than from observing that the rattlesnakes are developing this behavior, but it's worth keeping in mind for those who spend a lot of time in the desert or woods where rattlesnakes live. Keep in mind that if someone is bitten by a rattlesnake, the old wives tales about sucking out the poison, drinking alcohol, and other methods work won’t. The best thing is to carry basic First Aid supplies in your backpack, and then get help right away— get to a hospital and get anti-venom. Better yet, don't take a chance. Wear light-weight snake gaiters or snake boots and you won't have to worry about getting bitten— whether that snake is able to send a warning rattle or not.

Did you know that rattlesnakes regulate the volume of their venom? A mouse needs only a little dose and a rat a little more. A rabbit may receive a little more venom than a rat. Rattlers sometimes bite humans without injecting venom. A snake that feels in danger may "deliver everything it has." About 6,000 people are bitten in North America each year. In about 80 percent of those cases, experts say, the victim was trying to handle the snake. A half century ago, fatalities were common. Not so today. Medical treatment is usually nearby, and antivenin is effective. Only one in about 700 bites results in death. If you don't die, the greatest danger is hock caused by dangerously low blood pressure that can deprive the brain and other organs of oxygen. Some snakebite victims bleed internally. Even with treatment, a survivor might lose flesh, muscle tissue, nerves, bone, even a limb.

Don't think rattlesnake venom is all that bad? Think again. A well-known snake expert, 61-year old Joe Wasilewski, was recently bitten in Florida and nearly lost his life. And that was someone who knew what he was doing— someone who has handled hundreds thousands of snakes during the last 50 years. Someone also used to handling crocodiles. But all it took was one mean viper to "deliver everything it has" and this expert almost didn't make it. Writer Jeff Klinkenberg of the Tampa Bay Times reported the story:

Wasilewski had opened a cage and used a short pole to lift a buzzing 4-foot diamondback rattlesnake. In a well-practiced move, he slid the snake into a garbage can for safekeeping while he cleaned the cage. Then it was time to reverse the process. Hook the snake in the middle, position head away from you, slide it back into the cage. But then Joe felt a sharp sting in his left forearm.

"Oh, oh,'' he told his son, Nick. "I think he got me.'' While his son called 911, Wasilewski got a funny metallic taste in his mouth. His lips tingled, he sweated profusely, he threw up. By the time he was taken to the hospital, Wasilewski was unconscious. His blood wasn't clotting. He'd received eight vials of antivenin. Then he got another eight. His arm was grotesque and swollen. Standing next to his dad's bed in intensive care, Nick stared in shock at the stricken arm. The twitching muscles made it look like worms wriggling under the skin.

Antivenin costs about $3,200 a vial. Why so expensive? First, lots of venomous snakes have to be captured. Their venom is extracted and injected into horses and sheep, whose blood forms antibodies against the poison. Finally, the animal blood is made into a product to treat humans.

Eventually Wasilewski improved. Opened his eyes. Talked. Then suffered a relapse. His blood had stopped clotting again. The swollen arm was turning black. Over the next three days his doctor ordered another 32 vials. Joe endured tubes up his nose, down his throat, in his penis, in his arm. Morphine. Fog. Day, night, another day. Improvement. Awake. Tubes came out. Ate some food. For the first time in more than a week, this man who was used to being around rattlesnakes, felt alive.

"I can't take another bite like that,'' Joe told friends who stopped by his home after Joe was released from the hospital. Joe has two Eastern diamondbacks. He has decided that he'll keep one of them for educational purposes. The other he'll give to a pal in Central Florida in the venom business. It is amazing that this South Florida longtime reptile wrangler has no hard feelings. “It was my own fault,” said Wasilewski. “I got careless. It’s not the snake’s fault.” 

If a situation can happen to this expert, imagine what can happen out of the blue when hiking, hunting, stacking wood, or camping in rattlesnake habitat without the right protection. Don't take a chance!  When in the desert or woods -- anywhere rattlesnakes are known to live -- protect yourself with snake gaiters or snake boots. This type of snake bite protection enables YOU to "deliver everything you have" when it comes to not getting bitten.

The Burmese python, a native of India and other parts of Asia, has recently become an out-of-control menace in the Florida Everglades. No one knows exactly how these snakes got out of control. The guess is that they most likely developed from pets released into the wild, either intentionally or in the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew in 1992. These snakes eat native species like alligators and endangered egrets, and are a threat to humans and their pets. These snakes have no natural predators, so wildlife officials are racing to control the python population. The U.S. Department of Agriculture received a patent in August for a trap that resembles a long, thin cage with a net at one end for the live capture of large, heavy snakes.

The Gainesville field station for the National Wildlife Research Center, which falls under the USDA, is preparing to test the trap in a natural enclosure that contains five pythons. Over the coming months, the researchers will try baiting the traps with the scent of rats and python pheromones. The wire traps will be camouflaged as pipes or other small, covered spaces where pythons like to hide. The 5-foot-long trap is made from galvanized steel wire with a tightly woven net secured to one end. Two separate triggers need to be tripped simultaneously for it to close, which should keep it from snapping shut on such native snakes as the eastern diamondback rattlesnake or the water moccasin. Of course a pair of snake gaiters will keep humans from being bitten by rattlesnakes and other deadly vipers, but gaiters, boots or chaps won't protect you from pythons.

In an effort to control the snake population, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission allows hunters with special permits to remove pythons and other exotic reptiles from some state lands. Earlier this year, a state-sanctioned hunt that attracted worldwide media attention was held. Roughly 1,600 amateur python hunters joined the permit holders for a month, netting a total of 68 snakes.  A prolonged cold snap has proven to be one of the better methods of python population control, killing off large numbers of the snakes in 2010. The population rebounded, though, because low temperatures aren't reliable in subtropical South Florida. And with plentiful food around, the pythons can get really big! The longest python ever caught in Florida was an 18-foot-8-inch specimen found in May beside a rural Miami-Dade County road.

Everglades National Park encompasses 1.5 million acres, and all but roughly 100,000 acres of that is largely inaccessible swampland and sawgrass, so it's not easy tracking down Burmese pythons. The new traps are definitely an experiment. It may work, or it may not. Traps have been used in the park to collect pythons for research, but not for population control. The area may turn out to be too vast for steel traps to be effective. Time will tell.