When is rattlesnake roundup

Dr Corey Roelke, a herpetologist at the Amphibian and Reptile Diversity Research Centre within the University of Texas, notes the cruelty of gassing the animals as well as the environmental impacts of this practice. Corey says, 'From an animal welfare standpoint, it is cruel to subject snakes and all the other animals sharing their dens to gasoline.

It's also detrimental to ecosystem health. On the day of the event, the snakes are brought to the festival in their plastic bins before being dumped into a snake pit. Jo-Anne describes the awful condition of the animals at this point: 'These animals are terrified, a lot of them are rattling, a lot of them are too tired to rattle, some of them have injuries, many of them have infected injuries or bleeding wounds, and some of them are just too tired and dehydrated to do anything.

The snakes are then picked out of the pit one by one to be decapitated and then skinned. In the past, Jo-Anne explains, 'they used to just decapitate them, but they were under fire for welfare infractions as snakes are really slow to succumb to death.

The cessation of blood takes forever and so it's really painful for them to have their heads cut off. They stay alive for a long time. Festival attendees can then pay extra to skin the rattlesnake themselves and add their handprints to the wall, as depicted in Jo-Anne's image.

Speaking of the photo itself, Jo-Anne considers the juxtaposition of children's handprints next to such a gruesome object.

She says, 'People look at the image and see something nice, like a primary school art display or something, and then the story, like many of the images in Wildlife Photographer of the Year, just really makes the image extra incredible.

There's even a smiley face next to one of the names. As a photojournalist and animal rights activist, Jo-Anne is interested in how festivals like this impact wild rattlesnake numbers.

They would say that there are no issues with current populations, no risk of endangerment, but then scientists are worried about that, saying that it's unquantifiable. Despite the hard work done by organisations such as ASP, there is still a long way to go to promote conservation of these creatures. There is an alternative to this bloody festival, as Jo-Anne explains: 'Not all roundups are lethal. There are roundups where you catch a snake and it's weighed and measured, and you get an award for catching a big snake but then it goes back to where it came from.

Melissa from ASP explained that more and more roundups have reformed in recent years. She says, 'When we started our work on rattlesnake roundups, there were about two dozen still slaughtering snakes during or immediately following their events, but today there are only While these are being taken up in some places, local support for this kind of initiative in Texas has been slow to develop.

Jo-Anne became interested in photography as a means of raising awareness about animals and animal rights. She sees the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition as a 'world stage' and a great platform 'to tell stories about all sorts of animals'. Her organisation We Animals Media , works to highlight stories of 'the invisible animals' which are used for food, fashion, entertainment or labour, and give them a space in the public eye.

Other really important pieces are policy, law, science, grassroots work and education. A recent study analyzing 50 years of roundup data found eastern diamondback rattlesnakes in sharp decline due to roundup pressure and habitat loss. Rattlesnakes play a key role in the food web, especially in terms of rodent control. And roundups are harmful to many species, not just rattlesnakes. To catch snakes for the event, hunters spray gasoline into tortoise burrows, destroying the burrows and often killing the animals inside.

More than species depend on tortoise burrows for food and shelter. Roundup organizers claim that hunters no longer use gassing to catch snakes, but in January , wildlife officials in Georgia apprehended four men who had gassed 50 tortoise burrows to collect snakes for the rattlesnake roundup in Whigham.

Although roundup organizers claim that the events provide environmental education, no meaningful wildlife education — emphasizing the importance of saving native species — is provided. Handling venomous snakes in front of the public and then killing the snakes is the opposite of wildlife education. Nor do roundups protect public health.

There are many more annual fatalities in the United States from dog bites, lightning strikes and bee stings than from venomous snake bites. And in fact, the majority of snake bites occur when humans try to capture or kill snakes — so rattlesnake roundups themselves endanger public health by encouraging the public to do just that.

Even all these years later, the event is "still about the snakes," he said, arguing an emphasis on safety education that focuses on how people should live in and around rattlesnakes. There's no part of the event that teaches people how to be snake handlers, and there's no "getting in sleeping bags with rattlesnakes" or other gimmicks, he said. The latter technique, called gassing, is a practice in which gasoline fumes are used to drive snakes en masse from their dens.

Some herpetologists and environmental groups strongly decry the act and point toward potential environmental and ecological damage.

The practice has earned scrutiny from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, which has expressed concerns about how it could impact species of invertebrates that share the snakes' environment. Protesters who want to come, he said, are "more than welcome" to use those constitutional rights. More: To Bibby, snakes taste like chicken. Noon-9 p. Brian Bethel covers city and county government and general news for the Abilene Reporter-News.