I don't understand people who think all snakes need to be killed. I understand and respect that some people have a phobia and don't want to go near them, but what's with the killing? I had dinner last night with some co-workers, and had to listen to a long story about how one of them found a black snake in their yard (oh the horror!!) and how brave her husband was to kill it.
Are you kidding me? These snakes are large but nonpoisonous, totally harmless to humans, and eat mice and rats. They are extremely docile. When we encounter them on our property we sometimes have to move them (to continue on with whatever we are doing), and we just pick them up and do so. We have never once been bitten. They are well known as the "farmer's friend."
I tried to gently educate this coworker about different types of snakes and what they are like, but I doubt it will stick. I guess I don't understand people who are so disconnected from nature, and so quick to jump to "let's just kill them all." Makes me sad.
Ugh, I'm right there with you. I've encountered the "ACK!! KILL IT!!" attitude about snakes before and it really baffles me, even taking into consideration possible phobias.
Similarly with spiders. I get that a lot of people are freaked out by spiders. I can even understand why some people who are especially afraid of them would choose to kill one found indoors, although that rubs me the wrong way (we practice catch and release at our house :D ). But too frequently I encounter people who describe encountering a spider outdoors and immediately stomp on it. What the WHAT?
I admit I sometimes feel very judgmental toward people who snuff out life in what appears to me to be an indiscriminate manner. However, what helps for me is to remember that there are some things I also choose to kill for reasons others might mistake for indiscriminate: carpenter ants I find in the house, mice in the garage or shed, cockroaches anywhere in the vicinity of the house, ticks anywhere they are encountered, and last-but-not-least, animals that I eat every single day (the killing isn't typically done personally by me in that case, but I approve of it).
I'll confess to being one of those "kill it!" people when I find a spider inside my house - I'm terrified of them. If DH is home, he can sometimes catch it and take it outside, but if I'm the one dealing with it, it is so dead. Outside is, of course, a different matter.
With snakes, I think the most common problem (aside from phobias), is that most people are taught that snakes can be dangerous, but they're never taught
how to tell if a particular snake is dangerous, so they automatically assume they all are. If I encountered a snake in the yard, you bet I'd be running for the house as fast as I could, because I'd have no idea if it was venomous or not. I'd probably start frantically googling snake pictures to see if I needed to call animal control to get rid of it, but then, I'm not afraid of snakes, and have happily held a friend's pet snake.