By Curbing Roundups and ‘Gassing,’ States Seek to Help the Hated Rattlesnake

"It's easy to sit in Austin and throw out rules," said Leah Andrews, executive vice president of the Sweetwater Chamber of Commerce and a member of the wildlife department's Snake Harvest Working Group. "We're the ones who'll pay the price."

Dennis Cumbie, who has run the venom milking pit at the roundup for years, says the fact that hunters continue to harvest so many pounds of snakes from the same dens year after year proves that gassing doesn't harm them. He disputes studies that show the invertebrates are harmed, saying they were conducted in the wild elsewhere around the country, not in arid Texas, and in labs.

One alternative to gassing is trapping. But hunters in Sweetwater don’t want to change their methods because gassing is cheaper and easier, Andrews and Cumbie said.

Faced with changing attitudes toward roundups, rising environmental concerns and more state rules on collecting rattlesnakes, a few rattlesnake roundups have become wildlife festivals.

In 2012, the Evans County Wildlife Club in Claxton, Georgia, stopped buying and selling Eastern diamondback rattlesnakes. The state agreed to provide at least 40 live rattlesnakes, work with Georgia Southern University to bring in a birds of prey show, present environmental education programs in local schools and promote the new wildlife festival through the state tourism office.

The change made ecological and practical sense. The roundup was struggling to find rattlesnakes anyway, and the state was about to ban gassing rattlesnakes because they live in gopher tortoise burrows. The gopher tortoise is the official state reptile of Georgia and the US Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed listing it as threatened in the state.

"I got a lot of hate mail," said Bruce Purcell, who was president of the club at the time of the switch. "People thought I was buckling under pressure from environmental groups — and we were under pressure. But we could have gone on like we were."

After the roundup converted, though, Purcell got mail from around the world applauding the change.

"I personally feel like we're serving the community better," Purcell said.

*The Pew Charitable Trusts is driven by the power of knowledge to solve today's most challenging problems. Pew applies a rigorous, analytical approach to improve public policy, inform the public and invigorate civic life.

Editor's Note:
Center for Biological Diversity

Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife

Evans County Wildlife Club, Claxton, Georgia

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By Curbing Roundups and ‘Gassing,’ States Seek to Help the Hated Rattlesnake

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