Whenever one would set up residence in the campground around my remote ranger station and campground, I'd have to wrangle a rattlesnake when I was a Grand Canyon Park Ranger. I'd pick them up with a trash stick that had articulated jaws I could use to pinch the snake at the base of its head. Then, I'd carefully lift them and place them into a pillowcase that I held open with my free hand. The dominant rattler species, Grand Canyon Pinks, usually quieted right down once they were in the pillowcase, allowing me to release their head and use the jaws of the trash stick to carry the pillowcase out away from my body as I hiked down the trail and into the brush to release them.
In the nine years I worked there, I must have collected and relocated around a couple of dozen, and each encounter elevated my pulse and blood pressure. It wasn't one of my favorite duties, but I didn't want any visitors or campers struck by rattlers. My campground was seven miles down the North Kaibab Trail, and a rattlesnake bite meant an air medivac to the South Rim Clinic for treatment.
One time, after capturing and releasing the head of a Pink into the pillowcase, the snake struck at my leg, which was about a foot from the case. I felt the blow as it hit the pillowcase, and saw the fangs oozing yellow venom protruding through the fabric. The fangs stayed stuck in the fabric for the entire half mile hike to the site where I released it. Another time, early in the morning before the sun rose over the Canyon wall, I walked out of my Ranger Station with a full cup of coffee in my hand, and stepped off my patio right onto the back of a Pink. If it had rattled a warning, I couldn't hear it because of the noise of Bright Angel Creek, which flowed nearby. As soon as my weight came down on it, however, my lizard brain instinctively responded. I don't know how I did it, but I somehow jumped straight into the air, reversed direction in midair, and lunged back up on the porch in a couple of long strides, coffee flying everywhere, without getting struck. When I turned, the snake was streaking off into the brush in the opposite direction. It took me a few cigarettes and a couple cups of joe to get my heart rate and pulse down after that incident.
Wildlife is typically protected inside a National Park, unless there is a serious and immediate threat to public safety involved. On my own private property, however, I won't hesitate to kill a rattler, and I've done so several times. Having horses and pets to protect, I value our four legged fuzzbutts a lot more than rattlers. We lost a horse that was struck in the nose. Although we got the horse treatment, the damage was done. A couple of weeks after the incident, we found our four-year-old Thoroughbred lying dead in our lower pasture. The vet said the rattler venom had attacked its heart, weakening the muscle, causing coronary failure. Yeah, I'm not a big fan of rattlers.
