Devil's Advocate: or, in praise of the serpent

Along with farm life come some unavoidable, or at least very common, nuisances. Many family and friends--kindly enough, I'm sure--reminded me of these uncomfortable realities when we announced our plans about a year ago.

For example: "Farmhouses and barns have rodents. You're going to need to get cats."

The first statement here is true enough. Being more precise, it's not entirely necessary to maintain a home or an outbuilding alongside mice and rats. But the ways to guarantee they stay away are often more trouble than it's worth (they can chew through so many materials, and they're persistent!). Or, it requires the use of poison, which can then be eaten by rodent predators. Foxes, owls, hawks, etc. are liable to lunch on, say, a poisoned rat and die as well. The upshot is that these predators aren't around, removing a natural limit to the rodent population. As is often the case with a chemical solution to an ecological problem, the proposed 'fix' doesn't remove the problem itself. It only makes people dependent on using the chemical at a regular interval to hide the problem temporarily. Meanwhile, the negative effects pile on in the natural world and a corporation has people on the hook for their copyrighted contagion.

But enough about Monsanto. I was talking about rodents.

Aren't cats a natural way to keep the rodents away? Actually, no. For one thing, the origin of the domesticated cat is probably somewhere in ancient Mesopotamia, so it has no natural business around our farm. But does that matter? I won't necessarily plant crops that are native to the land here. Why not introduce some furry, feline friends?

Well, cats aren't all that friendly. Not even cat-lovers rave about their affectionate pets. But I'm not concerned about my own feelings; I'm more worried about veritable cat enemies. Make no mistake: cats are murderers. This is why they'd make effective rodent reducers. But they wouldn't stop there. They'd take a devastating toll on a very welcome wild neighborhood of ours: the avian one.

Good morning, Neighbor!

Let me throw a bone (wait, those are for dogs) to the feline fans out there: I'm aware of the controversy over estimating how many birds are actually killed by cats. I don't intend to hang my argument on any particular figure. Instead, let's be clear about the birds. In North America, their numbers have declined by over 25% in the last fifty years. That's...a disaster. As with all the other crises way too big for me to solve, I don't think it is enough for me to read about the daunting catastrophe and feel bad about it. I don't even think it is enough to be really politically active in promoting government policy changes (as good and necessary as these might be).

So I ask myself: what can I do to contribute to change for the better? I have a teeming bird population here on the farm (see my previous post). I'm not willing to let this valuable asset dwindle, both because they are a beautiful complement to the trees and because these eat so many harmful insects. Hence, I'm not going to introduce the menace of a cat. Not a single one.

But I also wonder: How then can I address the rodents? What eats rodents but not birds?

I owe my seventh-grade science teacher for this brainstorm, because he was an avid, if amateur, herpetologist. His policy was that our reward for having a very well-behaved and efficient week would be Friday class canceled. Instead of a lesson, we'd get to see--and often hold--one or more of his reptile friends, which he'd usually sneak into the room early. Don't get me wrong, the proximity to snakes didn't turn me into a lifelong aficionado of these slithering skin-shedders. Still, when the idea of a snake crept into my mind, I was at least willing to entertain the so-called devil's advocate on this topic.

The dialog with myself went something like this...

"Sure, a snake would be a natural rodent reducer, but what about the drawbacks?"

"Like what?"

"Oh, one drawback would be the possibility of running into a snake."

"But you don't have to share your house with it; only your farm. And the farm is big enough for people and a snake family. What else do you have?"

"Someday I plan to have horses. Horses don't like snakes, from what I hear."

"Seems a bit prejudiced on their part. Horses hardly have anything to fear from a snake. I should think snakes are more endangered by the horse. For all their sakes, probably you just need to make sure the equine and serpentine families don't live next to each other. What else?"

"Hmm. Well, I don't have any snakes. And I'm not well-versed in how to procure one or convince it to stick around."

And that's how I left things. Until a few days ago. That's when the children came running up the lane from playing out by the barn.

"Dad! Hurry! You won't believe it! Come see..."

That's the end of the argument, as far as I'm concerned. We have already what would appear to be a healthy, adult black snake. Better than that, this species--based on my research--is the Eastern rat snake (pantherophis alleghaniensis). The markings, scaling, and eyes were hard to identify, so I'm not entirely sure. However, I'm told that rat snakes are often confused with racer snakes. One difference between these is behavior: when startled, a racer snake flees, as a racer would, I suppose. Rat snakes, however, freeze rather than flee, and they adopt a weird, kinked posture. Check this out.

Strike a pose! She stayed like that for a few minutes.

So, thank you to all the family and friends who recommended we get cats. We're happy with our own sssolution. We're thinking of calling her Cynthia? Anyone have a better name?