KILLIT!!!

In my facebook feed this morning, I have one lady who’s amazed that it’s illegal to kill snakes here in Australia.  She’s disgusted that they’re a protected species, just like the koala, there on the left.

The reason that snakes are protected is exactly the same reason koalas are protected – they’re a native animal, and you’re not allowed to just randomly kill native animals.  (Non native animals which aren’t human are a different matter, but don’t get me started on that one).

Let’s look at this from the snake’s point of view.  This one was a tree snake, so I imagine the inner dialogue went something like this:

“Hmmmm, I taste bird on the air.  Possibly a nest?  Are there eggs in that nest?  Surely some young birds, I haven’t eaten for four days, I’m quite hungry, I might just check and see whether there are some eggs for breakfast…  OH MY SHELL!!!  SOMEONE’S TRYING TO HIT ME WITH A RAKE!!!  AND THERE ARE DOGS TRYING TO EAT ME!!!”

How would you feel if you decided to go out for lunch (or to the kitchen) and someone attacked you in your own house?  Or driveway, so to speak?  A bit tetchy, I imagine.  It’s worse for the ground snakes.  They’re usually just sunning themselves on a rock (because, being reptiles, they need sun and warmth to get them going in the morning) and someone tries to hit them with a stick, or a shovel, or a rake.  Usually they try to get away (snakes aren’t aggressive, usually) but if they’re cornered, that’s when they bite.  Mainly so they can get away.  We’re not viable food sources, they don’t want to eat us.

The two major arguments I’ve heard from people as to why they want to kill snakes are: they’re scary and they’re ugly.

Whether you agree with these or not, let’s apply them to humans and see how they go.

Humans are scary.  Yep.  Quite a lot of them are.  And some humans are ugly.  Some are not attractive on the outside, and some are downright ugly on the inside.  It doesn’t really matter, though, using either of these defenses in a murder trial will not get you acquitted.

So here’s my advice for snakes, spiders, weird crawling things, koalas and even humans if you are scared and hate them:  Learn about them.

When you learn about them, you can appreciate their good points.  You can appreciate that snakes eat rats, and spiders eat cockroaches and some humans are nice to small children.  You can learn that to a spider, a human is freaking huge and really scary, and that snakes don’t really want to interact with humans (and especially not with cats or dogs!) and so they’d really rather just go away, thanks.  You can learn that quite a lot of humans have their own lives, their own loves, and they want to live those lives in peace and harmony and not get into arguments about it.

There are peaceful ways of getting along with the other creatures with whom we share this planet, and a scream of “KILLIT!!!” shatters more than just the peace around you.  It can be earth shattering too.