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SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — In a Phoenix-area venomous snake training course, the first thing students learn is that basically everything they thought they knew about rattlesnakes is a myth.
For starters, rattlesnakes aren’t aggressive. They don’t rattle to warn that they’re about to strike. And they definitely don’t chase people.
“They’re not out to get us,” Cale Morris of the Phoenix Herpetological Sanctuary told the class Tuesday.
The sanctuary holds the class for the public and businesses in the spring, as rattlesnakes wake up from their winter-long naps, known in the reptile kingdom as brumation.
The trainings run through a host of rattlesnake information before teaching people how to safely grab snakes with tongs, plop them in a bucket and remove them from their homes. The students also get hands-on experience doing it.
And that practice could prove to be quite helpful. Arizona saw a surge in rattlesnake bites in April, according to data provided to NPR on Wednesday by the Banner Poison and Drug Information Center.
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