Southern Californians See a Rise in Venomous Snakes

[Jahness]

Southern Californians See a Rise in
Venomous Snakes

By REBECCA FAIRLEY RANEY

LOMA LINDA, Calif., June 28 — On the television show "Venom ER" on the Animal Planet cable network, Sean Bush quiets the victims of venomous snake bites by talking with them in the calming cadence of the Central Texas city where he grew up.

But early this month, after a busy day treating snakebite victims, the doctor had to struggle to remain calm himself when he learned that his next patient would be his 2-year-old son, Jude. The child was bitten in his backyard by a baby rattlesnake, and he was being flown by a medical helicopter from his home in Yucaipa 15 miles to the emergency room at Loma Linda University Medical Center.

The boy received antivenom serum within an hour of the bite, and a week later, his left thumb shows just a little bruise. He was the second toddler on his street to have been bitten by a rattlesnake in the last month.

Half of all reported rattlesnake bites in California occur from May through July, and although the number of snakebites reported to poison-control centers has not increased this year, biologists in the region say they are seeing many more of the deadly snakes in the field this spring.

Dr. Bush treats mainly victims from Riverside and San Bernardino Counties, where a growing population is expanding farther each year into the ideal rattlesnake habitat of the Mojave Desert.

"There are more people living in the rattlesnake's environment," Dr. Bush said. His own neighborhood, where Jude was bitten, is in a grassy canyon on the edge of the San Bernardino National Forest.

The two counties, which cover nearly 30,000 square miles from the eastern boundaries of Los Angeles and Orange Counties to the Arizona and Nevada state lines, have a population of 3.7 million people, and from 2002 to 2004, the population grew by more than 130,000 people a year, according to the United States Census Bureau's American Community Survey.

Dr. Bush, who treats roughly a fifth of the snakebite victims in California, said that so far this year he had treated 30 victims, up slightly from the usual number.

Alexia Retallack, an information officer at the California Department of Fish and Game, said that although the department was not currently tracking rattlesnake populations, it had received "a greater than normal number of contacts about rattlesnakes in yards, rattlesnakes in places where people haven't seen them before."

Many reports, Ms. Retallack said, have come from areas near waterways because the late-season rain raised the water levels, which have, in turn, displaced some rattlesnakes. In addition, new construction throughout the state has rooted out the snakes from their customary homes.

Bites in California account for about 20 percent of the 1,000 to 1,300 reported rattlesnake bites in the United States, according to statistics from poison-control centers, and one or two of those bitten die from the venom. By mid-June, 120 rattlesnake bites had been reported to centers in the state, said Lee Cantrell, director of the San Diego division of the California Poison Control System.

Dr. Bush said typical victims included golfers, toddlers and young men who have been drinking and try to pick up snakes in the yard.

John Rotenberry, a professor of biology at the University of California, Riverside, said biologists that he worked with were among those who had reported seeing more rattlesnakes this spring. In fact, one of his students was bitten in the field a month ago.

Professor Rotenberry said record rainfall in 2005, accompanied by a late-season downpour in May, contributed to unusual patterns among the local wildlife. Biologists have observed more vegetation and more rodents, which bring out more snakes.

"Things are kind of screwed up," Professor Rotenberry said. "There certainly is the perception that there are more snakes."

After Jude was bitten, his mother, A'me, asked a neighbor to catch the snake and take it to the hospital so Dr. Bush could identify the type and better treat the bite. A week later, Dr. Bush and Jude held a ceremony to release the offending snake into the wild.

"I hope this doesn't diminish that natural curiosity," Dr. Bush said of his son. "We want him to appreciate wildlife and respect it."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/29/us...=1&oref=slogin

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