| Updated: 9/13/2011 5:49 pm |
Published: 9/13/2011 1:43 pm
|
Sand Springs --
It’s one thing to have a little garden snake in your yard, but how would you feel about a 6-foot snake slithering up to your front door?
It’s happening to people in Tulsa County.
An overgrown empty lot in their neighborhood is not only an eye-sore, but it’s becoming a breeding ground for snakes. This is putting a lot of families on edge.
"It's very concerning. We had one about 6 feet long in the front yard, and my husband actually went to kill it and it was actually slithering towards him,” says concerned mom Crystal Luce.
She is extremely worried about her one year old son, Hayden and keeping him safe.
"I actually ran over one. It was only about three or four feet, but it was just sitting in the backyard hanging out,” says Luce.
Crystal’s neighbors on the other side of the field have the same problem.
“Just along our ledge there was a huge black snake laying on the rock,” says Tanya Armstrong.
We showed pictures of the snakes to the Tulsa Zoo.
"Yes, it's a black rat snake. They can be dark, grey, black and they can have reds, oranges, yellows and whites on them as well,” says Zoo curator Barry Downer.
The Zoo says they can bite you, but they won’t kill you.
“Black rat snakes can be fairly aggressive, just like any snake if they get cornered they're going to fight back basically,” says Downer.
And that’s exactly what one did.
"I just had a call of a rat snake in our children’s zoo and I went down and I grabbed it, and it did get me, it nicked me as you can see,” says Downer.
He says a black rat snake isn’t the one you should be the most concerned with.
“This is a Copperhead, and out in the Sand Springs area, the Keystone area this is really one of the only snake species you have to worry about,” Downer says.
The Luce family says it doesn’t have the money to mow the field themselves, so they are hoping the county will take care of the problem.
We contacted the Tulsa County Health Department and officials there tell us they will issue a notice to the property owner to have it mowed within 10 days. Otherwise, the county will have it done and then bill the property owner.
If you’re concerned about snakes or other pests in your neighborhood, you can call the Tulsa County Health Department. That number is 918-595-4200.
