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¡Snek!


Patricio Swayze

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Devil's creature.  Even when there isn't one. 

 

A man has been accused of luring his father to a West Austin cliff to look at a rattlesnake and then shoving him off, an arrest affidavit says.

Austin police officers responded to an area near Highland Crest Drive and Western Hills Drive on Sunday at 9:07 a.m. after receiving a report that a 78-year-old man had been assaulted. The area is just west of MoPac Boulevard (Loop 1) and south of Northland Drive.

The man told officers that his son, 49-year-old Gerald McCants, left their home at 8:30 a.m. and returned a few minutes later. McCants was excited and asked his dad to come with him to a look at a rattlesnake he found, the affidavit says.

The pair drove a half-mile from their home to a cliff off Highland Crest Drive.

As the man approached the edge of the cliff looking for the snake, he said McCants shoved him on his right side, the affidavit says.

The force of the shove caused the man to fall roughly 40 feet straight down, off the cliff, the affidavit says.

“As he was falling, (the man) stated that he could hear (McCants) laughing,” the affidavit says.

The man received a deep cut to his forehead and to the center of the back of his head, and he had multiple minor cuts and abrasions all over his body. He was taken to Dell Seton Medical Center for his injuries, Austin-Travis County EMS medics said.

McCants was charged with injury to an elderly person. He is in the Travis County Jail with a bail amount of $20,000, according to online county records.

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  • 3 weeks later...

The wife and I went for a walk at the county park by our house yesterday afternoon.  I told her we were on a snake hunt, but she wasn't having it.  A couple miles into our walk and on the heavily traveled, groomed trail, my wife stopped dead in her tracks and pointed up ahead.  A four foot diamondback rattlesnake decided to cross in front of us.  A guy on a bike was approaching from the other way and I managed to get his attention and get him stopped before he ran right over the snake.  Snake wasn't agitated at all, no rattling - just slowly cruising across the path ending with about 2 1/2 inches of rattles sticking up about 45 degrees.  Best walk around the park I've experienced in years.  Unfortunately, I managed to fuck up taking a simple video.

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1 hour ago, Jerry Callo said:

The wife and I went for a walk at the county park by our house yesterday afternoon.  I told her we were on a snake hunt, but she wasn't having it.  A couple miles into our walk and on the heavily traveled, groomed trail, my wife stopped dead in her tracks and pointed up ahead.  A four foot diamondback rattlesnake decided to cross in front of us.  A guy on a bike was approaching from the other way and I managed to get his attention and get him stopped before he ran right over the snake.  Snake wasn't agitated at all, no rattling - just slowly cruising across the path ending with about 2 1/2 inches of rattles sticking up about 45 degrees.  Best walk around the park I've experienced in years.  Unfortunately, I managed to fuck up taking a simple video.

I read somewhere that rattling rattlers were killed at a greater rate by hunters, so that the non-rattling rattlers were afforded a greater survival chance, and growing in numbers.  I might have been drunk tho...

Edited by Gatorubet
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19 hours ago, Jerry Callo said:

The wife and I went for a walk at the county park by our house yesterday afternoon.  I told her we were on a snake hunt, but she wasn't having it.  A couple miles into our walk and on the heavily traveled, groomed trail, my wife stopped dead in her tracks and pointed up ahead.  A four foot diamondback rattlesnake decided to cross in front of us.  A guy on a bike was approaching from the other way and I managed to get his attention and get him stopped before he ran right over the snake.  Snake wasn't agitated at all, no rattling - just slowly cruising across the path ending with about 2 1/2 inches of rattles sticking up about 45 degrees.  Best walk around the park I've experienced in years.  Unfortunately, I managed to fuck up taking a simple video.

Abject fear will do that to ya.

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On 3/29/2020 at 3:07 PM, Gatorubet said:

I read somewhere that rattling rattlers were killed at a greater rate by hunters, so that the non-rattling rattlers were afforded a greater survival chance, and growing in numbers.  I might have been drunk tho...

I thought I had posted an article about rattlesneks not using their rattles as a way of surviving the increase in the numbers of feral/wild hogs.  If the sneks rattle, the hogs find them and they get kilt.  Think about that -- rattlesneks not using their rattles to warn you that you're fixin' to step on them.

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  • 2 weeks later...
49 minutes ago, Quasimofo said:

Found this very docile guy under a mesquite tree yesterday. Giving me the side eye.417568e31845d222e96c20fde82cbe03.jpg

 

I found a fat one like that yesterday and put him in with my 3.5 foot Cali king, they're friends now but they won't be when that king snake finishes digesting that bird I shot and fed him last week

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As recounted on the MTB thread, I was coming down a root-ledged descent the other day and stumbled upon big blek snek.

S/he was "essing" first forward, then backward to the right as I maneuvered left.  Black with no discernible pattern, thought I saw a pit viper head. Two or three feet long, maybe longer, and thiccc.

I am thinking moccasin.  I neither wanted to run over it nor wipe out right in its immediate vicinity.  Great success, but didn't stick around to make the positive ID.

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2 hours ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

Yeah,  but the least venomous I believe, and pretty damned shy about biting.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21463771/

Yeah they don't even use antivenom for copperhead bites anymore.

My grandpa did some work on a house where their 4 year old daughter had been bitten by a copperhead in the backyard. She ended up being fine but that would make me panic for sure seeing my kid getting bit.

 

Edited by SimonBolivar
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