By Geoff Smith (@smithco on Twitter)

Public shocked by photo of dead, hanging rattlesnake

Jul 19, 2017 | 10:27 AM

LETHBRIDGE — A local rattlesnake expert said it would be very difficult to determine who killed one of the snakes and left it hanging on a fence rail.

Ryan Heavy Head admits it’s been difficult to pull himself away from the stream of responses since he posted a photo of the dead rattler on Facebook, its head bashed in and its rattle removed. Heavy Head was first called to Popson Park on the west side Tuesday, July 18 by someone concerned about two snakes wrestling near the dog-walking path.

“Turned out, not only were the two males wrestling but there was a female not too far away, and then there was the dead one hanging from the fence post that he showed me, and he said this is really why I called you down here,” he explained.

Heavy Head keeps photos of any rattlesnakes he returns from residential areas back to the coulees, and said this was one he had not encountered before, so he believes it wasn’t causing an issue in any neighbourhoods.

While he feels it’s natural to want to keep the rattle from a snake as a souvenir, the way this snake was killed, with rocks thrown at it, and then displayed suggests to him that whoever did it may have psychological problems.

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Disturbing wildlife like rattlesnakes can carry severe fines. But Heavy Head wasn’t sure if Fish and Wildlife was investigating.

“Unless somebody knows the guy it would be difficult to track him down, I think. Unless somebody comes forward and says, I know who did this. And even then I think it would be difficult for Fish and Wildlife to prove,” he added.

If there’s one positive, it’s in the responses his posting has received.

“It confirms to me that in general, the majority of the people in the city are behind the rattlesnake conservation and they’re interested in coexisting with these snakes,” Heavy Head said. 

“And maybe some of that is due, in part, to the kind of public education I’ve been doing online in the last few years to get people more used to seeing what encounters with these snakes are like, and they’re not really that threatening.”