Chances are the rattlesnake you encountered on your hike or in your driveway was headed to work. Like humans, snakes have their routines. They forage for breakfast, meet up with potential mates and tuck in for the night, just like we do.
Although rattlesnakes and humans usually avoid one another, it’s only when they encounter each other that people get bitten. In essence, learning to avoid rattlesnakes prevents bites.
That’s the message a Tucson toxicologist and a snake wrangler are trying to convey to the public. Their aim is to reduce the roughly 200 to 250 rattlesnake bites that occur among Arizonans each year. Fatalities are rare, less than 1% over the past 40 years, according to Geoffrey Smelski, a clinical toxicologist at the University of Arizona’s Arizona Poison and Drug Information Center…