snakes in the grass

Let's all keep this in perspective. How many fatalities have there been as a result, for example, of a red-bellied black's bite? I can only find reference to an infant dying in the 1800s.

You are more likely to die from a bee bite than a snake bite.

Snakes can elicit a very strong response, but you do get used to living with them and I understand the concern of parents with young children. However, my high school years were spent in a rural environment, surrounded by two largish creeks. I started by being scarred witless by a harmless tree snake, and I once had a red-bellied snake slither out from underneath my boot AS IT WAS DESCENDING ON THE SNAKE! But they always ran the other way, and over time I became fascinated by them. In the six years I lived in the country, with a high snake count, no one was bitten, and back in those days we used to take them on and kill them, the best way to try to get bitten!

There are some good online resources and Wikipedia has articles for Australian snakes. I own a couple of books on snakes and spiders now, and knowing about them helps overcome our instinctive reaction to them. Perhaps go to a reptile shop and ask to handle some of the non-toxic snakes, or spend some time with an enthusiast that keeps snakes.

Or you could just import a few cane toads! Snakes find them toxic.

We had a small Tenterfield terrier ( Foxy/ cattle dog cross ) she loved killing snakes.

She was bitten by a Taipan and survived after being given out of date human antivenin ( the fresh stuff was $2,000 per dose !)

She was terrified of rats and mice but kept killing snakes her biggest was an 8ft python.

I hate snakes, clear ground is the best protection, colourbond fencing they they cannot climb is also good but they can fit through the smallest crack.

My wife, #2 son and I are always outdoors we have lived most of our lives in the bush and none of us have ever been bitten.

#1 son is a total couch potato, academic, who rarely ventures past the letter box.

Guess the only member of our family to have been bitten by a snake on a lawn in Suburban Canberra ?