The venom rarely kills you. Panicking does.

0:00 Jelena They actually form like a big mating ball, and they essentially have a little garter snake orgy, and the rattlesnake gets stuck in the middle of a garter snake orgy.

0:08 Eva What is happening? I did not consent to this. I have just tried to be a rattlesnake. Welcome to, you know, too much a bite sized trip down the rabbit hole with people who know way too much about one very specific thing. I'm Eva McCloskey.

0:22 Pamala And I'm Pamala Buzick Kim. Let's get to know too much.

0:27 Eva But I do love. I love a snake. I love, I love a snake jewelry moment.

0:31 Pamala I do too. I like snake design. I like.

0:34 Eva Snake juice. So just. They're so cool. I love snakes, just.

0:40 Pamala Yeah. You just got this for me for my birthday.

0:42 Eva Oh. Birthday gift. Yeah, it's a pretty. It's even on sunscreen. Yeah. That was my first tattoo. Actually. Was based on a snake ring because I felt, you know, pressure to make a design choice. Really quickly.

0:57 Pamala But, at least it wasn't around your arm.

1:00 Eva Yeah, well, no, I have one of those, too. You know, I have. I have a snake armband, too. Oh, yeah, you do. But it was drawn by Julia.

1:11 Pamala Gold a couple times, though.

1:13 Eva Or is it just. Yeah, it's a bunch of ring snakes. Like in a rat king.

1:17 Pamala Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:18 Eva Yeah, of course I'm wearing long sleeves right now, but. Yeah. Yeah, but the snake ring gorge. Have you ever run into an IRL?

1:28 Pamala I have actually run into quite a few diamondback rattlesnakes growing up in LA.

1:37 Eva No.

1:38 Pamala Yeah, like in LA County. Like out in the forest. Yeah, a quite a few.

1:43 Eva Okay. But. Okay. Sure. Snakes, rattlesnakes out in the fields. I in the forest I.

1:51 Pamala I grew up on a paintball field. Of course we'll save that for another time.

1:59 Eva Hey, let's. Yeah, let's, you know, and,

2:04 Pamala Yeah. Oh, my gosh.

2:05 Eva Thank you so much. Thank you very much for joining us. Thank you for having me.

2:11 Pamala Absolutely. So with, you know, the honor of having you here, can you tell us what you know too much about?

2:21 Jelena I know too much about so many things from so many ADHD rabbit holes, but the one that we're talking about today is. I know too much about rattlesnakes.

2:29 Pamala Oh my gosh. Yes. But also like, rattles. I mean, you have like, I think you have many states, but also like rattlesnakes and California rattlesnakes.

2:39 Jelena Yeah.

2:40 Eva Specifically how did we get here? Yeah.

2:44 Jelena Through the process of living in Southern California, I've, you know, wanted to learn how do we live safely with our rattlesnake neighbors, especially because I happen to be a person who encounters them a lot. I have a horse. I ride out in the wilderness with my horse. I do it a horse sport that sometimes I'm out in the wilderness with my horse for many, many hours, for multiple days at a time.

3:04 Jelena And, you know, we run across them, he has them didn't.

3:07 Eva But yeah, nature is real. But I we could do a whole episode about, the horse sport that you just told us about. But back to the rattlers and the rattlesnakes. How so? You've encountered them before. Is that how this started?

3:23 Jelena I mean.

3:24 Eva I see them.

3:26 Jelena I see them very frequently, you know, when I, when I ride on more used trail systems, we frequently do see them crossing the trail on the main trail system that I ride on. There's not as much human use. And there's more areas that are kind of undisturbed. And so when they can, the rattlesnakes like to stay away from humans.

3:42 Jelena They do not want to encounter us. So we don't see as many of them when we ride on trail systems that are less disturbed, and there's more uninterrupted ecosystem for the snakes to live in. But, you know, I see them even just around the barn. I see them they're the rattlesnakes in Southern California have a very special relationship with the ground squirrels.

4:02 Jelena And so anywhere there's ground squirrels, there are going to be Southern Pacific rattlesnakes. Now, the ground squirrels are in this arms race with the snakes, where adult ground squirrels are actually somewhat immune to their venom. The ground squirrels will actually fight back. So sometimes you can see the ground squirrels raising a snake, and they'll chase the snake away from their burrows.

4:21 Jelena And then the snakes objective is to get to the babies that have not developed that immunity to their venom, yet they want eat the young ground squirrels. And so it's the ground squirrel station sentries. You can actually listen to their bark, and you can you can start to learn kind of which bark is for a hawk, which bark is for a coyote, which bark is for a rattlesnake.

4:40 Jelena They have a little different signals for that. And then, if you watch carefully, if you see a rattlesnake, if you see a ground squirrel that's kind of creeping along the ground, but also really, really waving its tail in a very dramatic way, and there's often two of them kind of in a triangle formation that are doing this.

4:58 Jelena If you look closely, there's probably a rattlesnake that they're hazing.

5:02 Pamala Oh, wow. That's cool. That's really cool.

5:05 Jelena Yeah. They're very I mean, scientifically, they're such cool animals.

5:09 Pamala So cool. Yeah. That's so cool. Is there a snake season here? Is there a snake time of day. Like what? What what's like the Southern California.

5:21 Jelena When it's real hot? I'll see them crossing the road at night in Chatsworth, anywhere in the West Valley. So you do have to be careful any time of day, especially when it's warm. You can only really be sure that you're probably not going to see a rattlesnake out of a burrow or out of out of the cracks between rocks that they like to hang out in.

5:39 Jelena If it's quite cold, even if it's cold, you want to look where you put your fingers and toes. Anywhere. Especially if you're climbing rocks you're looking at in any kind of, like, dense brush. The best way not to get bitten by a snake is never to put your hands or feet where you can't see them, because if you can't see them, you can't see that there's not a snake there.

5:59 Pamala Yeah.

5:59 Eva That makes sense. Yeah. I just straight forward.

6:02 Pamala I try to warn my dog of this, she's not very good at it, but I did hear you say slightly earlier that your horse has been bitten.

6:12 Jelena He has? Yeah. And I didn't see it happen. It was in his pasture on his own. But from the location of the bite, it's on his lip. I'm fairly sure that he picked that snake up, and I really can't blame it, because that would be terrifying to be picked up by a giant on its mouth. And it was defending itself as best it could, the only way that they're capable.

6:31 Jelena And so snakes actually are, they have a little bit of a special relationship with horses, too. And that horses have some natural immunity to snake venom. And that's why we make antivenom that goes to humans from horse plasma. So horses do they are affected by the venom. And he was in the hospital for eight days, but they generally only have a localized reaction around the bite site.

6:56 Jelena So you have to, you know, treat and manage that local reaction. Their bodies have some natural defenses where they use their plasma to trap that venom and prevent it from having a systemic reaction so it doesn't get to the organs. They don't have all of the major, major problems with it that other species can. And you often and my horse's case, we did not do antivenom because given that it is made from horse plasma, there is a small chance of a transfusion reaction, you know, containing them safely so that they don't render themselves pain management, inflammation management, fluids, hydration, making sure that they're eating and drinking.

7:32 Jelena And that's the big reason that he was in the hospital for so long, is that his body actually used all of his platelets to make that big swelling that traps the venom. And so he had his platelet count was like seven for a while. Like if he if he got a scratch, if he went home, he wouldn't stop bleeding.

7:49 Jelena So until his body regenerated his platelets, he had to stay in a contained environment. But you know, it was everything's okay though only lasting damage is that his lip is crooked now because the venom did damage a little nerve in his lip.

8:03 Eva Looks very cute. Scars? Scars are cool.

8:07 Jelena Yeah. It's. Chicks. Dig it.

8:09 Eva The horse, the horse plasma. Is that, like, if if I found myself bitten by a rattler? Is that. Yep. What do I do? And we'll be right back after this. Haley Fritz built breezes to create nasal strips that look as good as they feel now in top 60 Urban Outfitters stores in the US. Find us at urban or at Breezy strips.com.

8:34 Pamala And now, back to the show.

8:36 Jelena Well, what you would do is with any any venomous species in North America, the only thing that you can do is get to a hospital as quickly as possible. So you don't want to use any kind of a snakebite kit. Anything advertise to you on social media is a scam. It will not help you. So all you want to do is get to where help can get to you.

8:56 Jelena If you are in a wilderness area, hopefully you have a satellite communication device and you can get to somewhere that a helicopter can land. If you can get to a road where an ambulance can get to you, just start calmly hiking out to where an ambulance can get to you. Do not panic, you are probably going to be fine.

9:13 Jelena There are relatively few deaths from rattlesnake bites in North America. But many of the deaths that we do have are actually from secondary injuries after somebody has been dead. So very frequently, when people panic, you know, they're up on a cliffside, they step on a rattlesnake, they get bitten, they panic, they fall off the cliff, they fall backwards, and they hit their head.

9:34 Jelena I read about one case where there was a father in his backyard, and he was bitten by a rattlesnake, and he panicked so much that he bit his tongue, and his tongue bled so much that he actually aspirated his own blood. And that was how he died. It had nothing to do with the venom. So the calmer that you can be, the better.

9:52 Jelena So, you know, if you're with someone and they're bitten and they're starting to panic, you can say, you know, you're probably going to be just fine. We just need to get you some anti-venom. Let's not panic. There's way more deaths from panicking when you get a rattlesnake bite than from the rattlesnake bite itself. So let's stay calm. Take off watches and rings if they're near the bite site and things might swell, and then calmly walk to where you can get help.

10:14 Jelena The faster that you get anti-venom dripping into you, the more likely that you are going to be fine. And yeah, that antivenom is going to come from a living horse.

10:23 Pamala Not that you may know this, but like, is it like a pain? Is it just like a you feel sick to your stomach? I don't know.

10:30 Eva And the, the pet is what's dangerous. It's got nothing to do with the rattle.

10:36 Jelena So the rattles. Just a warning. The rattle does not necessarily even mean that they're going to bite. It's just I'm here. Please don't step on me. Please don't bother me. I don't want to tangle with you so frequently. They'll rattle even just when they're just kind of slithering along by. And they just want you to know that they're, they're they're not coiled.

10:55 Jelena But they will. What? Whether or not they have any intention of striking at you, they will rattle if they think that you're a little too close to them. And they just want to make sure that you know, that they're there, the rattle is not going to harm you. The venom is what harms you. And now, even if you're bitten, you don't necessarily get venom.

11:11 Jelena They can choose whether or not to inject venom, and that venom is limited for them. They need it to kill their prey, and once they use it up, they have to regenerate it before they can possibly hunt again. So they're not going to use their venom if they don't feel like they have two snakes do have different personalities.

11:28 Jelena There's individuals that are more likely to think that you are so dangerous that they have to use their venom. If you are too close to them, then then some that might think that what's called a dry bite, a non and animated bite is just fine. But if you are in venom, it's there's likely to be massive swelling at the site of the bite.

11:45 Jelena You're going to if you're often leg foot because people step on rattlesnakes, you know that's going to get big. Might be difficult to keep your foot in a shoe. And then if it is if it's a neurotoxic venom. So southern Pacific rattlesnakes either have cytotoxic which kills cells or they can sometimes certain populations have a different venom that is neurotoxic which kills nerves.

12:08 Jelena So if you get the neurotoxic venom that's a little more likely to have systemic effects because that is killing off nerves. That's a little more likely to have lasting effects. But either way, it takes some time for it to work. The venom does have to kind of go through the body and be carried around by your cells, and that's all very technical and beyond my like, medical expertise.

12:31 Jelena But the takeaway that you don't need any medical expertise to understand is that because that reaction takes time and because part of it is your body's reaction damaging itself, the faster that you get the anti-venom in you, the better. So the the only important thing like don't stop to try to do any kind of treatment yourself. Don't try to suck the venom out.

12:51 Jelena Just get to an ambulance or helicopter and get evacuated to a hospital and get anti-venom as quickly as possible. And basically as soon as the anti-venom starts going into somebody's body, they're going to start feeling better. That's it's it works very quickly.

13:05 Eva Amazing.

13:06 Pamala Wow. That's so cool. That's so it's there's so many elements of this, that I had no idea about. That's so cool. Awesome.

13:15 Eva The level of pain is sticking with me, right? It's just so personal. That's interesting.

13:20 Jelena Like getting. Yeah. I mean, I've seen, you know, I've seen people who are snake professionals. Yeah. They there are people who are snake professionals who are like, rattlesnake venom is like, no big deal. It just, you know, it's like things like kind of some electric shocks, like, I don't know, I don't want to test it myself. I have no desire.

13:38 Jelena My my interest is much more in preventing the bites, which is, you know, let's let's coexist peacefully. If you see a rattlesnake, the best thing to do is just keep it in your sight. Back away slowly. Watch where you're going, you know, glance behind you so you're not stepping on another one. But, you know, just give it some space.

13:57 Jelena It's not going to chase you. They do not chase you. We are not their prey. If it does come towards you, it's just because they can't see very well and it's confused. It's trying to get away from you and it's gone the wrong way. Step to the side. It will go by.

14:09 Eva Yeah, okay. I love such great advice, Yelena I. So if someone wanted to go down this rabbit hole a little more other than admiring from from arm's length, any advice you can give or direct folks to learn more about rattlesnakes?

14:27 Jelena Yeah. So they're actually they're they're bunch of groups of people who are kind of dedicated to spreading the word that these are, you know, very kind of behaviorally complex and interesting animals that have personalities, that have feelings, that have relationships and giving people the opportunity to see that. So one of those is I pulled up a bunch on my phone here for this.

14:48 Jelena One of those is rattle cam, dot org and so on. Rattle cam dawg. You can see different live cameras. The California one is a western rattlesnake rookery, which is the species that exists north of where we live in the Los Angeles metro area. And you can see their rookery where the pregnant ladies hang out together and they actually give birth together and spend those first few days of their babies lives together, giving communal care to each other and to the babies.

15:17 Jelena There's a Colorado one that's very rattlesnakes, and there's a Pennsylvania one that's timber rattlesnakes. So you can look at all of these species. You can see that they really do. They have relationships. They also like there was a great clip that was posted to Reddit the other day from one of the rattle cams, where a rattlesnake is just kind of minding its own business, and a whole bunch of garter snakes that are in the middle of their mating behavior, where they actually form like a big mating ball, and they essentially have a little garter snake orgy, and the rattlesnake gets stuck in the middle of a garter snake orgy, and he's just sitting there

15:53 Jelena like, what?

15:56 Eva What is happening? I did not consent to this. I have just tried to be a rattlesnake.

16:02 Jelena It's like, that's amazing. It's like when you're just like, having brunch and like, everybody from some, like, like fat, like, website just shows up at your brunch. But it's like, why am I why is everybody cool? And I'm just trying to have eggs.

16:19 Eva So it's like they eat these eggs.

16:22 Jelena It's every bit as fun as, like, the eagle cam. Like, if you love the eagle cam and you're like, you're having withdrawals because, Jackie. And because there's no babies right now. It's not the season three rattle cam. There's also snakes that NGO which is advocates for snake preservation. ASP asked to get it and then save the snakes.org.

16:44 Jelena If you would like to actually learn to safely handle venomous snakes yourself. If you would like to be the person in your neighborhood that people can call to relocate a venomous snake if they're willing to have it be relocated rather than kill it. On Save the Snake storage, you can sign up for venomous snake handling classes. They are in Sacramento.

17:03 Jelena You do have to go there, but that is our resource for snake handling classes in California.

17:10 Pamala Oh, wow. This is such a great list. This is very cool and I'm worried about my algorithm once I start trying to find this garter snake or a rattlesnake in the middle of it, it's happening.

17:22 Jelena Yeah, just like search Reddit. Don't like search for it in your browser or else you are going to you're going to screw up your algorithm. But like if you if you search Reddit for it, like probably like rattlesnake garter snake mating ball like you will find it.

17:36 Eva Mating bull I love it.

17:38 Pamala Well, on that note, that is all for today's episode of You Know Too Much. Thank you so much, Yelena. Now we know way too much about rattlesnakes.

17:47 Eva If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe. Leave us a five star review, share it with someone who'd love it! You can explore more episodes and behind the scenes content at You know Too Much media.

17:59 Pamala Follow us wherever you get your podcasts. Keep the obsession going. Thank you so much. Y'all know this is dope I I'm I'm so I.

18:06 Eva Love snakes I'm. Oh thank.

18:08 Pamala You snake for.

18:09 Jelena You know oh I love it I love it. Thank you so much for having me I you know, I always like to let people know that there's there's no reason to void our open space and avoid our trails just because rattlesnakes exist. They don't want to bother you. And if you don't bother them, then everybody can coexist happily.

18:27 Eva Let's all coexist happily, especially with the snakes. Oh my goodness, I love it. Awesome. I think that's all for this week. Thank you everyone. Thanks, Yelena. Bye.