I thought I'd look up how many species of snakes we have here in Oregon.
That was after reading Darla's post with an awesome video of a snake striking. She'd encountered the snake outside her place.
Turns out we have 15 species of snakes here.
Western Garter snake is the one I've encountered most in Oregon. I don't like picking them up because they release scent that smells terrible when they're scared. I've also encountered a few King Snakes but never been so lucky as to even see a Gopher snake. I've seen Western Rattlesnakes but only a couple of times.
Rattlesnakes are the only poisonous snake we have here.
On another note, the fish die off down from Green Peter reservoir has been concluded to be the result of the deep draw down of Green Peter reservoir as required by the fish groups lawsuit. This has riled me no end.
Most of the thousands upon thousands of dead fish are kokanee, a landlocked Sockeye salmon. The lawsuit groups don't care about kokanee. The poor fish were sucked into the dams spill tube, which is at a very deep level usually and then as they moved upwards through the dam, via the spill tube, were rapidly brought from deep to shallow depth, which enlarged their swim bladders, from depth difference. This killed them from The Bends, forcing gases into their bloodstream much like a human deep diver that does not decompress or surfaces too rapidly.
It's such a waste. It seems elitist human to say this species can die in horrible fashion by the thousands cause we don't care about this species, only this other species. It triggers my buttons as I experienced the differing values placed on human life when I was in the mental system and stigmatized horribly. Those fish groups have no clue what they're doing. Instead of going the route most likely to result in success for Chinook, which would be to quit killing them for a decade or so, they're messing with our reservoirs and rivers, places they don't go or see or know any of us who do use them all the time, but not for fishing chinook, or even kokanee.
I don't eat fish. Well, I try to eat a few sardines a week, from a tin, for their health benefit. The tins containing six to ten sardines each cost about a dollar. Sardines have as much health benefit or more than eating salmon. I don't like them but I do eat a few. I don't fish cause I wouldn't eat them if I caught them. And how many fisher people do I know who go out and kill as many salmon as they can for the joy of catching and killing them (I don't understand that mentality) only to throw them in their freezers for years until they finally throw out the packages of freezer burned fish. Or people who smoke the hatchery trout they kill by the hundreds each year and never eat them. I know too many people like that. Also, the massive amount of fishing debris/litter I find in and along the rivers and lakes disgusts me royal.
Anyhow.....off my soapbox.
They'll be an annular eclipse tomorrow. If the weather would be decent and its not likely to be in the mid valley here, we could see the sky go dark for a couple of minutes I think around 8:00 a.m. or 9:00 a.m. It's not a total eclipse cause the moon is too small and won't cover the sun completely leaving a ring of fire around the edges.
I don't have eclipse glasses and probably won't go look for any today. The weather will likely include a cloud cover.
I watched that total eclipse we had a few years back from my raft out on Foster Reservoir. I thought there would be many many boats out on the lake with people doing the same but I only saw a couple others. It was the perfect place to be to watch it.
Here's my eclipse post from back then.
The only two snake I know we have is the Gardner snake, and the rubber boa I have never seen a rubber boa.
ReplyDeleteI may have seen one once here, a rubber boa. I think they're fairly common, just can't remember. I remember more when I was little, all the garter snakes and routinely my brothers and I carried them around, for some reason.
DeleteWe have several venomous snakes here. Luckily I haven't seen them. Make room on your soapbox for me. I despair of people. Often. We are SUCH a destructive lot. With too few exceptions. Your sardine eating made me think of my eldest brother. He hates bananas but has one a day because they are good for him.
ReplyDeleteI think of Australia when I think of poisonous snakes but in reality they're probably rarer there than we think, hearing about it in other countries, but having never been there. Ha, on your brother eating a banana. There's plenty of room on my soapbox.
DeleteSome people have a horrible lack of caring about anything beyond their own little slice of the world. And that bothers me, too. Some people's entitlement is astounding.
ReplyDeleteI had to look up how many kinds of snakes we have in Maryland- 25. I did know that we have two kinds of venomous kinds - copperhead and timber rattler. We won't be able to see much of the eclipse here, especially if it rains all day as predicted, but I did enjoy seeing your pictures from the eclipse viewing on the lake.
ReplyDelete25 different species is quite a lot, ten more than here. You have the same venemouos snakes as Darla in Ohio, although they have one added rare variety. I hear beyond the Cascades the weather might cooperate to see it. And you just never know in Oregon, with the weather.
DeleteI forgot about the partial eclipse but it's been cloudy all day, anyhow. The story on those fish deaths makes me ill. In fact, so did having to toss out some frozen halibut (!) from our Alaska trip in 1999. My father sent what he caught, as well as the haul my husband and I brought in. Not expecting this, we shared and ate as much as possible; it was scrumptious, by the way. Eventually, our deep freezer couldn't keep the steaks edible and I wanted to cry. I can't see myself become vegetarian, but any time an animal product goes to waste it makes me sad.
ReplyDelete