Mississippi rattlesnake encounter too close for comfort

Joseph Hosey doesn’t stop to take a photo of every snake he sees as a forester in south Mississippi.

“If I did, I’d never get any work done,” he says.

But Hosey, 37, shot photos and a video of one he spotted July 20 while cruising timber in Greene County — a huge eastern diamondback rattlesnake. Hosey estimates the snake was “between 4 and 5” feet long and weighed about eight pounds.

As of Friday morning, the video had more than 38,000 Facebook views. The numbers shocked him.

So, too, did a lot of the comments.

“I was surprised that so many people were glad I didn’t kill it,” he says. “And that’s one of the reasons I posted the video — to help educate people that in most cases there is no reason to kill a snake. They’re important to our delicate ecosystem.

“I was in his home — the woods. He wanted nothing to do with me.”

Hosey laughs. “And I assure you, I wanted nothing to do with him.”

Too close for comfort

Hosey spotted the rattlesnake curled up next to a tree and waiting to ambush his supper. Maybe a rabbit or a squirrel.

“I was 20, maybe 30 yards from him,” he says. “What I saw around me was consistent in color and shapes. Because I’m in the woods so much — I also forage for wild plants and herbs on weekends — my eyes are trained to notice anything that is out of the ordinary. So the snake stood out to me.”

Hosey, who lives in Laurel, was not wearing his snake leggings, which are similar to a baseball catcher’s shin guards. “I only wear them if I can’t see where I’m stepping. They’re hot and aggravating. On weekends, I’ll usually forage in sandals or barefooted.”

Hosey was on alert after noticing burrows made by gopher tortoises — another item on the rattlesnake’s menu.

“The snake didn’t hear me — they don’t have ears — but they can pick up vibrations. He probably felt me before I saw him,” Hosey says. “And they don’t have great eyesight, but he could see the images of heat waves coming off me.”

Hosey knelt about 10 yards away. He took a few photos, drank some water.

“When I stood up and got taller and bigger to the snake, he rattled at me a couple of times. When I took one step toward him, the rattle became constant. He was saying, ‘Don’t mess with me.’

“I never got closer than about 8 feet, but that was probably pushing it safety-wise.”

Why did he get so close?

“To take good pictures,” Hosey laughs. “And because I’m fascinated by snakes.”

The longer Hosey watched him and heard him rattling, the more adrenaline Hosey could feel pumping throughout his body.

“I had gotten to the woods about 6:30 a.m., and at that point it was about 3:30, maybe 4. The heat index was 110. I hadn’t eaten lunch. I was tired. It was Friday.”

That’s when you can hear Hosey exhale near the end of the video and finally say to the rattlesnake: “You can have it.”

Hosey headed to his truck.

Man of the woods

The question is obvious: What if the snake had bit him that deep in the woods?

Hosey pauses before answering: “I was 15 minutes from the truck. Another 30 minutes to a paved road. The nearest hospital was in Richton, and my fate probably would’ve come down to whether they have anti-venom for that particular snake.”

Hosey’s girlfriend, mother and three children — ages 18, 13 and 11 — encourage him to wear his snake leggings every day.

But Hosey is not your average guy. I’ve known him for about two years, and I believe you could drop him off in the woods, hand him a pocketknife and he could survive for as long as needed.

Hosey used to grow a big garden, but now he finds a lot of his food in the woods — berries, plants, roots.

“If I could find tomatoes out there, I probably wouldn’t even plant a garden anymore,” he jokes.

Which made some of the Facebook comments ridiculous. A few people called him a “wuss” — only in more vulgar terms — for not killing the rattlesnake. Hosey deleted those comments because of the language.

He responded with a post: “I work around these snakes every day and have never killed one but used to catch them until I had kids. When I was a teen I kept them in aquariums in my bedroom but, eventually, I understood their role in the ecosystem enough to realize that keeping them captive was just as ignorant as killing them.

“Fear and ignorance is what kills these animals. I’m not one of those ‘outdoorsmen’ that only ventures into the woods on a four-wheeler and into a shooting house for one season a year. I’m walking through their habitat daily and year round …

“So, with that said, I’m going to lace my boots up and head to the woods to work. If I could just find my purse I’ll be on my way.”

Yes, Hosey used to catch snakes — including rattlesnakes and moccasins — and keep them in his bedroom. “The aquarium had a good lid on it with clamps,” he assures me.

He has never been bitten but had a close call.

“It was back in 2000 and I was trying to catch the largest cottonmouth I’d ever seen — and that’s why I wanted to catch it,” he says. “I was using one of those poles that has a hook on the end of it.

“I used that stick to hold his head so I could grab him right behind it with my right hand. Then I had the middle part of his body with my left hand. This guy was really strong, and my left hand came loose. He went to shaking — and they’re nothing but one big muscle — and I couldn’t hold him. My right fingers got real close to his mouth.

“I realized I had become too comfortable around them.”

Hosey’s message: Don’t try to kill or catch a snake. Call law enforcement or your city if you need someone to remove it from your property.

“Snakes want nothing to do with humans,” he says. “If you leave them alone, they’ll leave you alone. It’s a pretty simple deal.”

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