Snakes Lurk Among Piles of Debris During Storm Cleanup, Animal Control Officer Says

PORT SALERNO, Fla. (CBS12) — Recent storms have left large amounts of debris, which has been heaped across many neighborhoods in the weeks after the hurricane and tornadoes spun through.

However, venomous snakes have been settling into some of those piles.

A coral snake, which is venomous and life-threatening, was seen in Martin County last week.

“They are rarely seen. We don’t really see the poisonous ones,” said Amanda Heffron, animal control officer with the Martin County Sheriff’s Office. “They don’t want us to see them, they don’t want us to bother them. They’re doing their own thing.”

So why do we see them now?

Heffron says the environment inside the debris piles is to blame.

“Everyone is trying to clear their property of vegetation and material damage to their homes, so warm, dark places are ideal specifically for snakes, because their prey goes there and follows them,” he told CBS12 News. on Monday. .

Heffron was called to care for that coral snake in Port Salerno last Thursday, but that wasn’t the only snake she had to deal with that day.

“It was one of the biggest I’ve ever seen in my life,” he said of the coral snake, “and later that day there was a diamondback rattlesnake, a foot and a half long, hanging just below of the slider. in the patio of a house, with children and pets inside. “It has to go away, it can’t stay there, it’s not safe.”

That rattlesnake was in Palm City.

She says both snakes emerged from piles of debris and likely won’t be the last to do so, given the ongoing cleanup and the long time required for debris collection across the county.

Heffron says it’s not advisable to get too close to these piles of rubble, as there are potentially snakes lurking inside.

“Don’t be on your phone when you’re walking your dog, so you can be aware,” she said. “We have all kinds of wildlife around us, especially coyotes and bobcats, they’re not just snakes. Everything is in motion, with growth and development, everything is chasing its prey, because its prey is being driven from its homes.”

Both snakes were relocated away from the development on the east side of the county, so they wouldn’t be disturbed by humans, and fortunately the other way around as well.