Preserve Wildlife For Our Health

I love snakes — and get that they are valuable to our ecology. When one grasps a little biology, one gets how snakes — and other animals, like wasps — make the environment more suitable to human life, and help us be healthy.

Have I always liked snakes and wasps? No. I used to not know squat about biology and ecology, and would react in an emotional way determined  by ignorance and convention, not reason. But study of biology and personal experience has led to knowledge and understanding, which kicks the worthless derriere of fear and ignorance.

We get, from what I have heard from a herpetologist (Kelly Norrid, who was with Texas Parks & Wildlife Department), maybe one tertiary (three times removed) disease from snakes. They are reptiles, hence they have very different biology than us humans.

But from rats and mice — squat! We get diseases directly, secondarily, tertiarily, and more. We get squat directly from them, we get squat from insects that feed on the mice, and we get squat from vectors feeding on vectors feeding mice. For example: more snakes –> less mice –> less Lyme disease.