A study by Alves et al. (2014) determined
that Brazilian students tended to have negative attitudes, and show negative
behaviours, towards snakes. While this was quite a specific group to sample it
is not hard to imagine that the results of this study can be extended to the
general public, even people as far away from Brazil as Canadians. People in
Ontario tend to have negative connotations regarding snakes, founded in the
misconception that they are dangerous and venomous. As has been extensively
explained in a previous blog post, Ontario snake species are harmless to humans.
As a result of poor education though, fear of snakes persists throughout the
province and most people treat snakes with indifference (in the best case
scenario), apprehension or worse. The result of all of this is the intentional
killing of snakes, upon a snake sighting or interaction people will often
purposefully kill snakes (Rowell, 2012). This persecution of snakes is a major
issue, it is one of the leading causes of population declines for many Ontario
snake species including the eastern hog-nosed snake, gray ratsnake and
queensnake (Rowell, 2012). What is most upsetting about this is that snakes are
not harmful to humans but are vital to proper ecosystem functioning, so simply
because of misunderstandings leading to poor perceptions humans are posing
great stress not only on threatened and endangered snake species but also to
ecosystems on which we rely.
References:
Alves, R., Silva, V.,
Trovão, D., Oliveira, J., Mourão, J., & Dias, T. et al. (2014). Students’
attitudes toward and knowledge about snakes in the semiarid region of
Northeastern Brazil. Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine, 10:
30.
Rowell, J. (2012). The
Snakes of Ontario: Natural History, Distribution and Status. Toronto, ON.
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