My camera shoots fascists

"If it was a snake, it woulda bit ya."

Rattlesnakes get a bad rap. They are mostly quite chill. You really have to fuck with them, in most cases, to get bitten. They would rather just warn you away.

The rattle is in a class of evolutionary adaptations called aposematic defenses. These involve very obvious warnings that "I am not food. Don't even try it, punk." The unmistakable markings on black widow spiders and skunks are other familiar examples.

If rattlesnakes were mean and aggressive, they would lie in wait and strike opportunistically instead of giving you plenty of "would you please go away now" warning.

It was a snake, but it didn't bite me. In fact, it didn't even warn much until I had walked past it and the others saw it. I was, embarrassingly enough, dictating notes for a story into my phone and my leg passed within a foot of it.

This is a digitally zoomed phone video. I kept my distance. This little feller was probably 2 feet long stretched out.
#snake #rattlesnake #NoStepOnSnek

Apr 27, 2023 at 12:07amWeb
Show threadMy camera shoots fascistsApr 27, 2023

This was on a water drop today with our local desert aid group. Now that the temperatures are rising in the desert, the snakes have come out and water for human travelers is becoming more and more crucial.

40 miles to the south of here is Trump's border fence. The number of people using the water that we put out here shows what a wasteful boondoggle vanity project that fence is. It does not stop people, but it does drive them into the hands of cartels who they have to pay to get them over the wall or through it.

Rattlesnake bites are rarely fatal in healthy adults. But if bitten while traveling through here at night, there's a good chance you would not survive due to exhaustion, dehydration and lack of medical care.

Crossing this desert is dangerous even in the cooler months. In the summer months, it means risking your life at every turn. No one takes this lightly. No one does this without a very good reason.

Pic: water drop in a small cave 100 feet from where the rattlesnake was, along a migrant trail.