Henry "Buz" Lunsford
Serpent-tendant
Allyn Amsk / The
'I've
been bit hundreds of times,' Lunsford said, 'but never by a
venomous animal.'
According to Lunsford, most snake handlers get bit due to carelessness.
'I'm never going to get bit by a rattlesnake,' he said, 'because I don't want to break my record.'
Part of his success may be due to his temperament.
Lunsford is calm and composed. He moves carefully, without sudden movements. He speaks in even tones. There are subjects that he clearly feels strongly about,
but even then, he doesn't raise his voice to make his point.
Lunsford knows about snakes.
'I've been working with reptiles all my life,' Lunsford said.
He has a Ph.D. in Zoology from U.C.L.A. Some of his
courses, however, were completed by correspondence from 1966 to 1967 when he
was in
'I took cobras out of the bunkers,' Lunsford said, 'and pythons that were extra big.'
In southeast Asia he captured the legendary three-step snake, a bamboo viper with a prehensile tail that would wrap in the elephant grass or bamboo and hang by the tail, biting anything that came by. A soldier who was bitten would take three steps and die.
His expertise with reptiles is highly regarded in
He is currently compiling a list of local species, from
the Trail of 100 Giants to the Piutes, from
'I have to go up to 100 Giants and the Piutes because of the watersheds,' Lunsford said. 'A lot of animals are being washed down here anyway. We are not really desert here, and we are not really high mountains here, we are both. We are in a transition zone.'
In his years studying the
'I don't believe in bringing them in and importing them and showing a cobra or a python or a green iguana,' Lunsford said. 'They aren't here. Let's look at what's here.'
He is also opposed to collecting. At the most, he will catch and study an animal for a few weeks and then release it. In this manner, his reptiles are always being rotated.
'I don't have anything near what's here,' Lunsford said.
'I don't want to have a zoo. I'm not Noah's
Finding some species requires patience.
Recently, Lunsford found three foothill yellow-legged frogs, when the Fish & Game Department was unable to find any. Many times scientists search for a species for a week or so, find nothing, and move on.
'I've been here for a year and a half,' Lunsford said, 'and I've only found seven.'
The frogs are elusive, which is one reason why they are so difficult to spot. They are not extinct, as many believe.
'When you are about 30 or 40 feet away from them,' Lunsford said, 'they make a 'perfect 10' dive and go down to the bottom and hide in the mud.
'You can't even hear them plop in the water because it is a perfect little dive, and they are only inches from the water at all times.'
'Even when I know where to look,' Lunsford said, 'I don't always find them.'
Lunsford is attracted to rattlesnakes because 'everyone else dislikes them.'
Rattlesnakes are 'the most persecuted animal on earth.'
According to Lunsford, there are three indigenous species of rattlesnakes - the Northern Pacific, the Southern Pacific, and the Mojave rattlesnake. They are the only venomous snakes in the area.
'There is no Mojave red,' Lunsford joked. 'That is in the bars.'
There are clear differences between the species.
On the Southern Pacific rattlesnake, crotalus viridus helleri, the dark bands are wider than the white. On the Northern Pacific rattlesnake, crotalus viridus oreganus, the dark bands are equal to the white bands. The Mojave rattlesnake, crotalus scutulatus scutulatus, which doesn't have to be green, has wider white bands than dark bands.
'They don't always have to rattle,' Lunsford said, 'especially if they have the rattles broke off.'
On his specimen snakes, for example, the rattles were broken off.
Snakes get a new rattle every time they shed their skins.
'If he eats well,' Lunsford said, 'he can shed his skin three or four times a year, which means three or four new rattles.'
The rattlesnake is often confused with a gopher snake, but there is a big difference. Gopher snakes are rough textured and heavy-bodied, though their head can look diamond shaped like a rattlesnake. Even the rattling sound can be confusing, because in dry leaves, a gopher snake can shake its tail and create the same sound as a rattler.
A misconception is that gopher snakes and rattlesnakes mate. Gopher snakes lay eggs and rattlesnakes have live births, so mating is out of the question.
Another misconception involves snakebites.
If a person is bitten, the victim should stay calm, constrict the bite, and get medical attention. Lunsford advises against the traditional lore of cutting the wound and drawing out the venom. Since the body absorbs the venom, two pin holes have slower absorption than a cut.
Snake bite victims have some reason to remain calm.
As Lunsford noted, more than 50 to 60 percent of adult rattlesnake bites are dry bites, where no venom is injected.
In the future, he hopes to have a live exhibit at the fish hatchery, where he would rotate the animals every few weeks, as he does with his own specimens.
Lunsford can use help with equipment, if people have spare aquariums they can donate. Also, he needs photographs of many specimens for his brochure. If people trap a reptile, they should call him at 379-1453. And if they have a reptile in their backyard, Lunsford volunteers to relocate it. It is illegal to pick up rattlesnakes without a fishing license, and even then, they can't be harmed or killed.
'Leave
them alone,' Lunsford said. 'They don't make good pets.'
Copyright
© 2000 Wick Communications, Inc.
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Last updated Sunday, September 30, 2001 9:45:55 PM CST