While living in Louisiana for seven years, I (8 mos pregnant) picked up a snoozing snake(he had settled in a pile of fall leaves left overnight), reached into an azalea bush and heard a rattle of yes a tiny rattlesnake, watched as my neighbor killed an 8 ft cottonmouth moccasin in my backyard and gasped when the movers brought a bookcase out of the attic with a coiled skeleton on the shelf. When we lived in California, every year they harvested the walnuts in the grove behind our home. They did it by bringing in a machine that grabbed the tree and "shook" it. When the nuts fell, the snakes bolted. And of course, the mice did too. As much as I understand the important role they play in nature, I'm still not a fan.