For The Love Of Rattlesnakes, Don't Call The Fire Department!

CALABASAS, CA — Dan Mac Neil learned how to wrangle snakes from his father.

As a kid, Mac Neil would watch his dad help out their frightened neighbors with snakes in their backyards. Now, using all the techniques and tricks his dad taught him, Mac Neil also wrangles snakes in Old Topanga Canyon and has been doing so for 25 years.

Mac Neil is solving a problem facing his community's wildlife: When the fire department answers a call for a rattlesnake, its policy is to kill it. So he bypasses the department altogether. It's a service that becomes increasingly important as the Southern California drought pushes more and more snakes into residential areas to find food and water, ABC7 reported.

A land surveyor by trade, Mac Neil never feels nervous around the snakes — because, he said, he knows exactly how to handle them. Even when they start to act up.

"I've had them spitting mad at me before. They don't know I'm doing them a favor — saving their lives, so to speak" Mac Neil said.

His calm attitude and sharp abilities come from his father.

"He taught me to be not fearful of snakes and animals. He's a great man, and I'll always respect him for what he has taught me," he said.

Mac Neil was the first wrangler to come across Old Topanga Canyon resident Sarah Priest's radar a couple years ago. Priest loves rattlesnakes and lives across the street from the state park so, like many in her area, she encounters wildlife daily.

As Priest found more wranglers in the area, she would add them to her Nextdoor list — after, of course, making sure they wouldn't keep, confine or make belts out of the snakes. She has been circulating the names and numbers of the wranglers she's vetted on Nextdoor for years.

Most of the wranglers work for free, and some accept donations. Mac Neil always encourages people to make a donation to the Topanga Coalition for Emergency Preparedness should his client insist on paying.

Aside from understanding the vital role wildlife plays in his community's ecosystem, Mac Neil wrangles as an act of service to his neighbors.

"I grew up in Topanga, and I've always wanted to be a giving member of the community here. I feel that this is at least one way that I can help people out," Mac Neil said. He added: "We just take care of each other."

Mac Neil said the fire department used to call him and his father occasionally to answer rattlesnake calls to avoid killing the snakes. This hasn't been happening as much lately because of personnel turnover. But Mac Neil said he would certainly be open to a more formal relationship between the wranglers and the fire department.

Los Angeles County Firefighter Paul Payne, who works at the station in Topanga, said that when he responds to rattlesnake calls, he always gives people the option to wait and call a wrangler so he doesn't have to kill the snake. In his experience this system works, although many people with children and dogs don't opt to wait for the wranglers.

Payne said that over the summer, the department has been getting a couple snake calls a week. In his two years at the department, he has never had a snake bite, and said most snake sightings are safe. Payne agrees that snakes are important to the community's environment and wildlife.

Priest, like Mac Neil, thinks the value of wildlife in the community cannot and should not go undervalued.

"I think its really important for all of us to respect the animals that were here first and that we depend on for our environment. The animals, the insects, the birds: It’s all a part of our life, and we need to respect them versus thinking they’re pests and rodents, and they all need to be terminated," Priest said.