WOODBRIDGE, VA – If you open your oven door and see a forked tongue flicking back at you, Bill Crisp might be the guy to call.
Crisp, 50, of Bristow, is a Northern Virginia snake wrangler. His nonprofit organization, K2C Snake Consultants, both takes snakes away from the folks who don't want to see them and brings snakes – their "snake ambassadors" – to people who want to learn about the misunderstood and feared creatures through classes and other encounters.
The group has a class coming up at the Manassas Community Center later in September.
"Snakes are, you know, one of the most hated animals that are killed all the time," Crisp told Patch in an interview. "So we're constantly trying to push education out there."
His mission is to help people coexist with wildlife – wildlife of a particular not-so-warm and fuzzy type. "It's snakes, turtles, you know, anything like that," he says. K2C Snake Consultants has a team of about six people, he says, and in addition to their classes and snake encounters, they do animal relocations and home inspections.
Crisp says he's been in the snake-saving game for about three decades, though K2C is only about six years old. In the last few years, he says he's seen positive changes.
"Five years ago, [people] would call me or send me a picture, and the snake's already dead, and they're saying, 'What is this?'" he sighs. "How about you text me first and we'll talk about what to do with it? That's changed a lot over the last five years."
Crisp says he used to mostly field requests to move or kill snakes – now, he says, people want information first. "If it's harmless, they're going to leave it alone and let it be. That's improved a lot."
If it's venomous, well, maybe it's time for the team to come out. The company also does venomous snake training for state and local parks and animal control departments, teaching them how to remove venomous snakes from properties without having to kill or touch the snakes at all.
Crisp thinks the change in attitude toward snakes shows his education is having an impact. "Snakes are one of the top three animals or creepy crawlies that people just hate," he says. A lot of that comes from how people are raised: they're told to hate and fear snakes, he says. Once you can get people to stop panicking and start asking questions, you can build understanding.
Crisp not only helps people learn to distinguish between venomous and non-venomous snakes but also educates people on how they might be inadvertently inviting more snakes into their lives.
Over-watering your grass? That's going to cause insects and grubs to proliferate. Guess who's got no arms and no legs and loves grubs?
Feeling stray rabbits or cats? You're also feeding mice and rats. Guess who's covered in scales and would love to scarf down a rodent?
Letting your grass grow tall? Sounds like a great cover for your cold-blooded neighbor who's always hiding from birds.
How did Crisp avoid the general tendency to squirm away from all that slithers? In some ways, he just never grew up, he says. "[I was] a typical boy growing up – I was into dinosaurs, I loved snakes. I'd try to bring stuff home, and my mom didn't want me to," he said. He just never outgrew his seven-year-old self's love for reptiles.
His ongoing research also involves learning about what not to do, and what actually happens when a snake encounter goes wrong. "Right now, I spend a lot of time removing copperheads from yards, but I also spend time going and talking to people that have been bitten by copperheads to understand what their experience was like, what did they do when they got bit?" That kind of information can help others avoid similar incidents – even when that advice is as simple as wear shoes outside and don't stick your hands into holes you haven't checked.
A copperhead – one of the region's few venomous snakes – is among Crisp's "ambassador snakes," reptiles he takes to classes to help people learn to recognize different types of snakes and shed some of their fear.
"There are folks that I have done classes for in the past that have lived here in this area for 30, 40 years, and have never seen a copperhead in the wild, so they don't even know what it looks like," the snake advocate says. At his classes, you can see one. He'll point out the snake's Hershey kiss pattern and let you know that if it's got a yellow tail, it's a baby, so leave it alone.
In addition to the copperhead, Crisp has a 6.5-foot, 17-year-old rat snake that's a class favorite. He came from a rehabilitation center and couldn't be released back into the wild, so now he meets the snake-scared, snake-charmed and snake-curious with Crisp and his crew.
However, for the truly fearful, Crisp will leave the ambassadors at home. They offer no-snake classes for folks who don't want to be near the reptiles, but do very much want to know how to keep them away and how to recognize what they do see.
As for Crisp, he's seen it all. Snakes in basements, snakes in laundry rooms "curled up next to the Tide," snakes in bedroom closets. He's pulled snakes out of car wheel wells and consoles. In addition to the snake that sought refuge in an oven, he has another kitchen favorite – a snake found in a coffee maker, curled up in the filter basket of the coffee pot.
Crisp might still need caffeine after that encounter. Perhaps not so the rest of us.
K2C Snake Consultants has a snake identification class coming up at the Manassas Community Center on Sept. 12 and will be doing education and demonstrations a week later at the Fall Festival at Leopold's Preserve.
Check their website for more information on upcoming events, how to organize events, or to ask for some reptile assistance.
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