- narrator: if you head down adirt road near sweeny, texas keep your eyes peeled. because underneath thesetowering oaks, slithering below thespanish moss... are plenty of these guys.
get rid of snakes in yard, - [music] - narrator: this iscopperhead country. - lee hubbard: i've dealt withmore copperheads than most professionals have, and i'mjust a guy that live's
in sweeny, texas. - [footsteps] - narrator: lee hubbard'sproperty is overrun with copperheads. common throughout much of thestate, these small venomous pit vipers seem to reallylike lee's place. at first he killed the snakes,and after a while it became too much. - andy: yep, let's find some!
- narrator: so he calledin some help. - andy: we'll i've received anumber of calls over the years, where people had two, three,four, up to 20 copperheads in their yard. i've never had anybody report150 copperheads in a season, and it turns out that uh,that's really pretty average around here. - kris: there's one right there. - andy: hey kris, first oneof the night!
is this how you normallyfind them, just here at the base of the tree? - kris: yep, they sit bythe base of the trees waiting for the cicada's. - andy: there's that classicpit viper head shape, it's not unusual to findcopperheads throughout most of texas, if you lookvery closely between the eye and the nostril on theupper lip, you'll see some small pits in the scalesabove the lip,
and those are the heatsensing organs. - narrator: snake specialistkristofer swanson is collecting these copperheads for science. - andy: that's two. - kris: we don't want tohurt these animals. we're trying to collect themas gently as possible, but because they are in afeeding scenario at this time of night, this time ofyear, we actually have to chase after 'em.
- andy: oh here we go! you see one? - kris: where? - andy: oh yeah, uh yeah,that's a good size one! cool! and there's that cicada molt,the copperheads here this is what they're eating, they'reeating the insects when they come out of the ground and theymolt, the snakes feed on them. - kris: they actually comeup and they'll work their
jaws all the way over themwithout an envenomating bite. they have no purpose to do that,which is why we found their venom very, very interesting, - andy: there you go! - narrator: scientists believethat a protein found in the venom of copperheads inhibitsthe growth of cancerous tumors. for lee this hit's home,his aunt died of cancer, and the next day, a teamstarted collecting copperheads to help with research.
- lee: to find out that day,after burying my aunt the day before, that we coulddo something and possibly help. i have two daughters,i have a beautiful wife, so it's personal. i mean copperhead venom couldsave one of my family members. that's why i do it! - andy: it's just fantastic andhere you know we've turned from
a landowner who perceived thecopperheads on his property as a nuisance or apotential threat.
and now he recognizes them asa potential medical miracle. it's just great, i couldn'tbe happier!
