Coast to Coast AM 9/11/2001

DESTROY OLD FISHING NETS.
*****
Yesterday due to a series of random events and choices I went to the next town over to get lunch, coffee, and take a stroll in a park next to a river. I watched a raccoon drop down from a dam ledge into the boulders. While looking for it I saw a snake that looked dead. Got my walking stick to poke it, it was alive. Caught in a discarded fishing net. So I pulled it out from between the wall and boulder and found two snakes stuck. I identified their heads as non venomous.
*****
I removed the net to a shady wooded area, to cut the net with a knife, my sharpest one, which didn't work. I also discovered all my other cutting tools, like Gerber with scisdors and a set of nail clippers missing. Left the snakes, went to the nearest store about 2 miles away to buy some cheap scissors.
*****
I got back, cut all the netting one strand at a time. First one freed slithered off into the brush. Second one was worse, it kept trying to burrow deeper, then it tried to reverse itself just compounding its problem. I had to be careful not to free it with net wrapped around its jaw, but I got it loose. It had some injuries, there was a rusty hook in that net and a fish shaped lure.
*****
I don't know if someone left the net or lost it during the spring floods. My best guess the snakes probably saw it as a safe shelter of brush or organic debris not knowing what a net is and got stuck.
*****
I identified them as northern water snakes.

I brought the net home and plan to burn it in the fire pit when I get some firewood. If I threw it in the trash it'll just go to the landfill and another animal will get caught in it.
*****
Why save snakes. They eat pests. But as I cut them out I remember Aesop's Fable of the Farmer and the Snake. A farmer came across a snake half frozen one winter. Having pity, he put it in his jacket and broght it in by the fire to revive it. We it came around the snake bit the farmer. The moral is a snake is a snake and is not grateful for help. My snakes resisted and fought, when released they slithered away without any hesitation.
*****
I could have cut their heads off and tossed them, but tgat would draw flies and pests.