A snake you did not put there: escaped pet, wild snake and bite first aid

Quick answer

Containment first, identification second. A secure container, a towel and a closed door solve most of these situations without anyone touching the animal.

If you find a snake you did not put there, the first decision is not what species it is. It is that nobody touches it.

Contain it where it is, keep people and pets out of the room or the area, and then work out whether it is your escaped animal or a wild one. Handling an unidentified snake is how people get bitten, and the identification shortcuts that circulate online are unreliable almost everywhere.

• Do not pick up, poke, sweep or try to kill an unidentified snake. Most bites happen during attempts to catch or kill one.
• Contain it: a bin, a plastic box or a laundry basket placed over it and weighted, in a closed room, until help arrives.
• If you keep snakes, check your own enclosures before assuming anything.
• For a bite from an unidentified or venomous snake, go to hospital immediately, keep the person still, and photograph the snake only from a safe distance.
• Never cut, suck, ice, tourniquet or apply chemicals to a snakebite.

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The rules of thumb for telling venomous from harmless snakes do not work.

Head shape fails, because frightened harmless snakes flatten and widen their heads to look dangerous. Pupil shape fails, because several highly venomous snakes have round pupils, and because getting close enough to see a pupil is itself the mistake. Colour rhymes fail outside the narrow region they were invented for, and the pattern varies within species.

Regional differences make this worse. The dangerous species where you live are not the ones in the article you read, and mimicry between harmless and venomous species is common.

Treat every snake you cannot positively identify, and every snake identified only by an internet photograph, as potentially dangerous. Contain it and call someone who identifies snakes for a living.
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Decide in 60 seconds

Is it yours?

If you keep snakes, this is the first thing to establish, and it takes a minute.

Check every enclosure, physically, with the lid opened. Do not count on a glance. Snakes hide under substrate and inside hides, and a missing animal is not always obvious from the front of a rack.

If one is missing, the animal you have found may well be it. Captive snakes and wild ones can look different: captive-bred colour morphs are often unlike anything local, a well-fed captive animal has better body condition, and a snake that has been out for days may have stuck shed, dust and abrasions.

None of that is a licence to pick it up. If your missing animal is a species that could be confused with a local venomous one, or you are not certain the snake is yours, treat it as unidentified.

If you keep no snakes and one has appeared indoors, the likely explanations are that it came in after prey, that it came in through an open door or a gap while looking for shelter, or that it belongs to a neighbour.

Containing it without touching it

The aim is to keep the snake in one known place until someone qualified arrives, with nobody within striking distance.

Clear the area of people and pets first. Close the door behind you and push a rolled towel into the gap underneath.

If the snake is in the open and calm, place a large container over it: a bin, a plastic storage box, a laundry basket. Approach from the side, low and slow, and put the container down over the snake rather than scooping toward it. Weight the top.

If the container has no air holes, prop one edge with a folded cloth so air can move but the snake cannot pass.

If the snake is under furniture or in a gap, leave it there and contain the room instead. Blocking a room is safer than flushing a snake into the open.

Do not spray it with water, insecticide, disinfectant or anything else. It does not work, it makes the animal defensive, and it complicates veterinary care if the animal turns out to be someone's pet.

Note the time and the exact position. Take a photograph from a distance with the zoom, not by approaching.

Then call. Depending on where you live the right number is a wildlife rescue, a herpetological society, a reptile-experienced vet, animal control or the emergency services. Look this up before you need it and keep it in your phone.

If the missing snake is your own

Search low, warm and enclosed, at night, with a torch. Behind and under appliances, inside sofa frames, behind books, in laundry baskets, behind radiators and in any cavity where a cable enters a wall.

Set a passive trap: a hide with a thermostat-controlled heat mat under it and a water bowl, on the floor in the middle of a room, and a dusting of flour at doorways to show tracks.

Tell your neighbours before they find it themselves. It prevents a frightened reaction and it usually shortens the search.

Check the animal properly when you find it: dehydration, retained shed, abrasions on the nose and chin, weight loss, and any wound. A snake that has been out for more than a day or two often needs a veterinary check and a slow return to normal feeding.

A recovered escapee gets checked over before it goes back: skin, eyes, nose, weight, and hydration.

Never release a pet snake outdoors, whatever the circumstances. In most climates it dies slowly. In some it survives and becomes an ecological problem that lasts decades. In many places it is a criminal offence. If you cannot keep an animal, a rescue, a specialist keeper or your vet is the route.

Bite first aid: a person, unidentified or venomous snake

Treat it as an emergency from the first second.

Move everyone away from the snake. Do not attempt to catch or kill it, and do not send someone back to look for it.

Keep the bitten person still and calm. Movement and panic increase circulation and speed the spread of venom. Sit or lie them down.

Remove rings, watches, bracelets and anything tight from the bitten limb before swelling starts, because they become tourniquets as the limb swells.

Keep the bitten limb still. Splinting or supporting it so it does not move is helpful in every region.

Mark the leading edge of any swelling with a pen and write the time next to it, then repeat as it advances. This gives the hospital a timeline they cannot otherwise reconstruct.

Get to hospital immediately, by the fastest safe route. Phone ahead if you can, because some antivenoms are not held at every hospital.

Take a photograph of the snake only if it can be done from a safe distance and without delay. Identification helps, but no photograph is worth a second bite.

Follow local emergency guidance on bandaging. First aid for snakebite genuinely differs between regions, because the venoms differ: firm pressure bandaging over the whole limb is standard practice for the elapid snakes of some countries, and is not recommended where tissue-destroying venoms are the norm. If you do not know which applies where you live, find out now rather than in the moment.

Never cut the wound, never try to suck out venom, never apply ice, never use a tourniquet, never give alcohol, and never use an electric shock device. All of these cause additional injury and none of them remove venom.

Bite first aid: a known non-venomous pet snake

The teeth of a non-venomous snake are fine, numerous and curved backwards. That is why pulling away tears the wound, and why teeth break off and stay in it.

Do not pull away. The teeth curve backwards, so a bite that would have released cleanly becomes a tearing injury when the hand is snatched back.

If a snake in a feeding response has latched on and is not releasing, support its body, stay still, and encourage release with cool running water over the head, rather than levering the jaws apart.

Wash the wound thoroughly with soap and running water, and let it bleed briefly.

Check the wound for broken teeth. They are small, they are easy to miss, and they are a common cause of infection.

Watch over the following days for spreading redness, heat, swelling or increasing pain, and seek medical advice for any of those, for a deep puncture, for a bite over a joint or a tendon, or if the person's tetanus cover is not current. Mention that it was a reptile bite, because that changes which bacteria a doctor considers.

If a dog or cat is bitten

Go to a vet immediately, even if the animal seems well. Do not wait for signs, and do not attempt first aid beyond keeping the animal calm and still.

Carry the animal rather than letting it walk, and keep the bitten area still and below heart level if you can do so without a struggle.

Do not apply a tourniquet, ice, or attempt to cut or suck the wound.

Tell the practice what you saw of the snake, and phone ahead so they can prepare, since not every practice stocks antivenom.

Keeping wild snakes away from the house

Snakes come indoors for two reasons: prey and shelter.

Control the rodents. Spilled bird seed, uncovered pet food, open compost, cluttered sheds and log piles against the house all support the mice and rats that snakes follow.

Close the gaps. Air bricks, gaps under doors, holes where pipes and cables enter, and damaged vents are the usual entry points.

Tidy the immediate perimeter. Long grass, rubble, sheet materials lying flat and stacked timber against a wall all provide the cover a snake will use.

Be careful with netting. Loose garden netting and mesh trap and kill snakes, and a trapped snake is both a welfare problem and a hazard to whoever finds it.

A snake passing through a garden is generally doing useful work on the rodent population and is best left alone.

What never to do

Never handle, sweep, prod or lift an unidentified snake, including with a broom or a shovel.

Never attempt to kill a snake. It is the most common way people are bitten, it is illegal in many places, and it is unnecessary.

Never handle a dead snake with bare hands.

Never rely on head shape, pupil shape or a colour rhyme to decide that a snake is safe.

Never cut, suck, ice, tourniquet or shock a bite.

Never take a bitten person on a long detour to catch or photograph the snake.

Never release a pet snake outdoors.

Never let a child or a pet approach a contained snake, including through a clear container.

When to get help

Call emergency services immediately for any bite from an unidentified or venomous snake, for any bite in a child, an older adult, a pregnant person or anyone with a serious existing illness, and for any bite where swelling, faintness, difficulty breathing, drooping eyelids, bleeding or severe pain develop.

Call a wildlife rescue, herpetological society or animal control for any snake you cannot identify, any snake trapped in netting or a building cavity, and any snake in a place it cannot leave.

The outcome to aim for: a secure, enriched enclosure that the animal has no reason and no route to leave.

Call a reptile-experienced vet for a recovered escapee that is dehydrated, thin, wounded, breathing with effort or has retained shed, and for any snake that has been outdoors, because a period of chilling is frequently followed by respiratory infection.

Take a veterinary or medical contact list, a photograph if you have one, and the time the incident happened. Those three things shorten every conversation that follows.