Sarasota, Fla. -- As the days get warmer a dip in the pool is refreshing and apparently it is for snakes too!
A coral snake went for a swim in a Sarasota pool over the weekend and the homeowner called Dame Hurd with Wildlife Inc. at Mixon Fruit Farms in Manatee County.
“Two-and-a-half-foot, decent size, not fully grown,” says Damen. "It can get larger. Coral snakes are very beautiful."
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Pretty to look at, maybe but imagine finding the venomous snake in your swimming pool.
“Their venom is deadly. It can kill you without treatment. With treatment, you typically survive,” says Damen.
The homeowner wouldn’t go on camera but says her dogs spotted the snake near the sliding glass doors. She says the snake slithered around her patio before going for a swim and getting trapped in the pool skimmer.
Finding a snake in the pool happens more often than one may think.
Damen says, “It does actually over the years. I’ve had quite a few calls of snakes in pool skimmers. Hot days like we’ve had lately, they’ll be attracted to the moisture of the pool.”
But when Damen opened the skimmer the snake was gone.
"“Between the skimmer and pool holes in the tile slipped in the hole in the tile used water to flush him out.” he said.
Damen says coral snakes are common in Florida.
“But you don’t see them often because they like to burrow in the ground hang out in old dead trees,” he said.
Since there are other similarly striped red, black and yellow snakes out there remember this rhyme.
“Red touch black, friend of jack, red touch yellow, kill a fellow. Just leave it alone better off anyway, better for everybody to be safe,” says Damen.
