General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Never owned a gun, never will. [View all]hunter
(38,264 posts)If rattlesnakes are far from the house and animal pens we leave them alone. Shooting any rattlesnake you see isn't likely to reduce the population. They are generally shy creatures and useful because they eat rodent pests. I was careless once and got bit by one, fortunately its fangs didn't penetrate my boot.
Rabid wildlife is something to worry about, and the ground squirrels around my parent's old farm, and my brother's, can be reservoirs for the plague. It's maybe more gruesome than shooting them, but most farmers simply poison ground squirrels. We never did, and my brother doesn't, because we've always worried about our dogs. All our dogs are from the animal shelters and there are always a few idiots among them who might mess with a bait station. (My brother once had a dog who tried to eat the mice off one of those sticky traps... that was a mess.)
Coyotes, bears, cougars, and wild pigs generally mind their own business. People can be a lot more dangerous than wild animals but I don't feel any need to arm myself against them either.