Hi guys, Welcome back to Animal Wonders. We're in the reptile room right now
and we're going to check in with one of our lesser known animals,
Freya, the Northern Pine Snake.
The reason that she's lesser known is because Freya is actually quite aggressive,
and I don't handle her or bring her out as much as I do other animals.
We got Freya as an adult, and she was dropped off at a local shelter
and they didn't know what she was. So they called us up and said "Hey!
We have this snake. Can you please take it?"
It was pretty obvious from the moment that I met her that
she hadn't been handled very much, so she's a challenge to work with.
It is good to keep trying to interact with her because it will help stimulate her mind and body.
So today I wanted to take her out and show you how I manage working with an aggressive snake
The first thing I grab is my tool-- and, I know it's a spatula. A lot of snake handlers
will use a snake hook, but I just feel more comfortable with a spatula.
They're easily replaceable, and... I'll show you how it works
She's quite active, she sees all the commotion... I'm going to slip my spatula in
and you can see that I'm going to use the flat side of the spatula to block her head...
So that I can reach in back here and grab her before
she notices my hand,
and get her body all the way out here.
Supporting every third of her body ...
Alright, there we go!
So now that I have her in my hands,
I just want to make sure that I'm not moving around too much-- I want her to feel
really calm and comfortable.
A lot of times aggressive snakes will be aggressive inside their enclosure,
but once you get them out they will calm down and they won't be as aggressive.
But Freya has bitten me several times while I've been holding her,
so I always want to make sure that I am not instigating a reaction
by moving around too much. So I just hold her very, very still and steady
Well this is going really well so far,
she doesn't seem very stressed out.
She's tongue flicking but not rapidly, so she's not really seeking out food.
And she's not jerking...
she's just slowly exploring her new situation. Another thing that she's done
while I've held her is that she musked on me. And that's when they open their cloaca
and they secrete a really stinky, foul liquid.
And that's a defense mechanism that they would do if they were feeling threatened.
She did that one of the first times I held her.
Probably because it was a new experience and she hadn't really been handled before
She hasn't musked since.
I'm just really-- I'm really impressed with how well she's doing
A lot of the time people see me holding an animal and they look really calm, and they assume
that it's easy to handle these animals, when in fact, all of my senses are on high alert
because I'm very focused on everything that she's doing, because I know she's an aggressive animal
and I want to make sure I stay calm so that she stays comfortable.
When an animal becomes more comfortable with me, then I can kind of relax and
move around a little bit more naturally, but right now...
I'm just going to stay as still as I can. Right now, Freya does not do public presentations,
we're still getting her comfortable being handled and being out in the public with a lot of
external stimuli would probably overwhelm her, and she'd become defensive.
And she'd either musk or strike and we're making such good progress that I just want
this to be her experience being handled right now
Freya is doing so good right now that I'm going to attempt to move my hands
and just manipulate her head a little bit, like I might do in a show to show off her face.
Did you see how I just slowly moved my arm so that her chin rested on
a new surface of my hand? Very non-threatening. And you can see
that she's now moving to readjust, and find a new, comfortable position to relax in.
Alright, Freya did so good. I'm going to go ahead and end this session now
and let her go on back home... just very gently
move my hand ... move her body off my hand...
annnnnd we're out. Ah! Success!
That went so well! I'm so glad that she was so calm, and I didn't get bit.
I did warn Matt that we might have some drama on screen today, but
I'm glad it was drama-free, and my arms are intact and it was just ahhhhh...
I'm just so happy that that went so well
Thank you for going on this adventure with me and if you would like to go on an adventure
with us every week, subscribe to our YouTube Channel, Animal Wonders Montana
Thanks and we'll see you next week!