‘Are these snake eggs?’ A woman found a lot of them and is thankful for what happened next
By Brooklyn Joyner
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MADISON COUNTY, Mississippi (WAPT) — A Madison County woman came across something she wasn’t expecting and took to social media to figure out.
As the Cook family was preparing for Tuesday night’s storms, they moved their basketball hoop to make sure it was not knocked down by strong winds. The next morning, they noticed 20 snake eggs lying in the grass where the goal once stood.
“Do you want to get caught in the yard playing with a snake?” asked Sarah Cook.
“No!” exclaimed Cook’s 10-year-old daughter as they both burst into laughter.
Sarah Cook went to Facebook for advice on what to do regarding the eggs. She encountered many suggestions, some people saying that she should leave them alone and others saying she should hit them with a baseball bat.
Eventually, she connected with Morgan Emmons, who is an unofficial snake catcher and expert.
“When she contacted me about this, I was at my kid’s doctor’s appointment. We left there with both of my kids in tow to get those eggs,” Cook explained.
Now Emmons is taking care of those black racer snake eggs in her home. Emmons said she is a serious advocate for snakes. She also has her own collection of slithering reptiles, and the former pre-school teacher now works full-time educating her community about snakes.
“They kill rodents that carry a lot of the diseases. We have more rodent bite hospitalizations than we do snake bite hospitalizations,” said Emmons.
Emmons said Mississippi has a high population of snakes and their presence is needed to keep the ecosystem balanced. She highly advises people not to kill them, but instead to call someone to relocate them.
“What I don’t want is a homeowner not wanting them there and not giving them the chance to survive and thrive elsewhere,” Emmons said.
Emmons said that when the eggs hatch in August, she plans to release them all in a nearby forest. She said it’s illegal to keep native species of snakes as pets in the state of Mississippi.
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