LA CRESCENTA : Snake Sightings Prompt Warnings

Two snakes--one a rattler--were spotted Friday morning on a La Canada Flintridge sidewalk curb, prompting La Crescenta sheriff’s officials to warn foothill residents that such sightings could increase this summer.

“Because of the recent rains, there’s just going to be a lot more hatches (of snakes),” said Deputy Risa Manriquez of the sheriff’s station in La Crescenta.

“We’re just starting the beginning of summer,” Manriquez said. “This weekend we should get quite a few calls.”

No one was bitten at the time of the 8:25 a.m. sighting in the 5400 block of Ocean View Boulevard, 150 yards from the closest home. The garden snake and year-old 8-inch baby rattler were thrown back into brush in a flood-control area, away from homes, officials said.

“It (the rattler) wasn’t moving until we tried to scoop it up” with a shovel, said Kobey Horn of La Canada. Horn was walking his Labrador retriever when a motorist told him about the snakes near him.

“I couldn’t hear the rattle--it was a very small snake.”

Manriquez said rattlers and gopher snakes are among four common serpents that live near the foothill communities in the San Fernando Valley, including La Crescenta, Montrose, parts of the Angeles National Forest and Lopez, Kagel, Little Tujunga and Big Tujunga canyons. The other two are the common king and mountain king snakes.

Only the rattlesnake, with its deadly venom, is considered dangerous, she said.

So far this year, deputies have responded to about 12 snake calls--twice as many as during the same period last year, Manriquez said. And during the summer, deputies receive an average of three calls a week.

“Most of the calls are genuine rattlesnake calls,” she said.