the shootist;
Top of the morning Brother Keith, I hope that you and yours are well after Canada Day.
Thanks for the chuckle this morning, I do believe I knew you weren't a "cat guy" like I am, but I still like you anyways!
When we moved to the Okanagan nearly 40 years ago rattlers were much, much more common than now for whatever reason.
We'd bump into them up in the mountains hunting and hiking all the time and if someone came to visit and wanted to see a rattler in summer, there were a couple places we could drive to in the evening and see one about 2/3 of the time.
We moved onto our property here 30 years back and immediately got one yard cat, which was followed by a succession of at least one and up to three on the place all the time.
Here's the thing, in those 30 years we've had exactly one rattlesnake in the yard that we've found. Up on the blacktop in front of our place we'd see them, but close to never here.
I'll note too that the cats loved nothing better than to drag a blue racer or gopher snake down into the horse pen where it was all eaten off and trampled down, so they could torture the snake as long as their feline attention span felt like. I couldn't begin to count the number of snakes I rescued from the cats over the years but for sure it's dozens.
We've had bobcats in the yard too by the way as well as cougars by the tracks, so the wild cats do patrol the grounds as well, but they're not laying down a scent trail daily like the yard cats do.
As I understand it, rattlesnakes use scent a whole bunch in determining where they're headed.
I'm guessing here, but the cat smell could let the snake know that both an enemy to it as well as a competitor to it's hunting frequents the area and thus encourages it to look for greener, cat free hunting grounds.
Please note I have no biology degree, but that's where my reading has me arriving at on the question of why we don't get rattlers in the yard.
All the best to you and yours Brother Keith.
Dwayne
