Corsicana — It’s been a tough three weeks for Tony and Lynn Gatlin whose home in Hickory Hollow just north of the Corsicana city limits has been overrun with copperhead snakes. Since the middle of July, they’ve killed 18 of the poisonous snakes in their front yard.

“Lynn saw the first one and called me at the grocery store and said ‘there’s a copperhead on the front porch, I can’t get in the house,’” Tony said. “I left my basket at the Brookshire’s and flew home.”

Another night, they came home from a dinner party and one crawled between them as they approached the house.

Tony Gatlin believes they’re living in the ground cover in the front lawn. They’ve only seen one in the backyard, where their dogs tend to rule the roost, but also because there’s little landscaping in the backyard.

“At our front door, we have monkey grass and Asian jasmine,” he said. “It’s real full and thick, and now it’s real full and thick with copperheads.”

This particular event is unusual, but not unheard of in Texas, said Andy Gluesenkamp, a herpetologist with the Texas Department of Parks and Wildlife.

“We know of reliable reports of copperheads being very abundant for short amounts of time, of them up in trees, feasting on cicada, or locust blooms,” Gluesenkamp said. “It could be you have these blooms of prey items that are bringing the snakes to a particular area.”

Lynn Gatlin confirmed that their yard does contain some favorite snake snacks, including insects, frogs and toads.

“We have an overabundance of locusts. They may be coming for dinner at night,” she said.

She also pointed to her beautiful bed of Asian jasmine as a possible snake shelter.

“I worked for three or four summers, getting it big and thick and lush, and I do not want to tear out my bed,” she said. “I want the snakes gone, and I want to keep my flower bed.”

Others on the street have also had encounters with copperheads, and two neighbors have been bitten.

Copperhead bites are not fatal, but can make a person ill. Young children and older people are most at risk, Gluesenkamp said.

Lynn’s solution has been to keep a pair of boots in her pickup.

“I take off the cute shoes and put on the boots just to walk to the door,” she said. “If they weren’t poisonous snakes it wouldn’t be so creepy, but they do inflict pain.”

Tony Gatlin’s solution has been more direct — typically involving his handgun.

“Two or three times a night I make a loop around the yard,” he said.

Well-advertised snake repellents don’t tend to work, and can harm more than snakes, Gluesenkamp said.

“I have no faith in those products. They give people a false sense of security, and they’re not good for the environment, pets or children,” he said. “These are all basically mothballs you sprinkle around your property like voodoo or something, and there’s no proof the snakes will go the other way.”

“And depending on the size of the yard, we’re talking about a lot of chemicals, and a lot of impact to the environment,” Gluesenkamp said.

The Gatlins aren’t interested in poisons because they don’t want to harm neighborhood pets that tend to roam free. Both Lynn and Tony are active in animal rescue efforts.

“We don’t want to make the neighborhood dogs sick,” Tony explained. “That goes back to Lynn’s and my love of animals. We even hate killing the snakes.”

They’ve allowed the occasional black rat snake to go free, but not the copperheads, Tony Gatlin said.

“We’re not going to take a chance of them getting us or a neighbor or a dog we can save,” he said.

Although the Gatlins are feeling inundated, Gluesenkamp recalled a report from a man near the coast who had killed 67 snakes in one summer in his yard. Gluesenkamp said he initially thought the man was exaggerating, but the gentlemen took all his dead snakes out of the freezer, lined them up on the driveway and took a picture then mailed the photo to Austin.

Rather than keep the snakes, the Gatlins have taken photos, and Lynn is keeping friends updated through her daily Facebook posts.

The best way to reduce encounters with snakes is to trim bushes and shrubs, don’t leave the garage door open and keep woodpiles away from the house, Gluesenkamp advised.

“Generally, the snakes are seeking shelter, water and food,” he said. “If you can remove those items from your home landscape then you’re really going to reduce the frequency of unwanted encounters.”

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Janet Jacobs may be reached by e-mail at jacobs@corsicanadailysun.com. Want to “Soundoff” to this story? E-mail: soundoff@corsicanadailysun.com.