Snakes?

[GoodAndYou]

Are there any snakes on St. John? I mean the reptilian variety (not the shady character type). I have never seen a report of anyone running across any...more curious than anything.

[Gizzmo]

There are no snakes

[augie]

There was an article on On-St-John (I think) a while back that contradicted the popular notion that there are no snakes on STJ. But it pointed out that there aren't many, and the ones that are there live in such a way that they are rarely seen by, much less interact with, humans.

I've never seen one. I wonder if anyone on this board has?

[Bug]

I believe that the Mongoose took care of all the snakes!!

XOXO
Bug

[mit43]

We've seen a few on Virgin Gorda, but never STJ.

[lprof]

Snakes... yes... http://www.on-stjohn.com/2011/01/06/sna ... sonous-no/

[CariBert]

I may be wrong, maybe Hugo or some one can help on this. The small indigenous snakes were in danger of brcoming extint, so they were moved to the small cay just outside of Cruz Bay harbour. They are small, and offer no danger or threat to humans. The biggest danger is that they will become extinct.

-Bert

[Pia]

Yes I have seen one, hubby 2. The one I saw looked like a 12" long worm and about the *thickness* of my middle finger.

Pia

[hugo]

Although snakes are rare on island, they are not official endangered species and they have never been moved to offshore cays.
There have been reintroductions of snakes on some of cays after mongoose and rats were eradicated.
The Virgin Islands Tree Boa is a federally listed Endangered Species, but it does not occur on St. John, only St. Thomas and Tortola. It is a very small boa.
As most people know, the destruction of snakes by Indian mongooses here was a sort of by-product--mongooses were brought in to kill rats, but proved far more damaging than rats ever were.

[EagleRayLover]

let's just pretend there aren't any snakes at all there!! It just makes it that much better for me!!!

[Bandit]

I'm kind of the opinion that the only good snake is a dead one, which I know is bad but they give me the creeps. Can't watch them on TV without dreaming about them at night. Anyway....I would be more worried about the One-Eyed Night Crawlers than snakes. One identifyimg feature is that some have been known to wear turtle-neck sweaters.

[Maggy]

We've seen a few on Virgin Gorda, but never STJ.

Exactly the same here. Seen small snakes on Virgin Gorda but never on STJ. Also only seen a tarantula and a scorpion on Virgin Gorda, but never om STJ (but I know they exist there too).

So, don't go to Virgin Gorda, it's just too dangerous

[AncientGeek]

I can't speak for St John, but my wife and I saw a small brown snake yesterday on the grounds of the Ritz Carlton on the east end of St Thomas. It was about 18 inches long, light brown in color and very slender. It moved very slowly compared to snakes I'm used to seeing back home. Generally they are eager to get away, but this one just took its time crossing the walk while we waited and watched.

I would think it would be hard to keep creatures from moving between St Thomas and St John given the amount of commerce and human traffic between the two islands. Generally people have a way of enabling the movement of just about anything whether intentional or not.

[Puddlejumper]

I removed one off my neighbor's bed back in 2009, when I was living in Coral Bay. She really didn't care for it.

[Jumper]

I heard there has been a large number of Trunk Bay Cobras observed. They generally only come out between the hours of 11.00am to 2.00pm. They bury themselves in the sand and are extremely dangerous, numerous cruise ship passengers have been attacked recently. The Cobras are very large(6' to 10') and feed on overstuffed, sun burned fleshy humans.

Please pass the word!!