RIDGE RUNNER CHRONICLES: About those California Snakebites

By Editor | May 6, 2026 |

By BILL HOAGLAND

Last week, it was announced by California health authorities that so far this year, three persons have died from venomous snake bites in California and another 70 or so have been bitten but have survived it. Apparently, the unusually warm weather in California is the cause of so many snake bite incidents this early. Most people are bitten by venomous snakes on the hand or on the foot. If you pay attention to where you are putting your fingers on a hike, you probably will not be bitten on the hand and if you wear a leather boot that covers the ankle while on a hike, you probably will not be envenomed there either. (Personally, I wear boots and snake chaps or gaiters while hiking in “snake country.” In fact, since I am in “snake country” a lot, I usually carry snake chaps or gaiters in my vehicle when the snakes are out).
But there is an additional factor here in the US that allows us to avoid serious injury or death from a venomous snake bite. That is because we have two very effective anti-venom medications in the US: Crofab, which is derived from sheep, and Anavip, which is derived from horses. Developing an effective anti-venom medicine is an expensive and time-consuming process. For example, for Crofab to produce its anti-venom medication, sheep in Australia are injected with doses of pit viper venom. Once the immune system in the sheep produces a chemical response to the venom, that response is harvested and processed as an anti-venom medication. But this medication is effective only as to North American pit vipers—the rattlesnake, copperhead and cottonmouth—and not any other kind of poisonous snake. So if you were trying to develop an effective anti-venom for snakes in Nigeria, for example, you would have to inject the venom of a snake native to Nigeria into that sheep or horse, and the cost of doing that would normally be prohibitive, especially if you wanted something for all species of venomous snakes in Nigeria.
In the US, on average, eight thousand people are bitten each year by venomous snakes and on average, only five people die from those bites. But if you think those numbers are concerning, on the world stage, more than 2,700,000 people are bitten each year, with over 130,000 of those folks dying from those bites and another 500,000 being permanently disabled because of amputations and other residuals relating to the venom. In checking the world-wide statistics for this year, as of last week, more than 1,663,740 people have already been bitten and over 44,376 have died. And the worst aspect of these statistics is that between 30 and 40 percent of these victims are children and without anti-venom, the usual remedy is amputation. That is why the WHO has declared this world-wide snake bite problem to be a “neglected tropical disease”.
The good news is that there are several non-profit organizations that are attempting to deal with this problem. One of them is The Snakebite Foundation, which can be found at www.snakebitefoundation.org. If the thought of so many children having their lives ruined by a snake bothers you, like it does me, check out this very informative web site. The members of this organization are all volunteers and deserve support.
Note: If you are bitten by a venomous snake here in the US and you have the tick-borne disease that makes you allergic to red meat—the alpha-gal syndrome–you probably should not be treated with either Crofab or Anavip because these medicines are derived from a mammal. (All more the reason to be packing those snake chaps, right?)
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■ Bill Hoagland has practiced law in Alton for more than 50 years, but he has spent more than 70 years hunting, fishing and generally being in the great outdoors. His wife, Annie, shares his love of the outdoor life. Much of their spare time is spent on their farm in Calhoun County. Bill can be reached at [email protected].