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SIERRA VISTA — Just as Peter Parker’s spider bite made him into Spider-Man, they became bonded to scaled and amphibious creatures.
There’s something about the moment you first catch a snake or a frog, Dale Lindner said.
“It gets into you,” he said.
You can call them “herpers,” said Tom Miscione, Robert Troup and Lindner, the founders of the Huachuca Area Herpetological Association, and they want to set the record strait about their cold-blooded friends.
  
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Though herpers is short for herpetoculturist, or one who keeps reptiles and/or amphibians in captivity, that definition isn’t quite right, Miscione said.
Terrariums like the glass case housing a mountain skink on an end table are a part of the furniture in Miscione’s home.
He considers himself to be more of a field herper, dedicated to studying and keeping the creatures in the wild.
His fascination with reptiles and amphibians began when he caught a copperhead snake while on a Boy Scout camping trip in Pennsylvania.
“The scoutmaster turned white and said ‘Don’t move.’ I said, ‘Can I take it home?’ ” Miscione said.
When his family moved to Arizona, he reached a mecca for “herp” enthusiasts.
“Long before birders were coming here, herpers were,” he said.
It wasn’t long before he was finding tarantulas, sun spiders and snakes and bringing them to show and tell for his brother’s fourth-grade class at Village Meadows Elementary School.
“I’ve been doing talks there ever since,” he said.
He eventually heard about “a guy living in the canyons who had pythons,” who turned out to be Lindner.
Lindner, too, remembers finding a snake outdoors at a young age, bringing it home to his mother and seeing her frightened reaction. He continued bringing snakes home before working with them as curator Poisonous Animals Research Lab at Arizona State University and at Max Allen’s Reptile Gardens in Missouri and as a founding member of the Arizona Herpetological Association in Phoenix.
His love of snakes took another form when he began making snake-skin wallets, belts and other wares from roadkills. He met Troup while selling the goods at a show in 1990.
“I was about to give him my mind for using snake skins,” Troup said.
Instead, he discovered they shared a passion for conservation and wildlife, after learning more about Lindner’s recycled roadkill creations.
Leaving snakes in his teacher’s desks was Troup’s boyhood prank, and he, like Miscione and Lindner, learned something fundamental about the creatures they found.
“There’s no in between with snakes and lizards. They always evoke a response. You either run towards it or run from it,” Miscione said.
‘The other side of the coin’
Snakes might seem to have a lot of disabilities compared to other creatures.
“They have no arms, no legs, they can’t hear, they have bad eyesight and they can’t chew,” Miscione said.
But what would be disadvantages for some have become advantages for snakes and how they live.
“A snake in grass,” “meaner than a rattlesnake” and other phrases, have given snakes a bad reputation.
Literature, art, cultures have tended to vilify snakes.
“The other side of the coin is never shown,” Lindner said.
Though Ben Franklin regarded the rattlesnake as a “noble beast,” many others haven’t, he said.
“It neither attacks nor retreats,” he said. It stands it’s ground and warns you it’s there.
Although Miscione, Troup and Lindner have always felt comfortable around snakes, the same isn’t true for many people.
“Part of the fascination is how others react,” Lindner said.
As a boy, he began noticing the pythons he kept didn’t bother his mother as much as smaller snakes, and he asked her why.
“She said, ‘She’s kind of like a cow. Who’s afraid of a cow?’ ” he said.
He began finding that people were more comfortable around the big, slow python that couldn’t easily hide and bite.
But, Lindner said, even the possibility of being bitten by a snake shouldn’t scare people.
“The fear is not warranted,” he said.
Horses kill more people each year than rattlesnakes.
Deaths from rattlesnake bites are rare with proper treatment. After all their bites are meant to kill small mammals, not humans, Miscione said.
He estimates he has voluntarily relocated more than 8,700 snakes from local houses and yards for people, though it isn’t always his first choice.
“When I get a call and some one has a rattlesnake in their yard, I tell them ‘Go shopping, boost the economy, and by the time you come back it’ll be gone,’” Miscione said.
Staying and watching it slither away also can be rewarding.
“It’s a rush,” Troup said.
By visiting schools and community groups, Miscione hopes to continue educating people about local reptiles and amphibians.
Tre, Lindner’s 12-year-old albino Burmese python, has helped a bit in that respect by meeting people in the community and helping them get over their fear of snakes a least a little, Lindner said.
With more education stop killing snakes and other creatures they find here.
Though the Huachuca Area Herpetological Association hasn’t completely organized, they hope other local herpers will join in take on the challenge.
Although their passion may have once been unusual, herpers come from all backgrounds and are now a part mainstream, they said.
“It’s a pretty eclectic group,” Miscione said.
Elise Raschke wrote on Jan 24, 2008 12:26 PM:
Elise Raschke "