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Did you know?

Every year in Spring, thousands of rattlesnakes are getting out to bask in the first warm days of the year. Suddenly, without warning, the smell of diesel gas fills the air in the den where tens and possibly hundreds of rattlesnakes reside. The fumes cause the snakes to become disoriented, and they try to flee the gas. One pokes its head out lazily, a large female laden with 5 or 6 eggs, trying so hard to get away from the suddenly toxic air. BOOM! The snake is grasped around the neck and hoisted up into the air, and carelessly flung into a box and shut in. More and more of her kind poke their heads out in a stupor and one by one succumb to the same fate as the female. An hour or two long, bumpy ride in a truck follows. The large female, defensive because of the young rattlesnakes developing inside her belly, lunges at a shadow silhouetted against the sudden flash of light above her head. The shadow pulls away quickly, and a pair of crude tongs worms its way down into the box. She stands her ground and strikes yet again, but to no avail. She is on a table, pinned against the cold steel surface slickened by blood which not only covers the table, but pools in a large puddle on the ground beneath her. Hundreds of the creatures that attacked her stand lined up against a fence watching intently with cameras flashing. An object is raised above her head, and drops suddenly. A sickening thud. Her head falls to the ground beside the table, as a new steady draining of blood serves only to make the puddle on the ground deeper and deeper. Her head is swiftly picked up and sent to another area for something else. Another of her kind, from the same den, is on the table now...

Later, a visitor leaves the show with an uneasy feeling, but sporting the female's head on his keychain.

Such a thing is a reality. Rattlesnake roundups are common, and well visited in the southwestern US, home to many different species of rattlesnakes. Thousands of these beautiful animals are brought in, shown off, then butchered. Sound wrong to you?