MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Some Overton Park locals are saying the warmer weather is welcoming more copperhead snakes closer to home.
Steve Edmundson has lived a few blocks from Overton Park for more than 30 years.
Edmundson said seeing snakes isn’t uncommon.
“They don`t scare me unless they look like a copperhead and then I get a little nervous,” Edmundson said. “From time to time in the yard, you`ll see a snake.”
He’s seen his fair share of snakes in his yard and says his friend up the road who lives even closer to Overton Park has seen more copperheads than usual this year.
“I think he told me he has killed five snakes this year. He didn’t want to kill them but it happened so fast,” Edmundson said.
And that’s exactly what Alexander Hill is afraid of.
As someone who’s bred snakes, he believes the snakes are getting in his neighborhood through a drainage ditch.
“People have been spotting snakes right over here at this little bridge,” Hill said.
In fact, he just caught this copperhead at the park.
He took it to the zoo and it’s now a part of a study.
Zoo officials insert microchips in copperheads and then release them back into the wild tracking their movement.